PYP EXHIBITION

Sharing the planet

The PYP Exhibition for Grade 5 began in Grade 4 when they chose ‘Sharing the Planet’ as the Transdisciplinary Theme to work on. They began the ground work for the Exhibition on 30^th January 2013 where they were divided into groups and discussed what PYP Exhibition meant to them and what they already know about it. Students also put down their questions and queries regarding the PYP Exhibition. They then shared their views and queries with the larger group. 

Students were shown last year’s PYP Exhibition documentary film where they saw the entire process of the Exhibition and heard students expressing their views about the same which answered many of their questions. After this, the students were given the PYP Exhibition handout which they read in groups along with a teacher to know what it entails and have a clear understanding of the Exhibition process. They read through their role in the PYP Exhibition and how they are to go about it.

Provocation

The students were provoked into the theme by showing them ‘The Earth Song’ by Michael Jackson, after which they expressed their understanding of the video and the transdisciplinary theme in detail. They also listed out as many real life issues that they could think of and wanted to inquire into. Students later were divided into smaller groups based on the priority of the real life issues wherein they again discussed the issue in detail and explained why they wanted to inquire into a particular real life issue. 

Photo shoot

We also had a fun day outside posing for photos of the entire team! Representing the state of the planet, we chose a barren background to show the positive difference we hope the students will make with regard to the theme, Sharing the planet. 

Logo and Essential Agreements

Students also very enthusiastically worked in groups to design the logo for the PYP Exhibition. This was conducted in a competitive manner, and judged by Ms. Isha Joshi, Art Facilitator from Primary School and Mr. Pranjal Rai, DT specialist from Senior School. The students worked together to come up with a rubric to decide the best logo. They made certain Essential Agreements for the PYP Exhibition and promised to adhere to them.

Logo Designing competition for the PYP Exhibition 2012 -13

The theme of the Exhibition this year is Sharing the planet, which is an inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.

All the students of Grade 5 enthusiastically participated in the logo making competition. They formed groups on their own and worked on the logo keeping the theme of the PYP Exhibition in mind. Students were free to work with any medium to create the logo. The rubric for the assessment was also created by students. Some of the criteria were team work, neatness, originality and creativity.

Mr. Pranjal Rai, Faculty – Design and Technology was invited to judge the competition. The final logo to be selected is this:

The creators of the above logo were Ashlin, Ayushi, Inayat, Junko,  Sofia and Yana

Coming up...

In the coming weeks, they will be creating the Central Idea for their inquiry and develop its lines of inquiry. We wish them all the best!

Mentors, Grade 5 PYP Exhibition

AND WE ARE BACK....

After a long gap being busy with Camps and Founder's the students began their work for the PYP Exhibition afresh, picking up from where they had left! Here below are reflective summaries of the work accomplished by each group!

3rd - 5th April 2013

Global Well wishers

This was a busy week with a lot of work done to take the PYP Exhibition work ahead. On Monday the first of April, our groups were mixed around a little and finally we had Shreya Mozumdar, Jasmine Gowlett, Nandini Nalam and Alia Mahajan who will be inquiring into the strand, ‘communities and relationships within and between them’. We started thinking about the final central idea. We had a lot of drafts, but finally came up with a suitable one. We were very also very excited about starting the Exhibition again after doing some ground work initially and hoped for it to be a good experience.

On Wednesday, the third, we finalized our central idea, and worked on the lines of inquiry. Doing it again and again made us impatient, but we figured out something that everyone was comfortable with. Little did we know that we would have to do it many times again! We divided the work between each of us, so that we all had two lines of inquiry to work on.

On Thursday, the fourth, we did a LOT of work! We finalized the Central Idea (hopefully) but had problems with the Lines of Inquiry. So, we reworded them, and thought they were perfect! We agreed to complete the Lines of Inquiry on Friday. We also did a reflection and worked out most of the ways in which we would present the final layout.

Friday, the end of the week, we have our Central Idea and Lines of Inquiry finalised. We are working on finding a name for our group. Overall, it was a week well spent!

By

Nandini Nalam, Jasmine Gowlett, Shreya Mozumdar and Alia Mahajan

Planet Protectors

Over the last few days in the Exhibition work we have covered quite a lot. We have finalised the central idea and lines of inquiry after changing them several times. Sometimes just the words, other times the whole idea. We also finished writing questions based on the lines of inquiry. We learnt how difficult it is to decide the central idea, lines of inquiry, and key concepts, and even then they aren’t perfect. The most exciting thing was making the questions related to the central idea and lines of inquiry. 

Abhinav Jain

We also read an e book 'The Lorax' by Dr Suess and saw a video on Easter Island. Through them we were able to understand the impact of human intervention on finite resources.

