Exhibiting Excellence: Year 7 Explorations On Display
12th December 24
This term, for their STEM Exploration, Year 7 students have been working towards answering the question, ‘How can we survive and thrive on a deserted island?’ As Term drew to a close they hosted an exhibition which didn’t just show their outcomes, but everything they’ve learnt along the way.
What’s in an Exploration?
This Exploration provided students with an engaging, interdisciplinary learning experience. Students explored survival through the lens of various subjects. In Humanities, they learned about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and analysed the difference between surviving and thriving. They also flexed their creative muscles in English, writing about their fictional islands and their own survival story.
In Geography and Maths, they developed map making skills, including learning about scales, coordinates, and contours, and studied how latitude influenced forest types and the plants and animals within them.
In Science, students engaged in practical activities like fire-making, water filtration, creating natural toothpaste, and dissecting fish to understand survival at a biological level.
The Design component fostered both functionality and creativity as students both built strong shelters and created art using natural materials.
Throughout the Exploration, students built skills in creative thinking, communication, and collaboration as they worked together to solve survival challenges, present their journey through maps and writing, and create innovative solutions to thrive on the island. The project wove academic knowledge with hands-on learning, offering students an immersive way to understand survival.
The end of Exploration exhibition invited parents to come in and allowed the students to showcase all of their work. They each had a presentation board to show their maps and written work and then took on demonstration duties for the different practical skills they’d learnt.
Student view
Layla told us about her experience of learning through Explorations: ““I thought it was really fun researching and looking at different climates for our island environment and I loved the science experiments which helped us find out about different ways to keep water clean. I like doing experiments so that we’re not just being told something, we have to figure it out.”
Sarah saw the benefits of the learning too: “Explorations have been really enjoyable – I came into Year 7 from another school so I’ve not experienced this type of project before. We learnt about all the important parts of survival, but we also learnt collaboration skills. If you treat your team how you want to be treated, you’re more likely to get things done.”
Marley was serving rosehip and rowanberry tea at the exhibition: “During this exploration we have had to use a lot of creativity, for example we had to draw 2D maps and make 3D maps so we had to learn about co-ordinates and scale. We had to work in groups, so we also had to collaborate. We’ve looked at science of survival, maths to make the maps and in English we’ve written the story of our island. It hasn’t felt like a lesson, it’s been fun, and I’ve learnt a lot. Socially it was nice to get closer to my friends and while you’re improving you’re also doing fun stuff.”
Parent view
Parents who came to the exhibition were treated to demonstrations of natural toothpaste making, fish filleting, water filtration and shelter building. They were served hot home-made herbal tea to keep the cold at bay and had a cosy campfire to warm themselves around.
Julia told us: “I loved the exhibition today! It’s great to see what the students have been doing and how they’ve implemented the learning. What I love about Explorations is how it draws from the different subjects and translates that into topics which are real life examples, rather than abstract ones. For me that interdisciplinary learning is very important and the fact that they get the chance to do it here is unique.”
Laura has seen real benefits in this style of learning for her son: “Because it’s so immersive he’s been really enthusiastic about it. Things like drawing maps and all the elements, because it has a purpose he’s been very self motivated with the tasks. He’s learnt to fillet a fish and start a fire and I think those experiences consolidates the learning of things like coordinates and the science side of things because there is a real outcome. He enjoys it and is very enthusiastic about it – it’s not all whiteboards and worksheets.
You can watch a video about Explorations here:
