Developing our research skills

This week the children have been developing their reserach skills through the inquiry based homework tasks. The main skills we have focused on were Interviewing, seeking expert advice and collating information.

Firstly: The children were asked to interview their parents and family members about their personal experiences.  They focused on asking about times when their interviewees felt challenged, afraid, excited and confident- in regards to taking risks, completing fun activities, confidence courses, outdoor pursuits or playing at a park. 

Secondly: The children had to source an expert opinion from either a company or person whose job it is to design and build parks, recreational equipment and confidence courses.  They had to make contact with their chosen expert and ask some important questions about safety, popularity, resources and any other information they felt would be relevant to their own design process.

Lastly: Each child looked at the information they had gathered and made some general statements about patterns or common things which came out during their research.  Fir example:        "most companies said that slides and swing are the most popular component in a park".


Today at school the children were put into co-operative groups. Each child shared their homework and then began the process of collaboratively designing a confidence course.  This process gives children the chance to develop their inquiry skills.  They need to be competent researchers, interviewers and critical thinkers in order to be able to thoroughly think about, and understand information they gather.  ( we also watched a brief clip form the program "WIPE OUT" to see how to get creative with our designs:))

Below are some photos of the children working in their groups, sharing ideas, participating and contributing.  Tomorrow the children will begin making their own group confidence course.... we cant wait to see what is created!!