Salty Sea Water to Drinking Water MYP-1

ATL (Approaches to Learning) Skills are one of the most important aspects of Education, in today’s day and age. A zoom into the MYP Year 7 Classroom last week and you see students putting their ATL Skills into practice during their presentation of their Assignments.

The students were given an assignment which really put their Critical Thinking skills into action. The assignment asked them to think of a hypothetical situation of being stranded on an island. They were given a set of tools – Rocks, Matchsticks, Spade, 2 Buckets, Pump, Tube and a Towel, and by using each of these, they would have to get clean drinking water out of the salty sea water.

Each student probably took back their assignments, scratching their heads, and hoping for an easier way. Come the day of their presentation, each student had different results of how they could get clean drinking water out of sea water, with these tools.

Students came with diagrams of the use of these tools, and presentations to present to the entire class. One student demonstrated their way around the task of making clean drinking water. They would start by lighting a fire with the matchsticks, use the rocks to keep the fire in place, a pump to keep the fire burning consistently, a Bucket to create the gas from the salty water, a towel to cover the gas so that it will not escape, and a tube to take the evaporated drinking water to the other bucket. Likewise, every student had a way of using every single tool that they were given to be able to get drinking water.

Even though, it was one activity out of the many that they are given, it demonstrates their cognitive abilities and even affective skills (self-motivation, perseverance, resilience, mindfulness, concentration). Maybe, they will be taken to the beach to actually put this into practice!

Learning how to learn is vital in all the IB Programmes, and we are proud of everything that our students achieve inside and outside the classroom on a day to day basis.