Local students participate in Jumanji challenge

4 local primary school students playing with Spheros

22 September 2020

Over the past eight weeks, 40 year five students from our local primary schools have been ‘battling through the jungle’ in a Jumanji challenge.

Participants were faced with four different challenges they had to overcome, each designed to build the 21st Century skills they will need in their future.

First they had to launch a reconnaissance mission, sending Spheros to search for help and supplies essential to their survival.

Realising that they weren’t going to be rescued any time soon, students then had to build a shelter so they had somewhere to sleep and blend into their surrounding environment.

Throughout their third challenge, hunters were out looking for them. To avoid their enemies, participants had to make ‘silent shoe covers’ to reduce the amount of noise they made and used technology to measure the decibels of each of their steps.

Their fourth and final challenge was to design and build a catapult to fire an object far into surrounding areas and create a distraction for nearby threats.

The program was thoroughly enjoyed by students who enjoyed coming up to the local high school for a specialist program “I have really enjoyed the last couple of weeks, it’s been really fun. Getting to meet and work with students from other schools has been really good,” said Addison from Lakelands Primary School. “I’m learning lots of new things, particularly when it comes to communicating. Normally when I have an idea it doesn’t turn out anything like what it looks like in my head, but the processes we are learning here has helped me to find problems and solve them before we start building.”

The Jumanji challenge formed part of the Inspire Project, an innovative academic extension and enrichment program delivered by Coastal Lakes College, to students in our local primary schools and forms part of the College’s STEAM focus. Students from Lakelands, Meadow Springs, Oakwood and Singleton Primary Schools participated in the initiative.

The specialist curriculum leaders who have delivered the program have been impressed by students’ willingness to learn, Keavy Diggens, Head of Learning – Mathematics, said “Learning these (21st Century) skills are more important than ever before. Not only do they help students learn in a classroom environment, they also  prepare them for a rapidly changing future where change is constant and learning never stops.”

“When these students enter the workforce, they will likely be going into jobs that don’t even exist yet, so it’s important that we start to build these competencies early and provide them with the skills they need to be successful, both in the classroom and in their own lives.

By providing these extension courses to students in our local primary schools, we also create a scenario where these students then go back to their classrooms and teach other students the skills they have learnt, so the learning continues. We have really enjoyed working with these students and we can’t wait until they join us at Coastal Lakes College in a few years to further their learning journey.”

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