By Abhinav Jain

Nature Guardians 

We started to finalize our central idea and checked it against the checklist given to us. We formulated guiding questions related to the key concepts and converted them into our Lines of Inquiries. Within the group we choose the lines of inquiries we wanted to inquire about. 

Arnav Yadav and Rishika Jain

We named our group too, as “The Nature Guardians”. We discussed our primary and secondary resources and identified the resources we would like to use. We came up with the guiding questions and finally started our research. 

By Rishika Jain and Arnav Yadav 

UNIVERSAL VIKINGS

Last week, we worked with keywords for making our Central Idea. We had a debate session and brainstormed on aspects of our understanding to come up with a positive and meaningful Central Idea. We began with what global warming is, what are its causes and our responsibilities towards saving the earth. We documented all our discussions.

Inayat Pahuja and Ishaan Agarwal

We faced some difficulties to turn the questions into statements and finding out the key concepts for the Lines of Inquiry. We finalised the Central Idea by keeping in mind what was significant, challenging, engaging and relevant. We understood how by preventing Global Warming we can bring about a change to our Mother Earth.

By Ishaan Agarwal and Inayat Pahuja 

RESCUE FORCE: MISSION EDUCATION

This week, we made our Central Idea. This was a challenge indeed! We learnt to cooperate with others, with whom we have never worked before. We are learning to cooperate and be open-minded.

Together as a group, we made the Lines of Inquiry from our Central Idea with the help of our mentors Ms. Monica and Ms. Supriyaa.

Chandan Samal and Srijon Sinha

We learnt that the Lines of Inquiry should be in the form of statements not questions and should have enough scope of inquiry. We related our 8 Key Concepts with our Lines of Inquiry. We also decided what resources we will use for our research and which mediums how we will present it.

We are really enjoying our journey of the Exhibition and are enjoying it a lot.

By Chandan Samal

Peace Warriors

The week began on a challenging note. We brainstormed on the three key words PEACE, CONFLICT and RESOLUTION and wrote our understanding on them. Further, we discussed in our groups and formed the Central Idea and Lines of Inquiry. 

Kinshuk Rastogi

We found making of the Central idea and Lines of Inquiry indeed very challenging because of the debates we had and the need for accuracy of the language. 

By Kinshuk Rastogi

W.O.W: We are One World

On the first day of the week, we summarised what we have already done in the past days of the PYP Exhibition and wrote a brief reflection. After looking back, we rated the Central Ideas that we had made before and saw if they matched the rubric. After all that rating, we made a final Central Idea that had elements from all the Central Ideas we had individually made before. According to our Central Idea, "Gender equality can promote the well-being of the world we live in" and we made four to five Lines of Inquiry.

Ashlin Bansal and Junko Ota

We did some more reflections and also made a short summary on how the PYP Exhibition will look like.  After all the planning, reflections and summaries, we made some questions related to the key concepts to research on. 

By Junko Ota and Ashlin Bansal  






CENTRAL IDEAS & LINES OF INQUIRY... donning the teacher's robe

The beauty of the Exhibition is that the students get the freedom to explore the issues which interest them and frame the Central Idea and Lines of Inquiry around them. This is a challenging process for many, as they need to abide by the criteria for writing a good Central Idea. After the discussion on different aspects of their strand, they have had a go, most often multiple times to write, reflect, modify and rewrite that one perfect sentence which summarises it all!

Over the last couple of weeks, as you can see, students have taken up this challenge with full responsibility and almost in an adult learner mode critiqued their own work to come up with the final Central Idea and Lines of Inquiry. Listed below are the final ones.

