Eco Explorers use critical thinking skills with question exercise
Campers began the day with putting the six cores values they came up with the previous day as a class  on the wall. Students made a flag to represent one of each of the values: kindness, patience, responsible, fun, respect, and listen. Eco Teacher Rachel Johnson discussed the core value “respect.” What does that mean as a core value? The class agreed it not only meant to respect others, but to respect themselves and our environment.
The class put on their thinking caps and took a look at the QFT process: Question focus, Produce your questions, improve your questions, strategize, and reflect. The question of focus was “Changes in the environment can create challenges for all living things. It can also create opportunities for humans to be agents of change.”
“Ask as many questions as you can,” said Johnson. “Do not stop, judge or answer, and record exactly as stated.” Before getting started the class had a very thoughtful discussion on open versus close-ended questions as well as examples of each.
Campers broke up into groups and were given three minutes to come up with as many questions as possible to the question of focus.
Jackson, Mia, and Benjamin had a handful of questions before the timer stopped: “What can changing the environment do?”, “What would a possible challenge be, other than people trying to fix the problems they caused?”, “Can a challenge like pollution also affect humans?”, and “How does pollution affect the earth?”
After a great discussion, Johnson played a teamwork game. With each camper and teacher holding a toy half-pipe, the group had to roll a ball down the pipes by putting them together to reach a bucket on the other end of the classroom. After a few failed attempts, this group was determined! It was quite entertaining and amazing to watch how the group came up with a planned strategy and finally success at three different distance levels. Way to go Team Eco!Â
