Undersea Savers
Author: Julia Walshaw l Suitable for: Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, Planning
The Theme
Historical enquiry (Elizabethan exploration) – Materials and their properties – Scientific investigative skills and fair testing – Measurement – Geographical enquiry – Understanding of geographical locations
Background
The Curriculum
Knowledge and Understanding: Why people went on long voyages of exploration, and what they lost and gained from the experience.
That the lives of people living in this area in the Tudor period were very different to our lives, but their everyday concerns and values may have been similar.
Skills: Working together, communication, asking questions about the past, keeping safe,
applying imagination, empathy, planning, finding and using resources.
Values: That we can learn from the past and so should protect it, for ourselves and for future generations. That we should have minimal impact on the environments in which we work.
Developing the Situation
Inquiry Questions
- What was significant to Elizabethan individuals and society?
- How were their values and priorities similar to ours – did they have similar human concerns and aspirations?
- How were their values and priorities different to ours?
- Why did Tudors embark on long voyages of exploration?
Situation
1. There is a Minke whale with fishing nets tangled round its flukes. The whale is suffering, and is also obstructing shipping lanes. This initial situation will allow younger children to familiarise themselves with the work of a diving team in a more immediate and familiar situation, before embarking on the main commission. Older children may be able to go straight into the main situation:
2. An Elizabethan merchant ship is lying on the seabed off the coast of Aldeburgh. The wreck is finally starting to rot (possibly due to pollution/climate change?) and so must be brought up to the surface before too much damage is done. In order to preserve the rare and historically valuable artefacts that were on board the ship, they must be individually removed before the wreck is raised.
Designing the Expert Frame
Team of Experts
A team of expert divers. They have a successful history of diving around the world, including in challenging environments. Their experience covers areas such as work with marine animals, underwater archaeology, underwater engineering work and underwater police work. They have the latest diving suits and equipment.
Client(s)
1. In the first instance the coastguards who ask the diving team to help a Minke Whale.
2. Main client will be the engineering company working to raise an Elizabethan wreck from the seabed.
Commission(s)
1. The diving team are asked by coastguards to dive down to untangle fishing net from the flukes of a Minke whale.
2. The team are asked by an engineering company, who have the job of raising an Elizabethan merchant ship from the seabed off Aldeburgh, to dive down first to find and remove all objects from the wreck.
Possible Steps in
Possible steps – could last a morning or a whole week…
1: Start through the ICONIC – gather the class round a large piece of paper, and the teacher draws the Minke whale. As you draw, discuss the whale. Once you have drawn the whale, say something like “unfortunately sometimes things go wrong with animals at sea…’” and add the net around its flukes.
2: Discuss some possible ways that a whale like this could be helped, not looking for a particular answer.
3: Teacher in role. Gather children together. “There’s going to be an important phone call in our story…” Explain the phone call will be from a coastguard, and discuss what coastguards do. When the children seem ready, sign the coastguard (e.g. by putting a drawing of a coastguard insignia badge on) and in role explain the problem and that they need a team to rescue the whale. Take off the badge when the phone call has finished – “we’ll just leave the coastguard there for a minute…”
4: Task - “In your mind’s eye, using your imagination, can you see how a team might help the whale?” Ask the children to draw how the rescue might look…As they are working, go round and start to ask questions about the equipment they are drawing e.g. “where might those scissors be kept?” Give children pieces of paper and blu-tac to start to ‘sign’ the room as a diving team HQ with labels for different storage areas.
5: As the children work, start to refer to them as a team – e.g. “team, your colleague here reminds us that the sharp equipment needs to stay locked up…” In your questioning, start to refer to the team’s past e.g. “Those masks are looking a bit dusty - when was the last time they were used?” Children will start to speak from within the team – ‘we’ rather than ‘they’
It is difficult to advise beyond here, as the work will evolve your own way. It is highly likely that the diving team will plan and prepare for the dive, then travel to rescue the whale (with the dramatic action this involves). During this time, the team’s HQ and area around it may well evolve, as well as the team’s history.
According to the time frame you are working to, you might introduce the main commission after a matter of hours, days or even weeks! Once the team gets the main commission of collecting the objects from the Elizabethan ship, they will be involved in a huge amount of planning and preparing equipment, all of which will open up many curriculum possibilities (especially science and maths). They will inevitably travel to the dive site and carry out the dive. There are huge numbers of possibilities according to your curriculum demands and the children’s lines of enquiry.
Dramatic action: Alongside the Mantle of the Expert work of the diving team, there is a lot of potential for exploring through drama life on board the merchant ship. This could be introduced in a variety of ways. In our case, the diving team were sent a bundle of documents to assist them in locating the objects on the ship. Included was a list of the sailors who signed up to work on the ship. Teacher (reading the list): “let’s just imagine for a moment that this is not a member of the diving team reading the list, but the captain of the ship writing it.” Put on some item to sign ‘the captain’ (e.g. a piece of material as a neck tie) and hold the list. Change register of voice: “They’re late. This will not do. Anyone wishing to work on the ship of Queen Elizabeth will soon learn that they cannot be late. I expect they will come.” Wait. When a child steps forward, speak as the captain asking questions to recruit a sailor to the ship.
Once the role of the captain has been established, life on board the ship can be explored in as much depth as you want. The Drama for Learning of life on board the ship and the Mantle of the Expert of the diving team can feed off and complement each other in many exciting ways. It will give the objects on board the ship a much deeper significance.