My and Junfang’s GEC project is about designing the school yard of students’ dreams. We have started our co-operation via WeChat, wrote the project plan and started the project with our students in May. The co-operation has been successful and WeChat very convenient way to keep in touch.

The main idea of our project is to design and build the playground equipment of students’ dreams and place them to the miniature versio of students’ own school yard. During the project students learn how the supporting structure of the playground equipments (f. ex. triangle structure, reinforced bars etc.) affects on safety. They also learn to design and build the playground equipments of their dreams, they test which material is the best option for the making a model of the playground equipment (paper, toothpins and marshmallows, 3D pen or modelling clay) and they also learn to make a video by using their own mobile phones or school’s digital cameras while documenting their work.

During the project students will work in groups of 3-4. At first all students study the knowledge about the playground equipments after seeing the pictures of equipments. They will study knowledge by searching answers to these questions: what kind of structure of the playground equipment is strong (f. ex. triangle structure, reinforced bars), what kind of shape of the playground equipment is strong and suitable and which are the best material for the real playground equipments and why they are the best options. They will also write down adjectives which describe the equipments of their dreams.

After studying the basic knowledge students will design their equipment by drawing it and writing down the main words they will need while presenting their plans. After that they will build, fold or mold their equipment and place it to the miniature versio of their school yard.

Junfang will build the miniature version of their school yard in Taiyuan before coming to Beijing with her students because they need the pictures of their school’s walls.

– Jaana from Metsokangas Comprehensive School –

Two Fulbright teachers from USA visited our school before the winter holiday.

On the first day in Oulu they visited the lukio of Oulunsalo. During that day they saw how the students use e-books and different software f. ex. during the Maths lessons, heard about the Finnish lukio system and interviewed a few students about the futuristic world.

On the second day of their visit they visited our school in Metsokangas. Steven’s morning started with the interview with 9th Graders and Nat took part in the Chemistry lesson. After that they both had a possibility to visit the Handcrafts lesson with 6th Graders, then they visited our modern campus Korpimetso and after that they had a presentation for 6th Graders who heard information about their home country and after the presentation the 6th Graders asked them many questions about the theme.

The visit was excellent and it was a great possibility to our students to talk with native speakers while the students guided Nat and Steven from different class to another class.

– Minna, Petri and Jaana from Metsokangas Comprehensive School-