GROUP NAME	STRAND	CENTRAL IDEA	LOI	KC
The Nature Guardians	The struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things	Protecting the flora and fauna can help restore the balance of nature	Different kinds of flora and fauna found in nature	Form
			The role of flora and fauna in nature	Function
			The various reasons of flora and fauna being in danger	Causation
			Ways in which flora and fauna are connected to human life	Connection
			Evidences of flora and fauna being protected and conserved	Reflection
			Ways in which we can protect and conserve flora and fauna	Responsibility
Planet Protectors		Conserving finite resources will lead to a better world.	Kinds and sources of finite resources	Form
			Uses of finite resources	Function
			Causes and impact of depletion of finite resources	Causation and Reflection
			Different ways to conserve finite resources	Perspective
			How conserving finite resources can lead to a better world	Connection and Responsibility
Universal Vikings		The action to prevent global warming can impact the Earth.	What global warming is	Form
			Causes of global warming	Causation
			How the earth has changed due to global warming	Change
			Evidences of actions to prevent global warming	Reflection
			Our responsibilities and actions to protect the earth	Responsibility
Global Well-wishers	Communities and the relationships within and between them Shalini	Accepting, respecting and celebrating differences within and between communities help promote international mindedness	Different kinds of communities	Form and Function
			The reasons for differences that exist within and between communities	Causation
			How these differences affect our daily lives	Connection
			What different people think about international mindedness	Perspective
			Evidences of transformation of differences into understanding	Reflection
			Our responsibility in promoting international mindedness	Responsibility
WOW: We are One World	Access to equal opportunities	Access to equal opportunities between all genders can promote the betterment of the world we live in.	Different examples of inequal access to opportunities	Form
			Reasons for gender discrimination	Causation
			How gender discrimination impacts each of our lives	Connection
			Evidences to show that access to equal opportunities for all genders help promote the betterment of the world	Reflection
			Our responsibilities towards promoting gender equality	Responsibility
Rescue Force: Mission Education		Equal access to education can help us to improve the quality of life on our planet.	Causes of limited access to education	Causation
			Impact of education on our lives	Connection
			How the world can change due to equal access to education	Perspective
			Our responsibility towards the society for an equal access to education	Responsibility
Peace Warriors	Peace and conflict resolution	Resolving conflicts and promoting peace can help develop a better world.	Different types of conflicts	Form
			Consequences of conflicts	Change
			Different causes of conflicts	Causation
			Different points of view on peace and conflict resolution	Perspective
			Resolving conflict areas in our life	Responsibility, Reflective

8th - 12th April 2013 

Global Well Wishers 

By

Nandini Nalam, Jasmine Gowlett, Shreya Mozumdar and Alia Mahajan

Nandini Nalam, Alia Mahajan, Shreya Mozumdar and  Jasmine Gowlett

Planet Protectors 

Monday:  we decided upon the play we are going to be doing for the PYP Exhibition and we also started our research work on different kinds of finite resources. Individually or in groups we were each given a topic to research on.

Tuesday: we continued doing our research. We also made the collation sheet for the information we collected.

Wednesday:  we finalized our role play and decided upon the characters and continued our research. We decided on the skills and sub skills we have been using so far and created a self-assessment sheet using skills and attributes.

Thursday: we completed our final research, and began to collate our information and put it on paper, Power Point presentation or a Microsoft Word document

Friday: we presented our researched matter and collated it on the Collation Sheet. We also filled in our thoughts in the first self-assessment sheet.

By:  Adhiraj Pruthi

Adhiraj Pruthi

Nature Guardians

This journey of PYP is a very extraordinary one! In the end, you need a day to show everyone your understanding and that day is called our ‘PYP Exhibition’. We the students of Grade five have been working continuously for two hours every day during this week. It is tiring and exciting at the same time.

We brainstormed in our groups to frame our central idea, lines of inquiry. After that we started choosing our resources.  We learnt that there are 2 types of resources: primary resources and secondary resources. We planned for the resources that we wanted to use for our research. Then after we chose our resources, we started forming questions related to our line of inquiry.  At last, the time came for us to start researching.

We began our research using books and internet. We have been going to the library and ICT lab to gather information. During the process of the exhibition, we will also do a self-assessment of our TD skills and for this we created a checklist with different parameters. We also saw some interesting videos related to the flora and fauna and their impact on the balance of nature. 

We are now thinking of the places we can go for fieldtrips and people we can interview. We have also written formal letters to request for guest speakers and seek permission for field trips. Everyone is hoping that on the final day of presentation, everything will go well and no one will make any mistakes.

Eesha Mathur and Paryn Khara 

Universal Vikings

This week, we carried out a lot of research work and a phenomenal activity. We learnt what natural disasters can do to earth. We experimented on a tomato and a potato to understand the concept of what happens to earth during natural disasters. We came up with a project plan where we are going to have 3 bins in which we will put used paper to recycle it, garbage items like banana peels, half eaten papayas etc. and a plastic bin for recycling. We discussed and formulated a rubric for our assessment which was based on our research skills, self-management skills and social skills. We spent most of our time researching where we used resources like books from the library, newspapers, magazines and the internet to carry out our research work. After a debate session and putting together all our ideas we named our group The Universal Vikings.

KAMAKSHI AND IYANAT

Peace Warriors

The week was a very interesting one. We were divided into groups based on the lines of inquiry. Then we went to the library to collect books related to our lines of inquiry and started our research looking at the key points like, what the lines of inquiry really mean and what can be covered under each particular line of inquiry. We also created an email id for our group to always keep in touch and share the information we have found and keep our research organised. By Thursday, we had enough information on our lines of inquiry. On the last day of the week, we discussed the skills we displayed throughout the week and came up with the rubric for the self-assessment. 

