Title of the activity

People on the Move

Subject

Science, Astronomy, Astronomy, Climate, Environment, Geography, Earth science, Humanities

Keywords

STEM, Inclusion, teamwork, versatile

The activity, given it touches upon a sensitive issue such as forced migration, may be well-suited for combination with the activity “Using debate in teaching STEM”. The activity can follow this activity and become a debate on both climate change and migration due to climate change.

Learning outcomes

Teacher learning outcomes:

Teachers will be able to introduce the themes of migration with/in a science activity. They will also be in a position to understand and use aspects of design thinking in the science classrooms. In addition, they will also work with themes on geospatial sciences.

Student learning outcomes:

Students will learn to work with project-based themes using aspects of design thinking. Students will be trained to work with geospatial themes. Students will work with inclusion and cultural themes touching upon migration. Students will also learn to simulate scientific research.

Transversal skills

• Tolerance and respect for diversity: Teachers and students will work with the themes of diversity and tolerance, with particular reference to the refugee crisis. The activity uses empathy and aspects of democracy in the classroom and historical facts to address forced migration, crucial through a science activity.
• Creativity: teachers will work with an activity that attempts to creatively combine science themes with inclusion strategies and democracy in the classroom. This is a strategy for enriching science education with ideas from other subjects.
• Empowering the teachers and the students to apply knowledge and skills (such as geospatial thinking) in everyday situations

Number of participants and target age group

The activity is an excellent opportunity for students to work as a team, therefore a minimum of five students is logical. As a classroom activity, students will need to work in teams (five is somehow ideal). The activity is suitable for ages 12-18, with teachers required to come up with minor adjustments and make connections with relevant curriculum. Geospatial thinking exercises are suitable for the last two years of primary, as well as high school students.

• As a teacher training activity, one could offer an outline within 60 minutes, allowing intervals for discussions with trainees. However, there is the option of trying/simulating some of the activities and therefore dedicate one teaching hour for each section (intro, understanding fleeing, students as researchers).
• Each section (intro, understanding fleeing, students as researchers) could be delivered and implemented in one teaching hour. However, teachers have the option to turn the activity into a longer learning scenario with a student project attached and with students conducting extensive research over a period of a whole term.

This is an activity studying themes of forced migration, mainly of people fleeing war and/or natural disasters. It is designed with the aim to use interdisciplinary themes from the field of STEAM and the Humanities. There is also an emphasis in developing both cultural/historical, critical and geospatial skills of students.

• Paper pencils, colors, etc. in case students will be asked to draw maps and trips

• Access to the internet and a projector for the part of the activities that requires the studying of video material is needed (in case video/presentations/etc. are played to the whole class simultaneously.
• There is a part of the activity that students are asked to interview family members or else to obtain information on family histories related to migration. The interviews could be conducted either by taking notes or by recordings with the use of mobile phones.

Do you teach a diverse group of students? Are you interested in the themes of forced migration due to war, natural disasters and climate change? Are you interested in STEAM activities with a contemporary take on societal challenges? Do you see your students as researchers of such challenges? Have you ever worked on geospatial activities and skills?

Here is an opportunity to work on such themes with a range of innovative tools and ideas that can be easily transferred to your classroom context.

Have you ever met/ know someone in your family or among your friends that had to escape from his country and travel for thousands of miles to seek refuge? Are you aware of the effects of climate change on particular areas of the world that have been destroyed due to lack of rain, flooding, etc. Have you ever thought about what one needs to sail safely or walk through difficult and unknown terrain?

In this lesson we will be looking into themes of forced migration, as well as basic geospatial skills related to astronomy, maths and science. It will also be an opportunity to explore cultural themes and get to know tricky/sensitive historical facts.

Maps and stars: Let’s get out, let’s find a safe place. What do we need? Are we going to make it? How far is far?

• Examples

• Questions
• Discussion

• Practice

• Problem solving
• Discussion
• Simulation

• Projects
• Problem solving
• Constructing

☐ Yes ☐ No ☒ Partly

☒ Yes ☐ No ☐ Partly

☒ Yes ☐ No ☐ Partly

(minutes):

(if applicable)

What teaching aims are you fulfilling with this part of the sequence?

