Floodscapes Community Project

Our students have recently been involved in an amazing collaborative project facilitated by local artist Karen Revie, creative director of The Holographic Lounge. Floodscapes is a flood awareness project consisting of three short films that deliver key safety messages to the local community, including the danger of flood waters, how to make a pet emergency plan, and how you can help your community stay safe. The Floodscapes project videos were created as a shareable community resource, based on the idea that people increasingly turn to social media to learn about what to do in emergencies.

Screenshot from one of the short films, Pet Wise

In consultation with City of Launceston and SES, Floodscapes project leader Karen Revie involved students from Invermay Primary School, Launceston Big Picture School and the meenah neenah Aboriginal Cultural Education Program in creating these important community resources.  Our schools are located directly in Launceston's flood zones and students have first-hand experience of the impact of floods after being evacuated during the devastating 2016 Launceston floods.


The Floodscapes video production involved students creating drawings that were then animated onto background footage from the 2016 floods. Auslan translations were filmed by student interns from Big Picture School, this inclusion helps to ensure that the films are accessible to people with hearing impairments. 

Artist Vicki West (meenah neenah cultural education program) supporting students as they create art for the films 

The team worked with the Council's Emergency Management Coordinator, Bev Allen, who provided valuable consultation to the Floodscapes project developing the original flood safety messages with SES, visiting schools during the workshop phase and speaking to the media about the importance of the project. It was a true collaborative effort and a great project for the community by the community.

Active learning partnerships within the community provide a lasting sense of belonging and purpose for our students. It allows them to form meaningful connections with mentors, and they are empowered by the opportunity to be messengers for our city, sharing their knowledge in authentic ways. 

The Floodscapes team have been interviewed multiple times by local radio and television news outlets speaking about the meaning behind this project, what they’ve learned and the roles people played in this collaboration. 

This real-world project has seen students’ confidence, ownership of learning, and the desire to produce meaningful work increase exponentially. As Karen Revie aptly points out, "Young people are the future leaders of the community ... It is much more effective when you have children educating adults, so we deliberately put the power in their hands."  

Karen Revie with Invermay Primary and Big Picture School students

The project was funded by a City of Launceston community grant, and the three short films will be used for awareness campaigns, and during emergencies. The films debuted in May at the Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival held in Launceston and are now available on the City of Launceston and TasALERT websites. 

The Floodscapes team were winners of this year's Resilient Australia Schools award at a state level and will now proceed to the national awards facilitated by the Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience. 

 This is the first video, Waterwise, which explains the danger of entering floodwaters:

The second video in the Floodscapes Flood Awareness series, Pet Wise, provides information on how to keep pets safe in times of flooding: 

The third video, Community Wise, is about the shared responsibility to look after each other to keep our community safe:

Media Links about Floodscapes Project:
Newspaper article: Flood Tragedy Inspires Students to Create Community Art with Purpose

ABC Radio Interview: floodscapes

WIN News clip: Flood Kids

Premier media release: Recognising resilience in emergency situations

Newspaper: Resilient Australia Awards

Southern Cross News Clip: Resilient Australia Award

City of Launceston: Emergency-Management/Flood

 

Remade: Sustainable Wearable Art Show

Our students were recently involved in a sustainable art show organised by Interweave Arts director Kim Schneiders. 'Remade' showcases wearable art and objects by local designers and artists, and it is such a fantastic program for our students to be involved in. The show emphasises the need for environmental sustainability and students worked hard with two teachers over several weeks designing and creating their own costumes for the show out of recycled materials.

Part of this years theme included Waterways and Threatened Species, which was a fantastic way for students to get involved in making a statement about plastic in our oceans. They had a blast creating their costumes and rehearsing the dance choreography for the show.

This is such a powerful experience for our children; not only are they collaborating and engaging with the community and 'showing off' their skills and creativity, but they are also empowered by the opportunity to be activists through art. They feel like they play an important role in eductating others and raising awareness of the need to take care of the world they live in.

These amazing photos of our students on the catwalk and performing their dance were taken by Anne O'Connor, and are too stunning not to share!

Here is a local newspaper article on the event: Sustainable art, Remade

Kindergarten Family STEAM Afternoon

Last term we had a wonderful open afternoon of STEAM for our Kindergarten families. Some of our Year 4, 5 and 6 mentors came along to help with some simple science, technology and engineering activities. It was great to see so many of our families having fun and learning together. Here are some highlights:

Test out the cars going down the pipe into the sandpit. How can you make the cars go faster? How can you make the cars go slower?

How tall can you make a balloon tower that can stand up without anyone holding it? The only things you can use are a piece of paper for the bottom, balloons and masking tape.

Can you design a lego marble maze?

Can you make a shape bubble wand using the materials provided? Which ones work best? A square, a circle, a triangle, or a star? I wonder why ...

Design challenges are fun for everyone!

Ozobots: Can you make a track for your robot to follow?
Can you make Ozobot do any special tricks?

GO Program Challenge: Design a Trap

A small group of Year 3 students have been working on a design challenge they were set as part of a gifted online program. 

The Scenario:

Imagine that an oil company has discovered a valuable oil deposit under where your animal lives. You have just two weeks to remove and save as many of your animal as possible. You don’t have many people though so it has been decided that trapping the animals and then going round and collecting them up for transport to a new area is the best way to go.

Your job is to design the trap using only materials from the list below (these materials are substituting for the timber, plastic etc. that you would have in real life). You need to make a trap that will operate without a person controlling it to capture but not injure your creature. The trap needs to be humane, it should contain the animal for up to 24 hours without damaging it in any way.

Your design must have at least two of the simple machines listed below as part of the structure:

¨ Pulley

¨ Lever

¨ Inclined plane

¨ Wheel

¨ Axel

They labelled their final design using Seesaw: 

First, I had the students research the animal they were going to design a trap for. Here is their information report:

Once the students had found out some background information on the animal they were going to design their trap for, I had them follow the engineering design process to complete their projects:

STEM+X Futurists' Fair

This week our Year 5/6 students had the opportunity to present some of their big ideas to a panel of judges for the STEM+X Futurists' Fair. It was so wonderful for them to have an authentic audience; what a positive message for them that their voices matter and that there are people willing to listen to and believe in their ideas. I hope that it will be an experience that stays with them throughout life. 

Each group has been working on different STEM solutions for how they would help to improve Australia's future. This is one of the group's ideas:

"We love STEM because we get to do hands-on learning and solve real problems. We get to do the thinking for ourselves and learn about things we are interested in and passionate about."

"We learn about things that might help us in the future. We learn skills that will help us no matter what type of job we want, like working together and thinking critically."

"Thank you ABCN and NBN Co. This program has helped us to realise that we can use STEM to help our world to be a better place. We have learnt that we CAN make a difference in our own lives and the lives of others. We have learnt how to work together and how to compromise when we all had different ideas. We have learnt to be curious and to ask the big questions."

"We have become better problem-solvers and it has helped us to have more resilience when things don’t go the way we originally planned. We have learnt that mistakes are all part of the design process. We have learnt that our ideas are awesome!"