14 October 2024
Exploring Carbon Emissions in Schools with the New Barefoot 'Carbon Quest' Resource - Primary TC meeting
If you were unable to join us for the latest CAS Primary Thematic Community meeting on the new Carbon Quest resource, don’t worry! You can catch up on all the content and a recording of the session below.
Key Takeaways:
- The Carbon Quest resource introduces students to both scientific inquiry and programming.
- The focus is on investigating carbon emissions in schools, linked to technology use.
- The resource is designed as either a 90-minute session or two shorter lessons, covering science and computing.
- Scratch programming is used to animate and share students’ findings with the wider community.
- The session also highlighted Barefoot’s 10th anniversary.
The CAS Primary Thematic Community meeting was an insightful deep dive into a new resource aimed at helping teachers engage their pupils with both scientific inquiry and computing. Led by Ben Davies, Primary Computing Subject Lead at CAS, the session explored the Carbon Quest resource, which is now available on the Barefoot website.
The meeting kicked off with a general introduction to CAS and Barefoot, providing an overview of the organisation's role in supporting teachers with high-quality computing education. Barefoot is especially designed for primary school teachers, offering a wealth of resources that help bring the computing curriculum to life in fun and engaging ways. With its 10th birthday approaching, Barefoot continues to deliver new resources that appeal directly to primary educators.
The session then focused on the Carbon Quest resource, designed to help pupils investigate their school’s carbon emissions related to technology use. The resource offers a flexible lesson plan—spanning 90 minutes or two shorter lessons—which integrates both science and computing. The first part of the lesson encourages pupils to ask questions, collect data, and analyse it using Scratch programming. The second part introduces programming through a pre-existing Scratch project, which pupils modify to share the findings of their scientific inquiry with the wider community.
An important takeaway was how Carbon Quest fosters cross-curricular learning. It blends elements of scientific inquiry—such as hypothesising, data collection, and analysis—with computing skills, particularly around programming and animation. Pupils gain a real-world understanding of carbon emissions while developing essential digital skills. The resource also promotes critical thinking, as pupils are encouraged to explore ways to reduce carbon emissions within their school.
In addition to discussing Carbon Quest, the session also marked Barefoot’s 10th anniversary. To celebrate the milestone, Barefoot is inviting schools to join in the festivities by sharing their best jokes. Whether it’s from a school, class, pupil, or teacher, you can take part by designing funny posters, filming short clips, or even using Barefoot’s ScratchJr Knock Knock Joke Activity. You can also adapt adapt this Scratch filethat we have created for the celebration.
To get involved, simply share your jokes on social media, tagging Barefoot and using #Barefoot10. Alternatively, you can send your entries directly to the Barefoot team. A winning joke will be selected on Friday, 1st November, with a fantastic prize up for grabs. So, warm up those funny bones and get ready to make Barefoot’s birthday celebration a truly memorable (and hilarious) one!