How old is an oak tree?


We went into Seymour Park Primary School yesterday. Samyia and I got lost and when we arrived Khawla was anxiously looking out for us. When we went into the school there was the usual signing in and DBS thing, and then the headteacher was there, and I told him about how the video with the Seymour Park children in it was in COP 26. 

We each had three year 3 forms - this is a 3 form entry school. We had to work quickly to explain the project and to ask the children for ethical permission. However, when I started to explain the project I realised that the words 'voice' and children' and 'trees' were really useful - these were words the children understood and could relate to. 

What I was really pleased about was how quickly the children understood that they were the scientists and would ask questions. The questions were about how much water is in a tree, and the rings on the tree. 

I asked them to think about the future and asked about whether the future was tomorrow, next week or in 200 years. One boy said 200 years was the future.  

Here is a piece of writing and drawing and a question about the Oak Tree. 

Comments

  1. spodsheffNovember 9, 2021 at 1:36 AM

    I'm glad the 200 years is getting rolled out - I think we should think about the age of trees and what they have witnessed - there is interesting stuff about the Yew tree and also the bog Oak - do you remeber the firsts Nation Witnessing when we were in CUVIC ?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

playing catch up

Image
    I enjoyed watching the tree movies - it somehow feels good to have them all - these are the many starting points.  Everything felt quite safe in a good way apart from Johan's talk that suggested the future didn't exist so science could not have it. We pull the future back to us and invent it but only in the future we also invent the past of a childhood which never existed to propel us forward.  It feels that although trees may have more going on about them than we previously thought they probably don't do this. The thing I felt as I watched the talks unfold was something about where we humans sit within all this, the thoughts that jarred and flowed and connected.  I will bullet point a couple for discussion later. 1. The struggle between individual and collective responsibility for the coming storm. 2. The individual nature of experience - we notice the impact of climate change but we notice through how it is represented as a global thing not locally.  ...
Read more

Snippets

Image
 The most exciting conversation we had on Trees was the data analysis discussion we had with Johan, Samyia, Peter and you. In my notes we started with the idea of snippets and what was there and what wasn't there and zooming out and zooming in.  I hadn't done my homework but I did a behind the scenes search. First I watched the videos - the hurried sounds, the tree stamping, the worms, the behind the scenes repetitions and murmurings of school.  I was interested in the zooming in and out and what we see through these images.  Peter talked of resisting the hermeneutical stance and responding but not interpreting. This is an image of bark - it is quite arty and would probably go down well at a conference but it was just taken but not intentionally.  I like the way this reminds me of a ship, the one we took to the Orkneys, in which we sailed for 6 hours from Aberdeen. Before we sailed we went to see the Wee Forest and it had grown.  I like the way the wire net...
Read more

Into the Woods

Image
  I have been working with Abi in Clifton Park over the summer we have done 5 sessions now.  Part of me isn't sure what we are supposed to be doing but to be honest I have decided that this is when we do our best work. I'm not that sure why I decided to do traditionally arty stuff for these workshops but that is how it worked out.  There is something about doing a trees project and drawing with charcoal on paper that seems to make sense - all the materilas are made of trees. I've also done some sculptural stuff with clay and Plaster of Paris. Its as though i need to find an artists identity in these materials though i am out of touch with them and have never had a good eye or hand for drawing.  The idea for Tuesday was to try and model drawing and looking and see if the Children would join in on some level - I didn't like my drawing and although the children did join in. they did it on their own terms. Abi was busy looking and chatting- when I got home I decided that...
Read more