Dhir and Gurveen

 Dhir and Gurveen

Rescue Force: Mission Education

After much struggling and debating, we finalized our group’s name, central idea, lines of inquiry and the related key concepts. We further divided ourselves into smaller groups, chose a line of inquiry each, the related key concepts and started to inquire with the guiding questions specific to our line of inquiry.

We discussed all the different resources we can use for example: interviews, books, internet, newspapers, magazines, surveys and many other resources. Initially when we started to inquire about our issue, we had lots to struggle with. Sometimes we couldn’t find the websites or if we found a website it wouldn’t have the relevant information. But after a while it became easier, although it did take time. We are continuing with our research work and are determined to find relevant and some amazing information.

Koel Rai

By Koel Rai

INTERACTION WITH THE STUDENTS OF GYAN SHAKTI SCHOOL

The students of Grade 5 interviewed the children of Gyan Shakti School to get an insight into their perspectives on education on Friday, 12^th April, 2013.

We asked them and their teachers a few questions such as:

Ø Do you like coming to school? Why?

Ø Do your parents send you to school willingly?

Ø What do you like doing in school?

Ø Were you going to school in your village?

Questions to the Teacher:

Ø How many students are there in your class?

Ø Do parents send their children to school willingly?

Ø Are the students regular to school?

Ø What is the ratio of girls and boys in your school?

Ø  Has the student number increased as compared to the previous year/s? Why?

Teacher’s Perspective:

The teacher felt that a few parents willingly send their children to school and the children enjoy coming to school. The teacher felt that there has been some difference in the mindsets of the people in the village as both the children and the parents have started showing interest in sending their children to school, which means in future the students might have a proper career.

We saw the notebooks of the children of Gyan Shakti School, in which they had written some sentences in English and they had written numbers and also carried back work home.

Soumya Gupta

On asking the students, we also found out that along with the Literacy and Numeracy Skills, they were taught values and self–discipline, which was quite evident during our interaction.

 By: Soumya Gupta

                                                           W.O.W: We Are One World

                                                                                                              

                                                                           Junko Ota

     On the first day of the week, we saw two videos related to gender inequality. The first one was about a                                      

girl drawing herself as a construction worker but her mom disagreeing. The second one was about men acting like women and women like men. We wrote a reflection on both of the videos. 

The next day, we did research on the computers and iPads in groups. On the next day, we researched again and practised to share our 

learning with the rest of the class. We also started with the second and third line of inquiry. On the last day of the week, we discussed our research work and also picked up points to research on during the weekend. 

By Junko Ota

15th - 26th April 2013

                          

                                 Global Well Wishers

In the last two weeks, we achieved a lot in terms of work.  We were able to share our research  with each other. This week, we thought of guest speakers who could help us with our lines of inquiry. We decided to invite one of the Middle School History teachers, Ms. Kiran Rai. We thought Ms. Rai could help us understand our PYP Exhibition topic better. We are scheduled to meet her on Tuesday, the 30^th of April, 2013.

Shreya Mozumdar

 We are in search of any document relating to the Din – e – Ilahi conceived by Emperor Akbar. We think this is important because the Din – e- Ilahi was a religion which included Hindus, Muslims and all the religions in the world. It is a vision of community differences being resolved. Din – e –Ilahi means ‘The Religion of God’.

Jasmine Gowlett and Nandini Nalam

We think we need to expand our research, since, we have not got quite as much as we want. We need a few more incidents of differences in our daily lives and some more information on cultural understanding.   We are going to survey people and ask them questions which we are, at the moment, thinking of. We have thought of interviewing some teachers in school like Ms. Yulia, Ms. Shaan and Ms. Judith who can give us more information on cultural understanding. 

Alia Mahajan

Looking forward to an interesting week of interaction with these teachers!

Shreya, Alia, Jasmine and Nandini 

                       

This week all members of our group Planet Protectors made presentations on the 3rd line of inquiry with the help of the guiding questions given by Ms. Malini and Ms. Shelly. To present our findings was a challenge, because our mentors wanted us to use Web 2.0 tools. She had sent us a link that had a huge list of Web 2.0 tools. I tried to make my report through an online flip book. It was a little difficult in the beginning but was a lot of fun later.  The whole group saw mine and Kushagra Kapoor’s presentations so that they could also make their presentations on the same lines. During this week we also got the opportunity to meet Mr. Arvind Chalasani, Senior School Principal who is also an environmentalist who gave us a presentation on the finite resources and how are we using them and also ways on how to conserve them. The graph that he shared was shocking because we are using only 1% of alternate sources of energy like geothermal, hydro power etc and rest all is usage of finite resources whereas, it needs to be the other way around. He told us that we should use the alternate sources of energy more than any finite resources. We also saw some videos on how are we wasting finite resources and as a reflection we have planned that our group will do a paperless Exhibition this year. This was a very good week with loads of work and challenges. I hope we have more exciting weeks ahead.

