Please, Give Me Those Orange Peels. [General Review ②#17] / The Principal's Challenge—Believing in the Power of Integrated Studies, Chapter 2

Autumn 2021.
The third-grade class I introduced last time worked with local residents to write a song and took on the challenge of producing a CD in a real recording studio.
The efforts of each grade level toward the Children's Marche are still continuing.
This time, it is the fourth grade's period for integrated studies.
I will introduce their journey of searching for a form that was uniquely their own while learning from the community and experts.

1. Learning from People and Observing the Community

The fourth-grade homeroom teacher was the same age as me.
Having worked at the same school before, they are a teacher with solid teaching skills backed by many years of experience.
I also placed my trust in their approach to creating lessons that build up step by step while valuing the children's own ideas.

The fourth graders were conducting their integrated studies period with a theme of the environment, such as waste and water quality, while also linking it to social studies.
They heard from town officials about the current state and challenges of waste in their town, and they searched for aquatic organisms and conducted water quality surveys in the river flowing near the school.
Of course, researching through books and the internet is important.
However, they valued more than just that; they prioritized hearing directly from people working in the community and experts, and engaging with their thoughts and experiences.

On October 19th, they welcomed a lecturer from an environmental education NPO, and after learning about the SDGs, they challenged themselves to a water quality survey using pack tests.
When they compared the water drawn from the nearby river with water containing rice-washing liquid, the expressions on the children's faces changed.

"Whoa, is it really this different?"

The classroom was filled with a small murmur at the results, which appeared more clearly than expected.
They were able to confirm with their own eyes, not just through numbers, that the rice-washing liquid they casually pour down the drain every day causes water pollution, and that the river close to them is actually quite clean.

2. It Doesn't End with Just Communicating

As their learning progressed, each group began to summarize what they had researched and experienced into presentations.
They valued not just finishing after researching, but also thinking about "who they are communicating to" in this study.

First, they would call upon their families to think about the environment during the class observation.
And another goal was to convey their learning to the people of the town and visitors from outside the town.
The stage they had in mind for this was the "Children's Marche" sales learning event scheduled for December.

However, there is a rule for this Marche decided by the whole school.
Every grade level must sell products that utilize what they learned during their integrated studies period.

"If the fourth graders learned about the environment, what kind of product would be good?"

The homeroom teacher held repeated discussions with the children.
Just making eco-bags because they studied the environment felt a bit too simple.
The important point was how to express the fourth graders' unique learning in that product.

3. Orange Peels Are Not Trash

One day, I received a consultation from the homeroom teacher.

"I'm thinking of trying to dye eco-bags."

When I heard that, I thought it made perfect sense.
The idea was not just to make bags for sale, but to create bags that embodied their learning.

The dye they chose was orange peels, a local specialty.
The concept was to collect peels from school lunches and those given by local residents, utilizing what would normally be thrown away as dye.
It was an idea born precisely because these fourth graders had been studying the environment.

Of course, this idea did not emerge suddenly.
A little while ago, they had challenged themselves to dye with fresh leaves using indigo grown at the school.
It wasn't the method using "sukumo" like authentic indigo dyeing, but fresh leaves can be used for a challenge even at school.
That experience led to a new challenge: "Maybe we can dye with oranges, too."

"Teacher, will it really dye with oranges?"

It seems the children were also half-skeptical.

"You won't know until you try."

The homeroom teacher is said to have replied with a smile.

They took the bag out of the bowl, washed it with water, and gently spread it out.

"Oh, it's got color!"

"You're right. It's orange-colored."

Cheers went up from the classroom.
It wasn't a vibrant orange, but a gentle, warm color had spread across the entire cloth.
It was the moment that orange peels, which would normally have been thrown away, were breathed new life into by the children's hands.

4. To have them take the learning home

It wasn't just orange dyeing.
They also worked on dyeing with fresh indigo leaves, and eco-bags dyed in a gentle sky blue were also completed.
When lined up on the desks, no two bags had the same shade.

"This one is indigo."
"This one is orange."
"Both are nice."

Comparing the finished bags, the children naturally broke into smiles.
For the finishing touch, a small one-point design of the town's mascot, "Kai-kun," was also added.

The eco-bags completed in this way became the very embodiment of the thoughts of the fourth graders who had been learning about the environment.
At the Children's Marche, while selling these eco-bags, they would also convey to visitors what they had researched, thought about, and learned regarding the environment.

The goal was not just to have them bought.

If someone who picked up an eco-bag
"We dyed it with orange peels,"
listened to the children's story, and
"I didn't know you could use them like that,"
thought about the environment even a little, that was the happiest thing for the fourth graders.

The Children's Marche is just around the corner.
The fourth graders were also steadily making preparations to deliver their learning to the community.

Thank you for reading this far.
To be continued in the next installment...👇

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◆About this series (For first-time readers)👇👇

The progress so far can be found in the "Principal's Challenge: Believing in the Power of Integrated Studies, Chapter 2 Magazine"👇👇