Learners driving change in their community

Daniel, Year 9, learned how to design and implement an animal care plan in his agriculture and market garden impact inquiry project.

At Spotswood College, every Year 9 and 10 student participates in a junior impact inquiry programme.

“They use design thinking and the inquiry process to come up with a whole range of concepts that are for the betterment of the community,” explains principal Nicola Ngarewa.

“Some of those concepts are products and they will sell them through The Designery. It’s student-owned and they have to make a profit, which goes back into the inquiry budget for the next model of projects,” she explains.

Curriculum-rich inquiry

Curriculum leader for inquiry learning Aly Scott says the impact inquiry programme is fully integrated across the curriculum, drawing heavily from the The New Zealand Curriculum learning areas of English, Technology and Social Studies, amongst others.

Spotswood College is an Enviroschool and the programme aligns with the sustainability principles at the heart of the school’s vision.

“The junior impact inquiry is based on global sustainability goals that support students to be the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs,” says Aly.

By managing their own projects, students develop and use skills such as problem-solving, communication, creative thinking, digital technologies and collaboration. It allows them to build on their strengths and personal interests.

The programme has been gamified, with students measuring progress through a large magnetic game board, designed by Aly, who teaches art.

“They can see very clearly where they’re at because their game piece is on the board. It helps them with their project management. They have to do a whole lot of research before they get to the first point,” she says.

Neveah and Madeline, Year 10, showcase their tomato kusundi made from produce grown in the market garden.

Intense hands-on learning

Spotswood College values learning that is authentic and connected and Aly believes that’s when real, in-depth learning happens.

She adds that the underlying philosophy is design thinking. This involves working through proposals for the innovation of products and services within business and social contexts.

“We have to explicitly teach design thinking, so that they know what steps to take to be able to be their own project manager,” she explains.

“The teachers then become facilitators and mentors, so the teachers’ role is to anchor the learning for their students and ensure that they are following the programme and that they are recognising their learning, because sometimes it might not be obvious, especially with project-based learning.

“The students then need to define the project and they have to ideate: go through the steps of different iterations of the same idea, or generating a whole bunch of completely different ideas,” continues Aly.

Aly Scott.

“They prototype and test – it’s really hands-on. I think a lot of schools can tend to see their learners as either academic learners or applied learners. But if those two things happen together, I think that’s where the magic happens.”

Pedagogy and scaffolding

While identifying a problem and finding a solution is second nature to some Year 9 and 10 students, others need more support, says Nicola.

“The inquiry cycle is a key part of the pedagogy that sits behind the impact projects. And the students don’t always know the inquiry cycle or the design thinking process when they start,” she says.

“We start off with very structured and supported scaffolding. By the end of the process, we would expect that our young people are designing their own student-driven projects.

“It’s a learning process. Sometimes they haven’t come across this kind of thinking before – or this kind of expectation, or collaboration, so it takes them a wee while initially. But once they have been supported to feel a bit liberated around their learning, it’s phenomenal.”

Nicola adds that the programme is set around a range of competencies, so it’s quite different from being content driven.

“There are some core competencies around what they are expected to do. They’re given a really good model and structure – and that’s around design thinking. It’s really authentic so they do need to be connected to the target audience, or community.”

Inquiry-based strategies

Two main inquiry-based teaching strategies are workshopped by teachers at Spotswood College: guided inquiry and free inquiry.

“We look at the inquiry-based strategies when we workshop, because teachers are coming from across the curriculum and it’s really difficult to try to put a programme in place with so much diversity through the projects, teachers and learners,” says Aly.

“At these workshops, we try to look at the different types of inquiry-based learning. So that we can be actively teaching the steps of design thinking, we start with a guided inquiry, which is more of a negotiated assessment between a teacher and a student. The teacher and student might each make some decisions, but the student is driving it. The teacher puts the structure in place and guides students through the design thinking process. We do that in the first two modules for the first term.

“Then we do more of a free inquiry – it’s still controlled in some cases, depending on the learner. Our first project will be based on a global sustainability goal – we do a lot of teaching around that to try to get them to think globally and act locally,” she says.

Agentic learning

Aly says it’s important for students to have the right mentors – whether they are teachers or outside experts.

“Our inquiry programme is centered on local curriculum and the things that matter to our learners, but also building powerful partnerships with the community. We’ve got passionate young people and there are so many ways they can change the world!

“We’ve got students managing a large range of various projects; some are creative, some focused on sport and event management, robotics, animation, illustration, market garden, naturopathy and business and enterprise.

“We have just been awarded the Earthwise Action Fund grant and we currently have a group of students setting up an apiary – they are going to learn to be beekeepers and then they’ll use the bee products for our food and science inquiry projects.”

As students are driving their projects – which can be done in groups or individually – Aly and Nicola hope they’ll build on their strengths and engage in their personal interests.

“We might have kids who are into robotics and they will say, ‘the problem is that the ocean is dirty – we’re going to use our skills in coding and robotics to make change happen’,” says Nicola.

“Last year we had a group that designed and built a pump track at school. They were all the kids into biking, mountain biking and BMX.” 

The Designery

Many of the products and produce sold in The Designery are sourced from the school’s vegetable garden, chickens and bees.

“The inquiry process is all about sustainable, healthy, big and bold goals that fit round community outreach. It’s about sustainable social entrepreneurship, rather than the old profit model,” says Nicola Ngarewa.

Nicola Ngarewa.

