Landscapes of
Change
By Claire Bartlett, Deputy Head of Junior School, Campbell House Our Landscapes of Change project, which began in 2018 with the provocation “what is change?”, has continued through into this year. We began 2019 with the provocation of “how does change affect identity?”. Staff were excited by our new question as we knew that it had scope to go deep and open avenues to explore our identity in different settings such as self, family, groups, school and communities. Educators documented the children’s responses and from their interpretation of the material, all of the year level projects have gone in different directions while maintaining common threads. EL3 has looked at the connections with identity and image of self. Children looked at themselves as individuals, saw themselves in different ways and represented their image using a variety of materials. They discussed differences and similarities of everyone within the group. EL3B discovered physical changes and moved towards finding out about emotional changes and a sense of belonging. EL3A responded to different images of children from around the world. They have acknowledged Aboriginal culture by embedding it into their project through storytelling and music.
EL4’s project is centred around the question “where are we in the world?”. Students have been sharing their travel experiences and what they know about different cultures. They used Google Maps to look at the world and then zoomed into where we are in the world. The children then began to have a strong interest in mazes, incorporating mazes into their play and creating a collaborative maze. In Term 2, they extended on their understandings by going on an excursion to Barrabool Maze. The Preps have explored their identity at school and how they learn. A visit from a bull ant, at the same time that “ant” was their word of the week, created a lot of interest. The Preps discovered that bull ants share some traits with humans and imagined the possible lives and identities of the ants living under our school at a time of change. The children have been guessing what it’s like for ants under the ground, especially for those who have the redevelopment happening right above them. The Preps worked in teams to design and create an ant colony within the learning space.
Lucy holding her sculpture which represents her identity, heritage and culture. 24 Ad Astra Issue No 136
