Learning to Live in Harmony with Nature
In Year 3, we have been learning about the concept of harmony. After our ‘Lion King’ provocation, the students selected an animal from the movie to further research. We discovered that for many of our researched animals the biggest predator wasn’t in fact the lion, as we first assumed, but humans.
We then investigated what steps we can take to positively impact the harmony in our world. At the top of our list was to ‘adopt’ an animal. While having a life size snow leopard wandering around our classroom would be pretty cool, this isn’t quite what we meant by ‘adopting an animal’.
We opened up our virtual art gallery, called ‘Blavy and Nack’ and sold our Pete Cromer inspired animal artworks to raise money to help the WWF care for a snow leopard out in the wild. We raised $180 and helped educate others about the things that they can do to help restore harmony to the world in the process.
We asked a group of students about their understanding of the concept of harmony and what they learnt from this activity.
What did you learn about the concept of Harmony?
“That we’re actually a bigger threat to animals than they are to us,” Georgina said.
“Our actions can have a huge impact on harmony, whether positively or negatively,” Chris said.
“We can restore the harmony by doing things like planting trees, picking up rubbish, eating less meat and adopting an animal,” Scarlett said.
How did it feel helping the WWF and a Snow Leopard?
“It felt really good because we know that we’re doing something right to undo all the devastation we have made,” Jimmy said.
“It feels amazing that we’ve raised money by selling our wonderful artworks to adopt a snow leopard,” Sophie said.
“It feels really good that we were able to use some of our resources to give back and reverse the negative impact we have had,” Louis said.
Year 3 teacher, Courtney Bonner, planned this activity for the class and the students were enthusiastic about researching an animal and the fact that they were truly making a difference to a real snow leopard’s life.
“The students really enjoyed taking ownership of an animal and they liked that their actions had a direct impact,” Courtney said.
At St Joseph’s, our teachers go above and beyond for children and look for creative ways to engage with students on a deeper level both inside and outside of the classroom.