The Designery, which opened in September 2020, was brought to life by a group of Year 13 Young Enterprise Scheme students, who converted an old container into a retail space in which the public can buy everything from a dozen eggs in a reusable woven kete, microgreens and poi to laser-cut earrings, lip balms and hand-printed wrapping paper.

“The critical thing is around the sustainability of the business and the concepts in the way it connects with the community,” says Nicola, who is an enthusiastic customer of The Designery.

“For example, they make a whole range of herbal teas – they test it all out on people and they work out if it has a market, does it meet a need and how big that market is.”

A Rainbow Youth group has developed a range of products, including pronoun badges, clothing and beanies.

“I own a whole heap of it, it’s amazing!” says Nicola. “We use The Designery as a bit of a launching pad and then the students go off and it becomes their own mini-business, with products that they can sell more widely.”

Big and bold solutions

While many of the students develop products, others come up with big and bold concepts to solve issues they have identified.

“It might not necessarily be a product; it might be a solution for an enviro-issue. The big concept is about solutions – big and bold. Our youth have some amazing solutions, which I as an adult would never have thought of,” explains Nicola.

“We’ve had students come up with tiny home concepts for the homeless. A group of students partnered with architects and builders and came up with a really good affordable model for building tiny homes for the homeless.

“They are working out ways to try to deliver that concept – a bit like Dragons Den – to see if they can get it off the ground with other people investing in it. It’s still a work in progress – they’re presenting it to groups such as developers and Council,” she says.

Partnerships with experts in the community are a key part of ensuring the sustainability of the programme.

“A big part of the design concept is that we expect students to partner with an expert in the community,” says Nicola.

“They might work with local scientists who are experts in a particular field, or art gallery owners. That partnership is really critical because it’s connected to the community and it’s authentic, but they are getting a level of expertise.

“And the people they’re partnering with are often getting a youth voice and solutions that we just hadn’t considered before! It’s authentic learning,” she says.

The Designery crew working on the construction and painting of the container, which saw them receive a local Young Enterprise Scheme award in 2020.

Student KŌRERO

Nevaeh Allen, director of ‘Ahi Tote’

Tell me about the junior impact inquiry project you are involved with.

Our project started from working with the global goal of zero waste. We looked at using waste produce from our school garden and turning it into products. From this we started developing bespoke food products such as smoked salt and chocolate. We have started using local food specialities such as horopito from up our mountain, Mt Taranaki. We have some long-term projects that are based around promoting and selling matariki crops from our kura mara.

What have you learned from it?

I have learnt how to collaborate, try new things, keep trying, never give up and learn how to run a business. From the planning and research through to sourcing materials, production, branding and packaging.

What did you enjoy most about this project?

I loved experimenting with tastes and flavours, working with others to create the best outcome and having a real reason for making our products; also coming up with new ideas.

Matthew Hay, director of ‘Rainbowear’

Tell me about the junior impact inquiry project you are involved with.

My team is making LGBTQ+ merchandise to fight back against homophobia and transphobia. The idea is that by making badges, tees, socks, keychains and phone cases, it will show that more people are a part of the community than meets the eye, and it’s not ‘abnormal’.

What have you learned from it?

To make sure that I do my research well before spending money and fully developing a project, so that I don’t waste a lot of time, effort and/or money. Second would be my website development skills – this mainly happened after building the online webstore for over 11 hours.

What did you enjoy most about this project?

It was what I wanted to do, and something that was relevant to me. I enjoyed doing something I was passionate about and NOT what would be “the best” or “make the most money” 

Beekeepers Catherine and Anika, Year 10, try on their new beekeeping gear.

Catherine Rielly-Leadbetter, Anika Gray and Mason Hendry – beekeepers 

Tell me about the junior impact inquiry project you are involved with. 

Creating a sustainable bee farm for farming honey with beehives. 

What have you learned from it? 

Working as a group and communicating and problem solving as a group of students with unique ideas and opinions. We also learnt about organising things in advance, managing projects and financial skills. Because we got the opportunity to visit an expert beekeeper, we were able to hear about his experience and learn about assembling the hives, the best place to put them, tools and equipment, how to feed them and what kind of plants we need, which we typed into our website, where we’ve been keeping track of our progress.  

What did you enjoy most about this project? 

Taking part in experiments during class and having a mixture of activities to do to further our learning on the subject. The main things that we enjoyed was visiting the beekeeper who gave us so much information; and watching all of the plants we ordered arrive ready to plant.  

Eden Perkins, director of ‘Hyper Days’ 

Tell me about the junior impact inquiry project you are involved with. 

The business started from another class that kind of melted into the Inquiry class – I was creating a power jacket focused on transphobia – eventually I decided to build a brand around upcycling clothing and everything unraveled from there! My project is an online business focused on bright and fun aesthetics. Currently I'm selling art prints, stickers, and upcycled clothing, but I'm planning to develop more products in the future if the business goes well. 

What have you learned from it? 

I've developed my skills in sewing a lot – I've learned how to machine sew and embroider from upcycling clothing. It's been really fun to learn all of that. I've also learned a ton about design, from creating my own website and logos. Developing the brand look has been interesting to learn and research about. 

What did you enjoy most about this project?

Almost everything about it has been really enjoyable! I'm a creative person so doing all of this by myself has been super fun. I've drawn all of the poster and sticker designs, plus I've created the ideas for upcycling clothing! Even the more technological things like designing the website, logos, and marketing has been super rad. Overall, it's been great to develop this project and I'm really glad I started it!