Yesterday was a truly superb moment, which made me proud yet again of the students at Route 39. We were delighted to welcome a volunteer from the Bideford Rotary Club on behalf of ShelterBox, the disaster relief charity based in Cornwall.
We started the session with a question-generation task- what questions could students come up with about the big green box in the middle of the room. In each of the 3 sessions the atmosphere was fantastic, with a real process taking place of questions moving from the simple to the more thoughtful- from "What is it?" towards, "Why is the chimney on that black box (the stove which had been set up in advance of the session) so tall?" to even "Would ShelterBox ever have second thoughts about going into a country?".
After a brief explanation of what ShelterBox is and it's mission of supporting people around the world who are in most need after a disaster (both natural and man-made as Syria is currently one of the biggest recipients of support) the sessions moved on to reflecting what items students would choose for their own ShelterBoxes and what materials they would be made of- a key thread which will be picked up in STEM.
Personally I found the inflatable Solar LED lamp the most surprising and fascinating item- that by inflating it the light is far, far stronger. So simple yet so effective! The water filtration system also received a fair bit of attention- seeing the mud which had been removed lingering in the filter was truly eye-opening!
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