2010
MAD Activities
Gagebrook Primary | Rokeby High | Trevallyn Primary
A single teacher first ran ruMAD? in his class at Gagebrook Primary in 2005. Now the whole school runs the Program and its implementation has been a textbook model winning the school a 2009 Schools First Impact Award. You can read the full story on the Gagebrook ruMAD? webpage.
These are just their 2010 MAD Projects.
Project 1: Pet Safety
Grade level of students involved: Prep - 2 (Units A, B & D)
No. of students: 60
Teachers: Julianne Panckridge, Kirsten O'Halloran, Mathew Nicholas
What we have done: At the start of the year, Units A, B and D got together and discussed the things that we cared about and the things that worried us. We came up with quite a list of issues which we then grouped into 4 areas for our Vision of what we want the world to be.
Our Vision is for a world where…
- We feel safe and loved. We play with our friends and feel happy inside.
- We are clean and healthy inside when we eat fruit and vegetables, and drink water.
- We are happy at school, wear our uniform, and listen to our teachers. We line up nicely, are good mates and help other people when they are in need.
- Our pets play with us and sometimes sleep on our beds. Our pets are safe at home and other people pets treat us nicely.
The first thing we did was to make a graph of our pets, from this we discovered that in the three classes, we had 16 fish, 41 dogs, 5 mice, 5 lizards, and 27 cats! As most of us had dogs, we chose
them as the focus of our project.We had a special visitor from the Tasmanian Centre for Global Learning who came to tell us about his experience of being attacked by a dog.
Our new friend Jess came with her dog “Chicko” to show us what dogs need to be happy. Chicko gave us a lovely fashion parade of dog outfits that Jess has made for her.
Delta Dogs, including our special friend “Delta Dan” have visited us and taught us about the different ways dogs show emotions. We also learnt how to approach a dog owner and ask if the dog is friendly and permission to pat the dog. We know that we also need to ask the dog for permission by curling our fingers up and letting the dog come to us to sniff our hand. If the dog sniffs our hand, then we are allowed to pat it on the chest. Delta Dan was a good teacher.
We have since been working closely with the Dogs' Homes of Tasmania. We had two visits to the Dogs' Home to learn what they do there and what dogs need to be happy and healthy. We saw Delta Dan again and remembered how to approach dog owners and dogs safely. We held a lucky-dip day at school and raised $50 to spend on dog treats for the dogs at the Dogs' Homes. We are now looking at more ways we can help them to make a positive difference in the dogs' lives and our own.
Project 2: Poverty - local and global
Grade level of students involved: 1 - 4 (Units H, E & M)
No. of students:
60
Teachers: Sarah Ramsay, Rhea Orchard, Petrina Randazzo, Lia
Jackman
What we have done: Early in 2010, we started ruMAD? by reviewing past projects. We really enjoyed looking at the slide shows that had pictures of us and our brothers and sisters from 2 years ago. Everyone looked really young and smaller! This was good as it reminded us just what ruMAD?
is all about and the topics we had already worked on.
Then we had a couple of Values and Visions workshops to see what we were passionate about and what made us “mad, sad, or worried”. We were able to come up with a Vision for a perfect world.
Our Vision is for a world where…
- The environment is clean.
- Everyone has their own bedroom and a safe home, with electricity, food and water.
- Everyone is healthy and disabilities do not stop people doing what they want or need.
- The community is loving and supportive of those who live in it and everyone works together.
- Animals are treated with respect.
We started looking at local and then global issues about poverty.
We invited a guest speaker from the Gagebrook Community House to come and talk about what they do there to help families in our local area. Helen Manser from the Centre was very helpful and invited us to visit the Centre to learn about some of the programs they run.
We took a walk to the Centre and saw some familiar faces in the parent group and the computer group that was on that day. We asked Helen how we could help and she asked us to come for regular visits to work in the childcare room, or with the pensioner group. We now have 4-6 students visit the Centre each Monday and Friday to do this!
The Grade 5/6 students from our school invited us to share an ruMAD? session as they had some ‘homelessness’ resources they thought we would like. We all joined together - 5 classes in all for the session - and worked in small groups. We used the “Dillon the Mouse” booklets from Colony 47. It was great to be working with our older brothers, sisters and friends.
Our global research started with some activities from Caritas prior to our excursion to their “Blueprint for a Better World” exhibition. As a lead up to this we all did an online quiz about poverty. We were amazed at the large numbers of people living in poverty with no food, no homes and no water. Students said, “I didn’t know it was so bad”. We all cheered when we got a question right on the quiz.
The next week was our excursion to the exhibition and a performance by students from Hobart College Students Against Racism called “Living in-between”. This has been one of the highlights so far. It was such fun talking to the students who all came to Australia as refugees and finding out about their cultures. We learnt to say “hello” in their languages and some games from their home countries. Some of us got to taste their food and we saw their different clothing also. We learnt about being different and that actually we were a lot the same too. The music and dancing was really fun!