By: Dhruv Narula

Universal Vikings

15th - 19th April 2013

We made a peer and self assessment rubric on research skill, self management skill and social skill. This rubric was used to assess our research work that we did over the week. We made power point presentations, displays and charts about our understanding of Global Warming. We made displays showing Global Warming explained through green house effect and impacts of global warming. We made models showing how climate changes due to Global Warming.

22nd April – 26th April, 2013

   So this week, The Universal Vikings watched 3 videos that our mentor Mr. Jim Elvin found for us. The first video was about “10 surprising effects of Global Warming”. It was indeed really informative!

 These are the disturbing facts we came across:

10) Forest fires are now more common in the U.S. This is possibly due to warmer temperatures      and earlier snowmelt.

9) Arctic plants are experiencing a boom in growth. This is due to ice melting earlier in the spring.

8) Animals are being forced to change their natural habitats. Global Warming is provoking some creatures like squirrels, to live at higher altitudes.

7) Plants bloom earlier and produce more pollen due to warmer temperatures. Thus, allergy season starts earlier and lasts longer.

6) 125 lakes in the Arctic have disappeared. Melting permafrost is thought to be the reason behind it.

5) CO2 has a cooling effect in the atmosphere’s outermost layer. Satellites now move quicker because of reduced drag.

4) Rising seas and extreme weather could damage historical sites. The 600 year--old site at Suhothai has already been affected.

 3) Thawing of frozen soil can cause the ground to shift and shrink. This could cause sinkholes and damage buildings.

2) Mountain ranges are getting higher. This is due to glaciers melting and reducing the amount of weight upon them.

1) Long-dormant diseases could re-emerge. Smallpox could thus, make a comeback when ancient corpses thaw out.

Personally I find them horrifying. The next video was about how NASA monitors and reports on global warming through their satellites. We got to know that the earth's temperature has increased by 1 and half degree Fahrenheit since the year 1880. Scientists predict that it is going to get much worse. The Arctic has melted by 300 square miles ( That is horrible!). 

Some of the heat from the sun also gets trapped in the earth’s atmosphere which is causing the heating.

 Even though the last few years have been the warmest on earth, it is not because of the sun increasing heat it is because of the trapped heat in the planet. The sun has actually been less hot than before that means less solar energy has been reaching earth.

  And the last video was about the “Green House Gases”. The green house gases are Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide. These are good gases if they are in the right quantity. These gases form a layer around the earth. If the heat of the sun is not stopped by these gases the earth’s average temperature would be -18 degrees Celsius. This is called the green house gases. 

  But we humans are increasing the amount of the green house gases by the car’s smoke, the smoke from factories and etc, this causes the layer to thicken up and by that the sun rays come in but cannot be let back into space. And that’s why the earth warms up and that is called global warming. The ozone layer is the umbrella around the earth which doesn’t allow the harmful rays such as Ultraviolet Rays or UV rays. The ozone layer absorbs the UV rays. The UV rays can cause skin cancer, eye cataract, sunburn and fewer plants. We are destroying this umbrella by the C.F.C gases. The C.F.C gases are causing a hole in the ozone layer which is allowing the UV rays in the planet.

  So this was all the information we gathered from the videos we watched. Now besides the videos we also are getting ready to present our formative task on the research on the lines of inquiry. Some of us have made PPTs, word documents and graphical presentations. As a part of my research I have made a little box (everything I used was from recycled material) and I asked people to write  yes if they want to save the earth and how will they save the earth and no if they would not like to do anything about the planet and if why not? And I am glad people were honest enough. So this is all we did the last couple of weeks!!

By Devangi Verma

W.O.W: We are one World!

The air is filled with mixed emotions, excitement and curiosity, hard-work and fun, and a ton of creativity. The last two weeks have been a rush with all the research and ideas that have come. We've finished research on our first line of inquiry, 'Different examples for unequal access to opportunities.' We listed down a number of unequal opportunities such as; Illiteracy, Untouchability and Medical Care. We had to find the definition of various topics and justify how they were an unequal opportunity for some people.

Trying to find relevant information was a hard task, even if it may seem easy, but we succeeded! 

Just as we thought, our mission was accomplished, BOOM! Our first presentation loomed over our heads.. Over the next few days in our allotted groups we tried different ways to show our understanding on the first Line of Inquiry. On the day of our presentations, all our stomachs were bubbling with feelings of nervousness and excitement. We all shared our information knowledgeably and creatively with great enthusiasm. Alongside our presentations, we all filled in a self assessment on how we thought we had acted throughout the two weeks. Our mentor, Ms. Renu Kaushal gave her comments as well. 

