Lesson 1: Introduction
The class will initially go on a guided walk of Terenure. The boys will be encouraged to look at the different architecture around them, types of trees and plants, the layout of the village and anything else that they find interesting. They will be told that they will be making a presentation/construction, but not about Minecraft…yet.
Back in class – discuss what was seen and place the different buildings of interest on a very rough map.
Homework – in pre-assigned groups:
1.find out about 3 different buildings/areas in Terenure (teacher to ensure that all buildings and areas of interest will be taken by at least one group.)
2.draw a scaled map of the village to include your chosen buildings
Lesson 2: Preliminary Findings
Each group presents their findings to the class (one building/area at a time to prevent overlap) and a more detailed class map of Terenure will be drawn up.
Introduce the project: the pupils are to create a scaled representation of Terenure to include the buildings of interest in their hey-day (i.e. the solicitors will become an art-deco cinema, Aldi will be a tram terminus etc.)
Information boxes should be included to teach the younger classes about the buildings or give interesting facts about different places. Boxes should be bi-lingual where possible.
Homework:
1. Map out Terenure on a grid.
2. Make a detailed drawing of the building/area that your group is focusing on.
Challenge: Can that building/area be drawn from the inside as well? (Visit it, use plans, online searches etc.)
Lesson 3+: Construction
In groups, start building using their research, old photos, maps and any other information they have found.
(It is envisaged that the teacher will lay out a very basic ‘floor plan’ of Terenure for the pupils to start working from. The class should also have prior experience with building/playing around with Minecraft education)
Each group will briefly report back to the class on their progress at the end of each session.
Jobs will rotate with each session. As we are only timetabled for laptops once a week, this part of the project could stretch out over a few weeks
I would expect that a couple of groups will be well ahead of other groups and they will be able to fill in the ‘blanks’ (the buildings/areas we are not focusing on)
Final Lesson: Presentation of Completed Village
Time will be allowed for each group to finalise their portion of the village.
Each group will present their portion of the project and time will be allowed for exploration of the whole village.
Discussion:
1: one interesting thing I learned from this project.
2: what I would do differently next time (or how not to make the same mistakes again!)
Finale: Each group presents the whole project to a different class in the school. (Therefore they must know something about the other parts of the project)
Review:
Subjects Used:
History, Maths (mapping), Geography, Nature, SPHE (groupwork), English, Gaeilge and Art.
Collaboration:
Each session will see the group jobs rotate, this should prevent one pupil doing all the work or excluding another.
The pupils will have time before they are to present to other classes to allow them familiarise themselves with the whole project and also to practice their presentation skills.