We are now visiting the Gagebrook Community Centre twice a week and doing some fundraising for global poverty issues such as clean drinking water.
Teacher, Emma Christian, has relief one day each week to focus on the
ruMAD? program and assist other teachers at Rokeby High to also implement ruMAD?
This has been made possible by a partnership organised by the Tasmanian Centre
for Global Learning - read more on the Rokeby ruMAD? webpage.
Project 1: Child Rights Forum
No. of students: 40 from Rokeby (+ 53 from other schools)
What we have done: On Thursday 15 April 2010, we hosted a Child
Rights Forum at our school. One of our grade 7 classes and a grade 8 class
attended along with students from Lindisfarne Primary and Geilston Bay
High.
During the day the students watched a performance by Bahay Tuluyan
(a non-profit organisation based in the Philippines that empowers street
children to look after themselves), and participated in workshops about Food and Water,
Health, Education, and Work. At the culmination of the day, all students
pledged to further investigate the Millennium Development Goals and
then work with an organisation in a developing country towards achieving
change in one of the goals.
Many of the students were really affected by the experience of the day,
hearing the statistics, being a part of poverty simulations and ‘games,
listening to the stories of the guests from Bahay Tuluyan, being part of the
workshops, and hearing about the day-to-day lives of people living in and
experiencing poverty. One major thing that stuck in the minds of these
students was that they were in fact rich, in the top 25% of the world’s
richest, simply because they lived in a house which had a toilet.
“When the guest speakers did the play and told us how they lived, it
made me feel sad and I wanted to help them, I’m glad ruMAD? helps me know
how I can help.” Gr. 8 Student
Project 2: Concert for global poverty
on October 8th
No. of students: Planning and Organising – 30, attending – 500+ (anticipated)
Our Vision is for a community which upholds respect for itself and others, and is a beautiful, safe and friendly environment to live in.
What we have done and are doing: One of the classes which attended the Child Rights Forum unanimously decided to focus on MDG 1
(Reducing Poverty), and MDG 2 (Achieving Universal Primary Education for all). After working through each
of the ruMAD? keys, tuning in and brainstorming, the class got to the point where they needed to choose what their end goal would be and the means to achieving that goal.
So the class decided firstly that the key to reducing poverty is through education. They then decided that the best way they could help was to form a partnership with a school in a developing country. Cambodia is the country they have chosen.
So while the Global Learning Centre set about creating that link, the students began to think about the best way to help. After very little discussion and a lot of agreement, they decided to put on an underage, drug and alcohol free concert for youths from the local community and the surrounding area.
Currently the class are working tirelessly to get their project off the ground. They are running mini-fundraisers to contribute towards the cost of the concert, including a free-dress day, a staff carwash, a slave auction and a Guitar-Hero competition.
The students have their own task forces, one being music and production, with these students taking charge of contacting bands, pulling together production and musical needs and setting up on the day of the actual concert. The other team is in charge of logistics and running the concert, including ticketing, money collection, running the food and drink stalls, decorating and promotion.
With guidance from their class teacher, Emma Christian, and support from senior staff, the concert will be planned, organised and run completely by the students, and will be a highlight of 2010.
“The students in my class are so excited about this project! They literally jumped out of their seats and hugged me when we decided on the concert idea and I said we would make it happen! They have been very pro-active and engaged whenever we have had ruMAD? lessons. They seem to only ever want to work on ruMAD? projects!” Emma Christian, Teacher, Gr. 7
“Our school is doing ruMAD?, so this year we are doing a concert for charity. We are doing some little fundraisers to raise money for our concert, and that money will go to a school in Cambodia. And with the concert we have got about 6 bands to perform at the concert. We are doing a car wash, guitar hero, sing star and a slave auction – I am loving it!” Student
“This year we have been doing a big unit on ruMAD? I like ruMAD? ‘cause it teaches us responsibility and teaches us to work together to achieve something big, like on October the 8th we are holding a big concert to raise money for a school in Cambodia” Student
“I enjoy ruMAD? because its exciting and interesting and we get responsibility for our concert and raising money. ruMAD? is great!” Student
“I like ruMAD? because I find it enjoyable and it has lots of fun things to do.” Student
“Our school has been doing ruMAD? for a long time, our class has been doing it for charity. We are doing some fundraisers to make money for schools in Cambodia.” Student
“This year we have been working on ruMAD? and it has inspired me a whole lot and changed the way I think about poverty and other things. Some people have come and talked to us about their experiences and it has made me think differently about other countries. I enjoy doing ruMAD? projects at school because it’s fun and makes me want to come to school.”