We followed up our presentations by starting on our second line of inquiry. We are all still continuing research on our second line of inquiry; 'Reasons for gender discrimination'. Gathering information, and thinking out of the box, should describe the phase we're in now.  We've had a sneak peek on our third line of inquiry; 'How has gender discrimination impacted our lives'. So the question remains...How? 

By: Shweta Nanda & Ananya Agarwalla

Peace Warriors

It was yet another entertaining yet knowledgeable week. Apart from continuing the research we entered an ordinary yet special boy’s life through the movie ‘The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas’. The movie is set during World War 2, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight year old son of the commander at the concentration camp whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.

 Writer: Aryan Shrivastav and Nandini Agarwal

29th April - 3rd May 2013

Global Well Wishers

On Monday we had a field trip related to our unit of inquiry “Simple Machines” but on Tuesday at 9: 35 am, we went to Middle School to visit Kiran Ma’am, the history teacher. She told us all about the examples and evidences of cultural conflicts and differences, some of which transformed into cultural understandings. We enjoyed this visit a lot and found it helpful and very informative. In the afternoon we all wrote our reflections about the field trip using the P.M.I. Strategy. On Wednesday we asked Ma’am about our finalized questions and then modified them and put them in order. We paired up and 1 pair wrote about the questions on racial discrimination and the other about cultural understanding and international mindedness. On Thursday we were told by our mentor, Shalini Ma’am that on Friday we were to be interviewing Ms Judith and Ms Yulia. Finally on Friday we interviewed both Ms Judith and Ms Yulia. Shreya and Alia interviewed Ms Judith, we asked her about cultural understanding and Jasmine and Nandini asked Ms Yulia about her experiences of being a part of Indian  culture and a different community.

By : Alia Mahajan

Alia and Shreya interviewing Ms. Judith

Nandini and Jasmine interviewing Ms. Ulia

Planet Protectors

We have started research on the fifth line of inquiry. The idea is to write a story to show how we, as humans, depend on nature and the resources nature provides us with and the initiative we should take to ensure that the natural resources are used properly and not wasted. We researched on story ideas and also tools to use to write the story. Some of the tools we considered were www.bitstrips.com and www.powtoon.com with which we can create animated strips for our storyline. We want to use animated strips to convey our idea because it is a paperless Exhibition for our group and animated strips also interest all ages. This way we can convey our thoughts to a wider audience.

Writer: Kushaagra Kapoor

Peace Warriors

This week, we Peace Warriors saw the ending of the movie 'The Boy In Striped Pyjamas'. It was very gloomy and heart touching because Bruno (the main character) died with Shmoel (his Jewish best friend) in the gas chamber of concentration camp.

We also saw the story of the 'Butter Battle', which is based on a fight between Yokes and Sokes (two different groups). They were having a conflict to either put the butter side up or down. They were getting machines to beat each other.

The last thing of all, we got two songs to sing and understand. They were 'Zombies' by Cranberries and 'Sink The Bismark’ by Jhonny Horton. We really had a wonderful week.

 Writer: Mihir Sardana & Rusheen Bansal

We Are One World (WOW)

This week came out as a really interesting one! As we are on the second Line of Inquiry which is ‘reasons for Gender Discrimination’ we surveyed some of the didis who work in school. We made sensible questions which were related to our Line of Inquiry. We also asked about their opinion on Gender Discrimination.

We even had a guest speaker on our fourth line of inquiry which is ‘Evidences to show that access to equal opportunities for all genders promotes the betterment of our world’. Mr. Srinivas Rao, Ms Arti Pandya and Ms Shanti were invited for this Guest Lecture. They work in an organization called The Azad Foundation.  They train poor women in driving so that they can become professional cab drivers and live a life of dignity. This is called Women on Wheels. They want to make an equal world where all the genders are treated equally and they want to demonstrate that there is no difference between men and women. This Guest Lecture was really informative for our topic.

This Guest Lecture was followed by a short reflection using the 3 2 1 strategy.

Anjali Bhardwaj

6th - 10th May

Field Trip Report

Mission Education Rescue Force, continues their research work with enthusiasm!

We went for a field trip to the government schools and the slum areas in the vicinity, to interview the teachers, parents and children, to know about their perspective on education. We got some great insight into the minds of those people. A lot of alarming facts also came out from our interactions. Some parents were actually sending their children to study because they just wanted to get the benefits that the government was providing them.  It was disheartening to see the sad state of the government schools. Different age group children in one class, the student teacher ratio was alarming.  We all are wondering, ‘Is right to education enough?’ or should it be ‘Right to quality education???’ 

