During Universal Children’s Week, Grade 5MJ first went to visit the Landfill site otherwise known as TPA (Tempat Pembuangan Akhir) Serpong. Although they went there to meet the children, sing a song and share food, they made many observations about the lives of the local community:

 ”When we gave out food they were so happy and excited.”

 ”There is no running water in the house and the children have to carry the water for themselves.”

 ”It was very dark inside the house although it was the middle of the day.”

 Grade 5MJ are currently doing some real life problem solving activities to see what solutions are needed to improve the quality of life for the residents of the landfill.

The students became interested in three projects:

 1.     Water – There is no running water in these houses. The children have to carry water to use in the kitchen. How could this problem be addressed? What is needed to have running water in each kitchen? Is it possible?

 2.     Shelter – These houses look very unstable. How could they be improved so that they are safer to live in? Why do these houses look temporary? Do they own or rent this land?

 3.     Light – the Liter of Light is a project in the Philippines. It is a project where you place a used liter Coca Cola bottle in the ceiling of a house to act as a skylight during the day. We went inside some of these houses and it was very dark despite it being very sunny outside. How could we install some Liter of Lights in these houses?

At the end of November, the students, now firmly divided into three “camps” (the water group, the shelter group and the liter of light group) returned to the landfill community.

Each group had been preparing further questions and finding out as much helpful background information as they could. They found that much of it is related to mathematics. For example, the shelter group actually measured out the dimensions of an average shelter in the piazza, and they plan to build a scale model. The water group measured out a distance and carried water backwards and forwards to see how far they could carry their water. The liter of light team needed to make an exact size hole for their light bottle so they needed to know about circumference and diameter.

They came back from the second field trip bubbling over with ideas to continue their projects. So on Friday, 2 December the class hosted a meeting with parents and teachers to let them know about their projects and to showcase their work. All three presentations included plans to continue sustainable action.

Visit Grade 5MJ on the second floor of Koi to see what stage we are up to in our amazing projects.

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