Choice 2: Focus on forced migration due to climate change and issues such as natural disasters, desertification, etc. This is a very good opportunity to discuss current themes and facts concerning this hugely important issue:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6QEDbI5zrg
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co5uywe-1Z8
• https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/refugee?sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=refugee&license=rf,rm&page=1&recenc y=anydate&suppressfamilycorrection=true

Online environment adaptation: Easily adapted and executed in an online collaborative environment.

(for teachers)

(minutes):

(if applicable)

What teaching aims are you fulfilling with this part of the sequence?

1. The mass influx of refugees into Europe from war-torn Syria reached unprecedented levels in 2015. Over 870.000 refugees from Syria arrived in Greece by sea, crossing the Aegean Sea. For a few months in the second half of 2015 until early 2016, refugees and migrants enjoyed almost unimpeded passage from Turkey to countries in northern Europe such as, Germany, Sweden, etc.

The events sparked tensions in all countries along the route leading to the closing of boarders along the Balkan route and to the controversial EU-Turkey refugee agreement that saw Turkey agreeing to take back all refugees and migrants, including asylum seekers, who reach Greek islands. In turn, the EU committed to resettle Syrian refugees from Turkey and to provide 6 billion euro in assistance to improve the conditions for refugees in Turkey.

Despite the overall positive attitude of the Greek people in assisting refugees who arrived by sea, tensions run high within Greece, a country already hit by a massive economic crisis since 2010.

Despite such tensions, a similar story emerged involving Greek refugees in Syria in WWII. This is the story of Greek residents in many islands in the Eastern Aegean Sea during WWII, who, following the famine that resulted from the German occupation, crossed the Aegean Sea into Turkey and then arrived in Aleppo and Homs in Syria, where they found safe refuge. Over 30.000 islanders attempted the cross with small boats during the night in order to avoid being spotted by the German Navy.

1. In this exercise students are asked to stand in the shoes of persons fleeing war. They may use historical figures as examples. There are many examples in the press and in various curricula. Students are asked to produce short memoirs narrating the fleeing of a warzone and reaching a safe-heaven in a third country. Students may work in groups. The aim of the exercise is to facilitate the building of a “stand in their shoes” scenario and to support students in becoming creative thinkers by embarking on the task of writing a literary piece (a short memoir) accounting for particular events, feelings and ideas in a situation when one has to flee war. By completing this exercise students should be in a position to fully grasp basic issues of migration and the refugee crisis. They also develop skills of emotional involvement and understanding of the suffering of fellow human beings in a rather structured way and not as a plain empathy activity. They also cultivate their writing and narration skills (the latter is considered an emerging 21st Century skill).
2. This exercise is a type of strategic writing that focuses both on skills and causes. It is also an excellent opportunity for collaborative work and or the introduction of brainstorming techniques to a young audience, such as Brain Writing (the teacher/facilitator introduces the theme and asks students to write their own ideas before a discussion commences in order to avoid bias and influencing). Another technique is to focus on the generation of as many questions as possible by the students. Here are some initial ideas:

• Select a particular question/theme/idea that will guide students in their task to create a memoir. Examples: navigation, terrain, relationship with others on the move, emotional strain, etc.
• Revisit the story/text that you discussed in the preparation phase (WWII and the fleeing of Greek islanders).
• The writing of the memoir commences

Online environment adaptation: Easily adapted and executed in an online collaborative environment.

(minutes):

(if applicable)

What teaching aims are you fulfilling with this part of the sequence?