The interviews were great and it’s good to know that even these underprivileged  children have dreams, to become something in the future,  though sadly the opportunities are very limited.

Srijon Sinha

Peace Warriors

In the beginning of the week, we wrote the reflection on the songs ‘Zombie by the Zombie’ and ‘Sink the Bismarck by Johny Horton’. We also wrote the reflection on the movie called the ‘Butter Battle book by Dr. Suess’ and ‘The boy in striped pajamas’ in groups of 3-4 using a y- chart strategy and discussed the same.

After writing the reflections we discussed if we need to have a guest speaker for our last line of inquiry. We decided that our student counselor would be the best person as our line of inquiry is –‘Resolving conflict areas in my own life’. We also came up with a questionnaire. We also thought that we could have another guest speaker whom our PYP Coordinator suggested. Her name is Marguerite Theophile. 

She used to work with a company who works towards promoting world peace by resolving conflicts in societies /tribes. We discussed and made a questionnaire for her as well. The last day of the week was knowledgeable and fun-filled as we all watched the movie ‘Kung Fu Panda-2’ and reflected on the same.

By Shreya Jain

Nature Guardians

We started the week with a field trip to ‘Lake Patoda’ around the Aravali ranges. Mr. Sunil Bhardwaj explained us all about the existing flora and fauna there and its history.  After the trip we did a reflection on what all did we observed there. We came up with the idea of presenting our understanding of the Central Idea through performance too. We decided to do a dance, role play and a song along with the music. We also decided the groups for each category. Very enthusiastically we started the practices for the performances along with the research.

Tanvi Jha and Vanshika Aggarwal

Global Well-wishers

This week, we did a lot of work!

We decided to have a performance to showcase our line of inquiry about responsibility. We are also making some posters and a model. Wow! We are working very hard. We are also performing a song that gives out the message to stop racism to the world. There is also a short skit that we will be performing with it. To get things done faster, we sometimes take our work home. We have very less time, so we will be staring panel work next week. We interviewed Ms. Shaan this week who helped us to get more information on cultural understanding. This week we also saw some videos of Satyamev Jayate. We reflected on them. The videos showcased the struggles of people that they faced due to inter-caste marriages and untouchability. We watched these videos to gain information about the lines of inquiry related to the key concepts Connection and Reflection. 

By Shreya Mozumdar

 Students interviewing Ms. Shaan Yuden Saini

                                                                    Video on Untouchability

           Video on inter-caste marriage

WOW

This week was a very interesting and we have done a lot of things. We were divided into groups to work on our panels. We have looked at all the research we had and have started making rough drafts of the information and what our panels will look like. We have also been working on a role play/dance by which we will show some issues and how to resolve them.

Aryan Sharma                      

                

Planet Protectors

This week our group (The Planet Protectors) started to make our final presentations. We went to Rajiv Gandhi renewable energy park (RGREP). We saw solar panels, solar cars, solar street lamps, parabolic solar cooker, solar dryer, solar lantern, and solar geyser. We saw a presentation on renewable energy. We saw recycled things there and things which are made of waste. We continued to work on our final presentations on different websites. We took a round the school and saw  STP- sewage treatment plant- all waste water of the school goes to the sewage treatment plant. After the water is filtered smell is removed from it the fertilizers are added to it and then it is used for irrigation

Rain water harvesting pits- we have 8 rain water harvesting pits in school. They collect rain water. It’s filtered and it is pumped to a fire tank. A fire tank has a capacity of 100000 litres. The fire tank is always full to take care of any emergencies. Once the water is filled up the extra water goes to raw water tank which has the capacity of 150000 litres. Then from there it goes to another tank which has a softener plant. Its capacity is 75000 litres. After the water is being treated it is pumped to the overhead tanks of all the buildings.  

  On the trial bases the school had put up the solar panels on top of Danube which is the senior girl’s hostel. And all the hot water is used in the buildings.

I hope the next coming weeks would be as good as this week.

                                                                 Kabir Dang

By: Kabir Dang

13th - 17th May

WOW

This week we got our panels and we started with our templates on which we will write our information. We are also practising our mime and dance with the help of Norbu Sir and Garima Ma'am.  We also had a surprise assessment on all the things we have learnt, discussed and researched about on gender discrimination. We even discussed on how to arrange our information on our panels.  Each of the groups has decided on a template they will use to present their information. We were divided into groups according to the lines of inquiry and research.  

We even saw a video shown by Mr. Abhimanyu Das Gupta, of the “Girl who silenced the UN for five minutes”. It was about a girl of our age and how she gave a speech in Rio De Janeiro on how can we make  the world we live in a better place. Overall, we had an exciting week!

