Last year I attempted to post every day throughout Advent. Although I don’t anticipate meeting that same goal everyday this year. I’m going to at least try.

Last week I used the basic outline of a gingerbread man, a laminating machine and old Christmas cards. Achieving this wasn’t all that difficult. The general idea was for our home schoolers to create a collage with recycled Christmas cards, sticking pieces onto the reverse side of a print out.

By using the unprinted side of the paper it was easier to cut out the shape of the gingerbread man afterwards.

There was no direct preference for a theological theme, so it’s encouraging to see a some shining through their finished work.

The only request, which was really more just a guideline, was that they had to stick to a square, rectangle or triangle cut out. The older ones were able to try some more skilled manoeuvres.

Among other obvious learning outcomes, one not so clear was in being able, at different levels, to engage proactively with what we’ve discussed about ecosystems, pollution and taking personal responsibility for the environment.

During those lessons we covered the issues of corporate responsibility for the environment. Particularly the flow of negative expectations within certain aspects of society, which seem to imply that responsible environmental practices are just corporate issues and not related to individual citizens. Included in this was the flawed notion that somehow it is the sole responsibility of the Government.

As part of this discussion we also talked about why it’s important to get the language of the science right, not following the political rhetoric and hype that obscures it. Such as what is observed when  pollution, environmental rejuvenation, creation care or responsible action are replaced with emotionally charged and ambiguous terms like ”Green”, “Global-Warming”, “overpopulation” and “Catastrophic Climate Change”.

Overall, not to bad of a start to the season.

Source:

Gingerbread-Man outline sourced 25th November 2014, from: printncolor.coolphotos.in