Grade 7 student
“ruMAD? that was what we got asked at the start of the year. No one knew what it meant.
ruMAD? is very important to the kids in our class, we have learnt about poverty and kids who live hard lives. It made us think, “How can we help?” That’s when we decided to make huge things happen. We are planning a concert to help people who are living in poverty. We have to do heaps of fundraisers to start with. We are going to have a link with a school in Cambodia to give the money to.” Student
“I have already noticed increased engagement among students from this class.” Gill Berriman, Assistant Principal
Project 3: Justice Crew Workshops and Performance October 6th - 8th
No. of students: 200 Rokeby High, 760 from 14 other schools (anticipated)!
Our Vision is for a community that is safe, beautiful and family friendly with shared spaces for people of all ages to enjoy.
What we have done and are doing: The Millennium Development Goal that the grade 8s have chosen to focus on is Goal 8: Create a Global Partnership for Development. The grade 8s have decided on a project within the community which will establish many community partnerships. They envisage this as a first step towards recognizing global partnerships.
The grade 8s have decided that, linking in with their vision statement, the students of the local area need more activities to do, which students of all ages could enjoy. Thinking along these themes, they came up with the idea that if they could get someone ‘big’ like
Justice Crew to come to Tasmania, they could do workshops and a performance, while spreading their messages of hope and increasing children’s self-esteem.
After many phone calls and emails to-and-fro, Justice Crew (winners of Australia’s Got Talent) have confirmed that they will come to Tasmania in October and complete a number of workshops over three days at three Tasmanian schools, which students from at least 10 other schools will also attend.
Rokeby High School and the grade 8s are 100% the drivers of this Justice Crew campaign, which the Hobart City Council is now supporting, by putting on a performance in the Hobart Mall for the general population, and providing accommodation for
Justice Crew. Prior to our school’s involvement, Tasmania had been left ‘off the map’ for their ‘National Tour’. This shows the power of young people when they are inspired by a program like ruMAD? to create change, for themselves and for others.
The objective of inviting Justice Crew is for the students to
learn how to organise large, shared youth events and how much more can be
achieved when we work in partnership with others. This will also have the benefit of reducing ‘rivalry’ between students of different schools so that when they see each other in the street they can say 'hi' instead of feeling competitive and anxious. Another aim is for the grade 8 students to understand that dreaming 'big' is healthy and models the setting of goals and how to work together to achieve them.
Reach for the stars and you may land on the moon…
“One student in particular does seem really engaged by the Justice Crew project. He has come out of his shell a bit... The group of girls working on the MDG side of our project have really absorbed a lot of the facts from the Blueprint for a Better World exhibition
we visited on an excursion. This shows that they were really affected by the gravity of some of the statistics that were introduced to them” Teacher, Miss. Chung-Tilley Gr. 8
“Rokeby High has been working on ways to raise money to help the poor. So we had a fun day where we had stalls like face painting, wet the teacher, apple bobbing. Another student and I were working in the school courtyard and we won the sustainability award. We are still working on ways to help. Also there were a couple of people came to our school to talk about how we can make a difference and 2 people did a play about how they were treated. When the quest speakers [the street children from the Philippines] did the play it made me feel sad and I wanted to help them.” Student
Project 4: National Tree Planting Day
No. of students: 200
What we are doing: A total of 100 native trees and bushes will be planted around the school, some as wind breaks for our sports oval, some in our water wise garden and some as habitat for native wildlife. A large percentage of last year’s plants have survived and have shown good growth, so, coupled with this year’s efforts – we are making a fantastic contribution to beautification of the local community and to the environment.
Last year’s National Tree Day was fantastic. We hope to continue
building on the community networks from last year, involving the local primary schools, parents and friends, Clarence City Council, Forestry Tasmania, and all Rokeby High staff and students.
We'll also be celebrating past achievements and demonstrating that we can
make our beautification project sustainable.
“It was great fun planting the
trees at the High School! I got to dig some holes, and then we all got
balloons and even went on a tour of the school!” (local
primary school student).
Project
5:
Harmony Cup Soccer Challenge
No. of students: 30
What we have done: We again invited Cosgrove High students, many
of whom came to Tasmania as refugees, to visit our school to play soccer. We
wanted to promote team building and leadership skills while also providing
an opportunity for students to socialise and form positive relationships
with students from other communities, local and global, through a common
interest: soccer.
This year grade seven students had the opportunity to be a part of the
Harmony Cup as part of our ‘Health Living Expo’ Day.
“Do you know what the proudest moment of the day was? When at the end
of the game I overheard some students asking what the final score of the
game was, and the reply came ‘I don’t know!’. I later heard students who
actually played the game asking the same question! What came out of that
game was not a final score, a number, but a spirit of fun, and friendship –
that is something that cannot be measured in numbers.” Teacher, Peter
Veness
Project 6: Courtyard Development
No. of students: 30
What we have done and are doing: We have developed a courtyard as
an alternative learning environment and a place to share ideas. This project
was initiated in 2009 and is ongoing into 2010.