• Step 1: students set out to explore the history of the local community by investigating family migration stories. This can be done by conducting interviews and videos of members of their families, exploring aspects of their fleeing. Here, the students should be guided to focus also on issues of the fleeing trip itself, by trying to collect information on means, objects, dangers and return.
• Step 2: Students are asked to reconstruct the fleeing trip that they have investigated. (For practical issues the students may focus on a family member’s trip that is the result of economic migration).
• Step 3: Students, under the guidance of their teachers, should turn their attention to STEM issues involving people movement across the globe. This is the session that concerns the cultivation of navigation and geospatial skills. A list of resources is available here to help teachers support student projects:

Spatial Thinking and Maps Skills in Young Children by National Geographic

Spatial thinking allows students to comprehend and analyze phenomena related to the places and spaces around them—and at scales from what they can touch and see in a room or their neighborhood to a world map or globe. Spatial thinking is one of the most important skills that students can develop as they learn geography, Earth, and environmental sciences. It also deepens and gives a more complete understanding of history and is linked to success in math and science. Young students also enhance their language skills as they collaborate and communicate about spatial relationships. Students who develop robust spatial thinking skills will be at an advantage in our increasingly global and technological society.

This collection can help you teach an assortment of map skills through activities that address the spatial thinking abilities of young children and developmental appropriateness. The collection is not intended to be a complete map skill program, and the activities can be adapted for higher or lower grades. Click here for a downloadable summary of all activities and the learning objectives and spatial thinking concepts targeted in each activity. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/education/map-skills-elementary-students

Navigation Education Materials by ION

In order to foster interest in navigation, the Satellite Division of the Institute of Navigation sponsored the development of navigation educational materials for students. The ION hopes that these materials will facilitate the introduction of navigation in middle school curricula and encourage the involvement of ION members in educational outreach activities. These lessons were developed by the ION Satellite Division in cooperation with students and staff at the University of Colorado Integrated Teaching and Learning Program (ITL).

The materials are now available as part of an online digital library: Visit Teach Engineering to receive these materials in online format.

The following modules include 10 lessons on a variety of navigation topics. The lessons are designed to be used by middle school teachers on their own or with the assistance of an ION member volunteer. They can be used in the classroom or as part of a club or outreach program.

Each lesson includes motivations for the students, background and assessment material for the teacher and mentor, activity descriptions and worksheets, and additional tips and resources. The activities are designed to have minimal cost and to be completed in 1-3 hours by a class of 28 students. Suggestions for scaling up and down are included.

Click on lesson titles below to download the lesson materials. Each lesson is comprised of several documents. The PDF version contains all documents in one file for each lesson. Please contact the ION with any feedback or questions you have. The materials are copyrighted by the Institute of Navigation, which grants use and reproduction of these materials for educational purposes only. They may not be used for commercial purposes.

https://www.ion.org/outreach/lesson-plans.cfm

A Journey of Ideas

There is a chronic underrepresentation in Europe of children from migrant communities that choose to pursue careers in science, technology and engineering. Consequently, an enormous reservoir of untapped talent exists that could be potentially mobilised for the benefit of society. The Space Awareness Programme is therefore devoting special attention to reaching out to schoolchildren in migrant. We regard it as important to show children in these communities that they belong to a rich heritage of distinguished scientists who helped shape the global history of astronomy and space sciences during the Islamic Golden Ages and beyond. The recent influx of refugees to Europe from the Middle East and Africa, the majority of which are Moslem, makes the need for such an approach more acute. Thus, more than ever it is necessary to build a bridge between the Islamic culture and Latin Europe. One way of doing this is to identify common roots between these apparently two different worlds. Astronomy as a field of knowledge common to humankind seems to be ideal to build this bridge. In this sense, the present astronomical heritage kit “the journey of the ideas” and its corresponding handbook will contribute to fill the 1000 years gap in the history of science by showing concrete examples of the influence of Islamic science on the development of modern astronomy, optics and space sciences. (Journey of Ideas author: Dr Cecilia Scorza, Haus der Astronomy): https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/en/edu-object/journey-ideas-858680

Online environment adaptation: This is a group activity, aspects can be conducted online, especially the research element.

(for teachers)

Research skills

Navigation skills

Astronomy

Historical research

• What have I learned?
• What new ideas and/or insights will I bring home?
• What has helped me to think about my practice/life?
• What might be improved or discussed further?
• What do I want to learn more about the matter?
• Any other observations or ideas?