This year's Global Classroom in-school activity, in association with Imperial College London and Practical Action, challenged our students to work as scientists and engineers to tackle world water issues. Ten schools enthusiastically took up the challenge.
This year's Global Classroom in-school activity, in association with Imperial College London and Practical Action, challenged our students to work as scientists and engineers to tackle world water issues. Ten schools enthusiastically took up the challenge.
Working together, students researched a wide range of water issues that are affecting people around the world such as flooding and dirty water. Choosing one problem to investigate further, our young scientists developed creative solutions to the issue and designed experiments to test their models. Their exciting ideas included filters for cleaning dirty water, irrigation systems and flood-proof housing.
We received some outstanding submissions and many were just the tip of the iceberg; schools ran their own competitions and selected the best solution to submit to our judges.
One of our judges, Julie Brown, Education Manager at Practical Action, commented, "I really enjoyed looking at all your entries and seeing the ideas that you've come up with on how to sold global issues around water.
"What really impressed me was how you understood that science and technology really can used to make a difference to the lives of people in poverty and how keen you were to come up with solutions."
Our judges were so impressed by the creativity and quality of all the submissions that it was difficult to choose our prize winners, but we are delighted to announce the successful schools:
There were two other schools that really caught the judges’ attention:
The British School of Beijing, Sanlitun, which involved all its children in The Water Challenge and made it a truly cross-curricular project, and La Côte International School whose students took the challenge on themselves and demonstrated excellent student leadership.
All these schools will receive a plaque to recognise their achievements to be displayed in their schools, and the main prize winners will receive a small sum of money to go towards an item or project of their choice that supports students’ learning.
Lindsay Conway, Global Classroom Lead Teacher, at the winning school, the British International School Bratislava said:
“What has been most evident about the Water Challenge at BIS Bratislava is the way in which the whole school community was able to be involved in many, many different ways. Under the guidance of Mr. Troy, students planned, explored, experimented, taught, learned, failed, generated ideas, persevered and problem solved. They did so with a sense of enthusiasm and purpose, working across multiple year groups and sections of the school. They shared ideas generously with one another, offering support to ‘rival’ groups and educating more than one member of staff on various principles of irrigation; with even the youngest students being able to provide confident explanations of their ideas.
“Prior to its launch, the Global Classroom Water Challenge seemed to be a rather narrowly focussed science based challenge. However, it grew to be so much more than this and has been a fantastic event, bringing students together from across the school in a collaborative, supportive and hugely educational way.”
Congratulations to all our students who participated - you can learn more about the challenge and watch submissions videos here.
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