Science

Harkaway Primary School Excursion 

On Tuesday 4 August, a group of Year 6 students visited Harkaway Primary School for an excursion. Essex Heights and Harkaway have been collaborating on planning a contemporary science program incorporating climate change for a year and a half now. It was wonderful that Bu Gladys our Indonesian teacher came along with us. She also assisted the day by presenting some awards to the Indonesian delegation. They were all so impressed that our school has been learning Indonesian for many years. 

An Indonesian delegation of government officials and researchers of climate change education as well as boardgame developers were invited to Harkaway PS to learn about how Australian schools implement climate change into their science curriculum. As it is, Harkaway have researched and developed a climate change game called Generaksi, in collaboration with the Indonesian researchers and game makers. We were very fortunate earlier in the year to have six students and their Principal from Harkaway PS visit us and introduce our Year 6 students to this wonderful game. 

We got to play alongside the Harkaway students who co-developed the game Generaksi with the Indonesian researchers and game developers. We have been generously gifted three of these games for our school so we may play these games and learn more about climate change education. One of the games is in Indonesian so the students have the opportunity to practice their Indonesian reading and speaking skills. This was a lot of fun and taught us about how to minimise the impact of climate change and the importance of human roles in dealing with natural disasters. 

It was a great opportunity for our Indonesian Captain Aaliyah from 6W to deliver a thank you speech in Indonesian and the Indonesian delegates were very impressed. We were also presented with a lovely gift from the Secretary General and Head of Safe School in the Ministry of Primary Education. This represents that our school values sustainability and care and contribution to a safe environment for our future generation.

We will continue to work and plan with Harkaway Primary School who are equally passionate and committed to providing an excellent Science education for our students.

Maria Capsalis & Eric Zhang, Science Teachers

Gladys Wangke, Indonesian Teacher