This building-off-grid project is ideal for delivery in the classroom for years 8 through to 11 or set as an independent task for distance-learning or home-based study. Also suitable for celebrating ’ Earth Day’ in April with a focus on reducing carbon footprint. Since being stuck on lock-down I have been binge-watching episodes of USA based TV-series like ’ last of the Alaskans’ and ’ Building off Grid’ which follow families as they design and self-build their own cabins and earth-ship style homes in remote areas of Arizona and Alaska. The aim is to live sustainably and in harmony with the landscape and ecosystem around them. This lesson / project will help GCSE/ KS4 students make connections in their learning with the Geography ’ Living World’ topic, especially around explaining how humans have adapted to the opportunities and challenges of living in extreme conditions such as the Tundra Biome and the Hot Desert regions. Students could easily talk about home design and crop growing/ subsistence farming in their examinations following the AQA spec A curriculum. The students must choose where they want to live their off grid lifestyle; either Arizona or Alaska, and the Power Point goes through the benefits and drawbacks of doing so in each ecosystem. There are video links to relevant video content showing some aspects of cabin-building in both of these environments. Then students enlist 3 helpers to help build their cabin, and roll a dice to determine their allocated budget they can use to buy materials for the cabin project. Using this budget, they can chose from a ‘menu’ worksheet of construction options to custom-build their cabin. They have a choice of sketching out their design with a floor plan, or actually building a model of their cabin from lego/ cardboard/ paydough etc. If submitted as a distance learning activity it would be great to make it into a competition, and invite students to submit pictures of their designs electronically for display. There are some ideas for follow-on activities on the slides.

This lesson is part of the examination assessed unit 1 2013 onwards specification. It covers the role of consumer technologies ; multimedia and online booking systems and their advantages and disadvantages for consumers and businesses. There is so very little out there on this that I hope someone else may benefit from my hours of preparation!

Children’s author Emily ‘Madge’ Payne, creator of the ‘Poetry Princess’ and ’ Giant Leaper learning Solution’ has created this Primary school lesson on drawing and creating your own ‘Inner Buddy’. This 3 part lesson talks through what resiliance is, and how we can look within oursleves to create and call upon our own personalised ’ superheroes ( inner-buddies) to help us get through tough times. It is an especially relevant resource for covid 19 school lockdown periods and can be done either in the classroom, or delivered via remote learning. It is suitable for most middle and junior years at Primary School level. The lesson involves students being guided through drawing and creating their own ‘Inner Buddy’ and Emily provides a video to explain the process, and poses some key questions to help get their imagination fired up in the creative process.The Inner Buddies created by students would make an excellent classroom display, or stuck onto the front of books to remind them to be resilient in their lives and learning. This resource has been created to introduce you to the ‘Inner Buddy’ children’s book, created by Emily, which was created to help children to deal with their emotions in any situation. Offering a friendly guide to give them a safe space to write or talk about how they are feeling, without feeling they are being judged. The’ Inner Buddy’ children’s book is available in full by contacting Emily on the email below; mailto:madge@innerbuddy.com To see her further range of children’s books and learning resource, please visit her website at; https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-Buddy-Emily-Madge-Payne/dp/169618343X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Inner+buddy&qid=1609837755&sr=8-1