JASON Global Classroom with Damian Granich at the Berlin Metropolitan School
Just before summer break which occurs late in July in Berlin, Germany, I had the chance to meet up with Damian Granich who has been teaching first grade at the Berlin Metropolitan School, an international school comprised of children from over 55 countries in the center of Berlin. One of Damian’s focuses as a teacher is to make sure that children get a good grounding in the sciences even at an early age.
In Germany, the science of climate change is a particularly important topic and so it is not a surprise that much of the year’s science curriculum focused on various ways that each child could contribute to help share, preserve and sustain the planet. As part of this curriculum, recycling both in terms of how waste could be converted into reusable materials as well as alternate uses for resources and objects that had served their initial purpose were investigated. The students learned how to make their own paper, build rockets out of recycled plastic bottles and even built a time machine from cardboard boxes and old technical equipment. The time machine represented a place where the students could imagine traveling to places both in the future as well as the past, asking questions along the way. The dinosaur period as well as the opportunity to consider travel through space represented two of the most popular destinations!
Damian hails from New Zealand which helped to inspire a deep love and respect for nature. For those of you who are not familiar with New Zealand, this is a sparsely populated island nation that lies in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, comprised of two main landmasses, known as the North and South Islands, in addition to approximately 600 smaller islands. The country lies the southwestern Pacific Ocean with Australia, Fiji, Tonga, and Norfolk Island along its maritime boundaries. Soon Damian will take a leave of absence from teaching for a few months to embark on his own adventure of scientific enquiry. Inspired by Charles Darwin, who on his voyage of discovery aboard the Beagle visited New Zealand, Damian will seek out many of the places that Darwin visited on his early journey around the world. Doing this Damian expects to add to his own scientific knowledge relating to the planet, its species, its natural resources and these interact, and will certainly bring back a better understanding of these as well as many new lessons to teach his future students.
I hope you enjoy this short video of Damian Granich and along with me will look forward to hearing more from him in the field.