Arushi Malekar

Global Well-wishers

This week, we did a lot of work. On Monday, we shared with each the other, the posters on International mindedness that we had made over the weekend. We managed to finish writing the lyrics of our song on cultural understanding and International mindedness. We also consulted Ritika Ma'am on the tune of the song and took her suggestions. We were also very excited as we got our panels on which we will start our work soon. We also took Isha Ma'am's suggestions as to how to make our model showing International mindedness. After we had brainstormed on some ideas for our final poster, we worked on the layout of our panels. Ma'am also checked our final research findings and pictures. On Tuesday, we made our poster on International mindedness. On Wednesday, we shared our final research findings with each other and had an assessment. On Thursday, we finalised our song, its tune and the script for the skit. On Friday, we started practising our skit and did it many times so that we could memorise the lines. We, then, again made some changes to our script. We also collated our surveys done on www.surveymonkey.com and thought of the layout to put the same on the panel showing the key concept- Perspective. We went to the MPH to watch the inspirational video of Severn Cullis Suzuki shown by Abhimanyu Sir on conservation of environment and natural resources.

By : Nandini Nalam

  

                                                                                                            Nandini Nalam

Planet Protectors

Over the last few weeks we have done many exciting things. We researched about alternate energy sources and we started our final presentations on finite resources and alternate energy sources. We also did a CSI (colour, symbol, and image) on our understanding of the central idea. We had a guest speaker who spoke on finite resources, habitat loss, etc. The guest speaker is Ms Bhagirathi who is the geography teacher for the senior school. The most exciting thing we did was make the logo for our group; The Planet Protectors. It has been a very eventful week and there will be many more.

By: Abhinav Jain

Peace Warriors

This week was interesting and filled with interviews. We had two interviews with Ms. Tareeta, the Primary School student counselor and Ms. Marguerit Theophile.  Ms. Tareeta told us about how we can resolve conflicts in our life. From that discussion we understood that we have to use will power to ignore people who tease us and bully us. We also learnt that we can meditate, practise self control and practise ignorance to overcome those problems.

Ms. Marguerite told us about community conflicts and how she has resolved those conflicts. She told us that two opposing communities keep the conflict alive by telling stories about each other, they usually talk about how the other community had affected them in a bad way. Ms. Marguerite told us that these stories were usually told to children to blindfold them from the reality and teach them bad things about the other community.

We also decided the final layouts for the panels. Another interesting thing we did was making scripts for our enactment. In this week, we truly gained a lot of knowledge about our topic.

Adhiraj Singh


20th - 25th May

Global Well Wishers

We had such busy 7 days this week! On Monday we had our audition for our performance and we tried our best. After that we started our panels by covering them with background paper and Shreya started printing her newspapers information. On Tuesday,we started writing our information on our panel. On Wednesday and Thursday we were doing panel work all the time and I think that our panels are very creative. By Friday Jasmine and I, Alia had almost finished our panels, but some things came off and we weren’t allowed to use glue so we stapled our papers. On Saturday which was a school day we all had almost finished our panels and were just putting the final touches. We came up with our final plan for our perspective panel, we also got our printout of our blown up poster which we expected to be on A3 but came on A4.  This week we had our panels to start and complete and all of us can confidently say… 

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

By : Alia Mahajan

THE FINAL STEPS...

The students over the last couple of weeks, have been taking their final steps towards completing their PYP Exhibition journey! As they have worked furiously on their display panels, practised their performances again and again, and amidst all of that had run through for the Graduation Ceremony, what shone across was the way the students were displaying the various attributes of the Learner Profile and Attitudes, almost unconsciously!

Through the journey, they have been curious Inquirers and Thinkers and thus, have become much more Knowledgeable about issues that plague the world. They have been Risk takers from day 1 since the time they independently chose their area of inquiry till the time they finalised their final presentations, they attempted new ideas with great creativity! They have learnt to be more Open minded while working with others, and developed greater respect, tolerance and cooperation! They have been Principled and demonstrated great integrity, in the way they have acknowledged the range of resources, they have used. They have also been working sincerely at becoming effective Communicators, with great enthusiasm and confidence. They have polished their work over the last couple of weeks and been Balanced in a variety of ways, not only in the range of presentations, but also by juggling the demands of the 2 significant programmes efficiently, showing great commitment. In the end, we hope that as a result of being so Reflective, the students have also become empathetic and appreciative of the world they call their own, thereby, becoming much more Caring towards other people and the environment at large!

We are delighted to be able to share this amazing journey not only with you, the parents, but also with 9 schools across the country and globe, who will participate online through Skype, but also with 5 other schools who will be visiting the Exhibition!

We await you all, now with bated breath, to celebrate our students’ success in a journey called the PYP Exhibition!

Abhimanyu Das Gupta,

PYP Coordinator

INVITATION