MEL meaning Move – Eat – Learn, aims to build global learning processes for teachers and pupils within primary schools from Gentofte – Denmark and Primary Schools in Nairobi, Kenya. The main focus of the dialogues is issues related to a healthy lifestyle, healthy eating and physical activities that promote good health. The themes are cross curricular and cross cultural, they will consist of identical themes and topics involving the subjects like mathematics, sciences, physical education and home economics.
All the communication in English will strengthen their English communication skills, i.e. in relation to spoken language and knowledge of mathematics-related terms.
The project and the international dimension
The overall goal of this project is to facilitate a cultural meeting between students from Kenya and Denmark, in order to let the students reflect on and relate to the differences and similarities in the everyday living conditions across national borders. By collecting and working with empirical data, they gain insight into the cultural differences in daily life between children of same age in Kenya and Denmark, and they acquire intercultural understanding and increased awareness of own culture, habits, and daily life.
Kijani Institute is the consultant company in this project and will continue to facilitate the groups of teachers coming to Kenya and also support the teachers in Kenya – especially with the Skype sessions and implementation of the overall project which are an essential part of the communication and co-learning.
Learning goals for the project
The programme is based on the following pedagogical, academic, and intercultural goals.
Pedagogical goals
The project involves interdisciplinarity between mathematics and English, since the students’ mathematics-related learning during the project will increase while, at the same time, the communication in English will strengthen their English communication skills, i.e. in relation to spoken language and knowledge of mathematics-related terms.
Academic goals
The goals derive from the national curricula for mathematics in Denmark and Kenya.
Denmark
- The student knows about
- basic reasoning connected with investigative work, including
- investigative work using digital tools
- verbal and written forms of communication with and about
- mathematics, including through digital media
- technical language and terminology
- the usability of various tools in mathematical situation
- various concrete materials and digital tools
- graphical presentation of data
- methods for processing and presenting data, including through
- the use of digital tools
- frequency, periodicity, and basic statistic descriptors.
The student can
- apply reasoning to develop and test hypotheses
- engage in varied communication with and about mathematics both verbally and in writing
- apply technical language and phrases both verbally and in writing
- utilise tools with technical precision
- conduct and present own statistical investigations
The project from a digital perspective
Statistical presentations can be made in hand or by using IT-based programmes like Excel, Pivot, and Infogram, while Skype requires the use of iPads or computers. Working with the IT tools requires that the students are familiar with the tools in advance or that they receive introduction to them before the course.apply and interpret graphical presentations of data
Kenya
The learner should be able to:
- Work out quantities given the percentages and work out percentages given quantities
- Collect and record data using tally marks
- Represent data in graphs
- Represent data from tables on graphs
- Read and interpret information from graphs
- Recognize, identify and work out arithmetic mean of a given data.
The learner should know:
- Tables
- Bar graphs
- Line graphs
- Pie charts
- Travel graphs
- Intercultural goals
By working with this sub project, the students will gain further insight into the values, terms, and conditions connected to everyday life of children in Kenya and Denmark. The results obtained will develop the students’ understanding of self and of the consequences of their own actions.