Our second week of the online class, I start getting to use to the routine of having some extra time to get prepared before the class start. On Tuesday class, each of us went over to share what we had done since the last class.

Our group, Zookeeper, talked to Lorna in the second section of the class. We shared that we were still struggling to find a solution to the feedback we got about our inputs in the project. Lorna gave a good suggestion that I like is that since global warming is a huge problem across many areas/parts of our life. We can narrow it down to one specific subject that we want to focus one. Since our group chooses “option-2” to move forward our project, each of us could focus on a different area in the theme we got. Within the scope of the subject, we could develop what we want the children to experience and learned with the outcome we have thought of. Later, we can compare our result to see what work best. In the end, Lorna also suggested that we look at the elementary curriculums in Australia because the school has included teaching children about global warming in the class. We could see how they did it.

Individual

It really helps me to switch my mindset and to move away from keeping thinking about the input instead narrow it down to what specific area of global warming that we would want to focus on with the output we want. However, another problem that I am facing right now was that I don’t know how to link my idea, making smoke, back to the theme. I was thinking of a direct association with the smoke that causes air pollution and wastes from the factories or transportation(bus, cars, trucks...etc.). After the class, I went to do research and find out that there couple more causes than the ones I thought about; surprisingly, the household is one of them. The heat and lights at homes and indoor air pollution caused about 3.8 million premature death in the developing world. I know heats and lights are related to climate change, but it didn’t occur to me that it would affect air pollution. It makes much more sense to me now that the heat changes the temperature of the air that creates a chemical reaction between the primary air pollutions and oxygen.

Air Pollution isn’t always visible, and sometime we might not even notice what we had done daily affect the cause of air pollution. In here, I think I got some more clear focus of what I want to do with my idea of the input to create smoke. As for now, I might go with lights at home since most of the kids might not have the habit of turning off the light when it’s not needed.

Here are some of the notes I make while I was reading on the information I found. I wanted to make a mind mapping that could help me to visualize and form the ideas better in the later stage. Since everything is interconnected, it would be good to learn and understand the relationship. This practice would help me in my future work as well to organize information and find some insight if it needed for a depth study.

The next thing that I am going to do is do some more research that teaches children about the importance of turning off light in the household. Or if there is any similar teaching that had been thought by the school’s curriculum. It will help me to form my story and link back to the theme and the brief of everyday things.

Here are the links that I looked at:

Air pollution explained

What causes air pollution?

For air pollution, trash is a burning problem – climate central