Some of the key factors in the courtyard’s development have been educating to create a sustainable future, providing a space for all people to share ideas and wisdom, creating a tranquil space for reflection and an alternative classroom for integrated units of work such as art/science and math/SOSE.
In 2009 a community art piece was started and in 2010 it has been expanded to almost cover the courtyard. Plants that have been grown from seed, harvested, and new gardens have recently been planted. Elmo and Cookie the chooks have settled in and are loving the shade provided by the new roof.
Grade 8 students, who were leaders last year, have been teaching students from this year’s grade 7 group the various jobs involved in the upkeep of our school and community courtyard.
This is an ongoing project that, with each new year group and new partnership formed, will continue to grow and prosper, benefitting future generations of Rokeby High School students.
Project 7: Sports leaders assisting at local primary schools
No. of students: 10 girls coaching Netball, 10 Boys coaching
Football, 20 students each from two different Primary Schools
What we
are doing: As a follow on from our work in the community and a desire to
create more activities for youth, while also promoting healthy living, small
groups of students are walking to two local Primary Schools on a weekly
basis and coaching both Netball and Aussie Rules Football. The students have
been forming relationships with the students they are coaching, and are
learning valuable leadership skills. The program has been running so far for
a number of weeks and will continue for the remainder of Term 2.
Project 8: RSPCA National Cupcake Day
No. of students: 15 Mentors from Rokeby High School, 8 Mentees from Clarendon
Vale Primary School, 7 Mentees from Rokeby Primary School, 10 Catering Students from Rokeby High School
What we
are doing: On the 16th of August this year, two groups will individually take over
our school kitchen to make as many cupcakes as they can! The Peer Mentoring group of 30 students will make as many as they can to sell at the two Primary Schools
and the Catering Group will make “a truck load of cupcakes” to sell within our school. We anticipate making at least $200 to give to the RSPCA!
Grade 4/5A at Trevallyn Primary School have really made a difference!
On Tuesday, August 17, Grade 4/5A's ruMAD? (are you Making A Difference?) project, detailing their vision for a better world and the activities they have planned and undertaken, was featured in The Examiner Newspaper. To read the story go to the Tamar Times website.
Grade level of students involved: 4 - 5
No. of students: 26 (working in 6 groups)
Teachers: Peg Smith and Janine Davis
Our Vision is to live in freedom and peace in a world where we can spend time with family, friends and loved ones and have shelter from the elements. We want to be able to play and do the things we love like drawing, creating things and playing music.
Our issue of concern: We are concerned about health, the environment, and poverty.
What we have done: We are working in 6 small groups on different issues. We all spent 2 weeks researching and planning, 2 weeks running our projects, and
then 2 weeks evaluating and celebrating having made a difference.Project 1: Healthy Food Group
To encourage better eating than sweets and junk food, we prepare and sell cheap, healthy alternatives. We sell cups of fresh fruit and bags of popcorn for 50c at recess. We are giving the money we raise to the Red Cross.
Project 2: Daily PE Group
We want to encourage exercise at lunchtime by making it fun. We've made 2 posters promoting daily PE to display in the library. We surveyed the other students to find out what sports and activities they enjoy most and have led these the last ten days. They include the Beep Test, skills and games, dodgeball, running, basketball, and Catch the Flag. We've also made certificates for everyone who took part, to encourage them to keep active.
Project 3: Bahay Tuluyan Group
We want to help children get off the streets in the Philippines so they can be loved, sheltered and free to do the things they like. We made donation boxes with pictures of the Bahay Tuluyan van which helps children, and asked businesses to help us collect donations in these. We also held a free clothes day at school, and have raised over $360 to help Bahay Tuluyan help street children.
Project 4: Mental Challenges Group
We made giant draught pieces, mega memory cards with big photos, and aprons with naughts or crosses on them. Then on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday we would use these to run lunchtime activities for grades Prep - 6 that got everyone exercising their brains!
Project 5: Second Bite Group
Anna Flittner spoke to us about Second Bite, who pick up the food from Hobart supermarkets that would normally go to waste and distribute it to charities that feed the poor. When we learnt there is no Second Bite in Launceston, we wrote a letter and a survey to send to Launceston supermarkets, asking questions about the food they throw out, and if they would be interested in donating instead. We also made posters to encourage food donation, not waste.
Project 6: Litter-free Lunch Group
We are concerned about our world and how much land-fill we are putting into our environment. We've had two lunchtime litter clean-ups. We made posters to educate others why we need litter free lunch boxes, and a hand-out to go home about 'nude food' without wrappers. We also decided to run a competition for all classes, to see who could create the least amount of rubbish, and made a certificate for that class.