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Citizenship at key stage 4 (Year 10-11)
Unit 12: Global issues, local action
Section 2: How is our community more sustainable?
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Objectives |
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- to devise a survey of use of products, services and resources to compare with the local authority's published priorities for sustainable development
- to carry out a survey, draw conclusions and present results
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Activities |
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Outcomes |
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Children: |
- Pupils work in groups to undertake an enquiry into different areas affected by Local Agenda 21, eg food, transport, waste. They consider the impact of policies for sustainable development on individuals and organisations by carrying out an audit of products, resources and services. A focus for the enquiry should be selected.
- Taking the food they consume as an example, pupils consider which foods are produced locally and which are produced elsewhere. They also consider what has happened to the food during its preparation for sale. Has it been processed, packaged or transported? How far has it been transported to the shops (the number of miles an item of food is transported can be referred to as 'food miles')? What are the points of sale of food products in the local area? Are there any new developments, eg farmers' markets, organic food shops or locally sourced goods in supermarkets?
- Pupils assess the services that members of the group have used during the past week, eg transport, health, recycling, leisure. How many services were provided by the local authority, by commercial organisations or by public/private partnerships?
- On a local area base map, pupils mark the location of features related to locally sourced food, eg markets, shops, farms, and of the services that they have used, eg leisure facilities, local libraries, recycling centres, community centres.
- The survey could be broadened to compare the groups' findings with those from a wider section of the school/local community. Pupils devise a questionnaire to find out what products, services and resources are used and to take views on the impact of sustainable policies.
- In groups, pupils use case studies to investigate the impact of Local Agenda 21 on organisations in their community, eg a local industry, the local council, a shopping centre, their school. What does each organisation do? Where is it located? What resources/services does it use? What does it produce? Does the organisation have a policy on sustainable development? What measures have been introduced to make it more sustainable? Are these monitored and evaluated? If appropriate, pupils could invite members of the organisation to discuss changes within their industry/service and the policies and legislation that have had an impact.
- Pupils compare their findings with the published targets in the Local Agenda 21 Plan and consider how the situation has changed since the Plan was published. They present a 'progress update' comparing their own findings with those of the local council. They draw conclusions about how sustainable the local area is and whether there have been improvements in the last three years.
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- demonstrate enquiry skills as they develop a set of questions appropriate for use in interviews, questionnaires and discussions
- identify examples of how Local Agenda 21 policy is impacting on individuals and the community, and assess whether their community is more sustainable as a result
- choose and use appropriate statistical and graphical techniques (including ICT) to record, store, retrieve and present data
- identify and compare the views of different members of the community
- summarise key findings and draw substantiated conclusions
- communicate key findings to their target audience in a presentation which uses ICT
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Points to note |
- Link with geography: a geographical enquiry into the percentage of food, resources and services provided locally (as opposed to sourced from abroad) will involve numeracy, statistical techniques, data handling, mapping (including GIS), reaching conclusions and presenting key findings. This builds on 1a-d, 2c, 2e and 6k in the key stage 3 programme of study; and links with GCSE criteria: aspects of enquiry (3.1x).
- This section can be linked to or used to build on unit 7 'Local democracy' in the key stage 3 citizenship scheme of work.
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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of
activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by
moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.
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