Using the idea of a water catchment to teach “Water”

Photograph showing the view of Sungei Serangoon (or Serangoon Reservoir) in the direction of its river mouth.

In the run up to the World Water Day, which falls on 22 March, I would like to share my thoughts on how might we teach the secondary 1 topic on “Water” in our geography curriculum. This blog post is the result of field discussions with colleagues of geography over zoom and in person as we delightfully explored the Sungei Serangoon catchment in recent days.

In the lower secondary geography curriculum, the topic of water takes center stage. Water is a strategic and valuable resource in Singapore. Teaching this topic well helps our students gain useful understanding and insight that will go a long way in developing an appreciation of our constraints, innovations and strategies that ensure sustainability.

An organising frame for this topic is to use the hydrological cycle as a starting point. Students are introduced the key processes, water flows and stores. From here, the teacher adopts a “zoom out” perspective to locate various rivers, lakes and oceans in the world. This approach to learning about water skips the critical concept of a “water shed” or a “catchment”, hindering a holistic understanding of other related concepts and processes like resource use (of water), sources of pollution and conservation strategies. As a result, some students learn these sub-topics through rote memorisation of facts unconnected bodies of fact. This gives rise to at best patchy comprehension, and at worst, frustrated and disengaged learning.

I would like to suggest three simple ways to re-make this topic for more engaged teaching and learning.

(A)   Using big ideas and place-based learning

By leveraging the concept of “water resource management within a catchment”, teachers can easily “connect the dots” for students. Almost all secondary schools are located within a water catchment (See Figure 1 below).

Fig 1: Major Waterways in Singapore and their catchments (can you find which catchment does your school belong to?)

          Source: Singapore's Water Solution | Water Conservation in Singapore (ntu.edu.sg)

Teachers can tap on PUB’s Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Programme that was launched in 2006, to understand how quality water bodies enhance liveability (ABC Waters Home (pub.gov.sg).

To further augment this big idea, place-based learning offers an invaluable lens for students to dive into enquiry of an urban environment. The catchment provides a reasonable scale of exploration for secondary school students, both in its breadth and depth. In the terms of breadth, students could explore spatial issues beyond just the precinct or neighbourhood (e.g. a few blocks of flats) or a specific locale (e.g. Jurong Lake). In terms of depth, a catchment provides a thematic approach to understanding a place better (e.g., Singapore River catchment, which naturally includes its history and changes in landuse over time). 

In what follows, I will use the Sungei Serangoon catchment as an example to illustrate what I mean (Figure 2).

Fig 2: Unit concept map on Water - Sungei Serangoon catchment

(B) Differentiating for diverse learners

High ability students may be challenged to use a similar lens to study another water catchment with very different characteristics from the Sungei Serangoon catchment, e.g. Kallang-Marina Basin, which is incidentally our largest catchment and most urbanised one. This would present students with plenty of opportunities to uncover insight into the design, building and maintenance of this unique reservoir. When used as a contrasting example, students are able to discern distinguishing characteristics of both catchment, which is a good exercise in developing critical thinking skills.

For students that require more support in learning, teachers may consider focusing on geographical skills that are a “must learn” for this group of learners, reserving the “good-to-learn” as optional extensions for students who have already demonstrated mastery of core skills. Teachers may also consider giving a light touch of the history of Sungei Serangoon, instead give more time and space for students to learn the content concepts of the current time scale where the spotlight is shone on water as a strategic resource. As content concepts are somewhat recurring between the past and present time frame, doing it this way gives additional time and space for these students to learn.  

(C)    Use of technology in learning  

Armed with personal learning devices, students have ready access to digital apps that efficiently capture and collate data. Below is a non-exhaustive list teachers can consider leveraging.

Suggested app or website	Purpose	Can be used in
Otter.ai	Speech to text conversation	Interviews, oral histories
Chat GPT 3.5	Summaries of interviews	Interviews, oral histories
Google Forms	Survey questionnaire	Surveys, summation and presentation of data
Skitch	Annotations on photographs	Photograph interpretation
Historical maps of Singapore https://libmaps.nus.edu.sg	Landuse changes	Comparing old and new land uses

Conclusion

A quick curriculum re-make of this topic presents a multitude of engagement opportunities for our lower secondary learners to connect more authentically with three prescribed guiding questions of the topic. It offers easy entry points for the teacher to conduct inquiry, more occasions for bite-sized fieldwork, greater flexibility for differentiation and scaffolding, and naturally segues into the use of ed- tech tools and apps.  

The teacher can also progress to teaching the fourth guiding question on water management strategies in a contextualised manner. Now that we have understood the first step to water sustainability comes from ensuring a regular, clean and good quality supply from our reservoirs, how might we manage demand so that we ensure this supply does not run out? 

More importantly, students' appreciation of processes within a catchment helps them to scale up their understanding to a regional water catchment (such as the Amazon River) which ties in with the next topic on tropical rainforest. Eventually, understanding this helps them see how the global water cycle is a critical natural process that is supporting plant, animal and human life on Earth. This underscores the connected nature of our natural systems which undergirds the true essence of a geography curriculum.    

Applying Structures of Knowledge and Process to the new upper sec geography curriculum

 

      In our most recent ST-LT Professional Learning session, we shared with the fraternity about Erickson and Lanning’s ideas of Structure of Knowledge and Structure of Process to support the delivery of the new upper secondary syllabus. What do you need to know about the two structures so that you can enact a concept-based curriculum?

I will share three key points in this blog article:

·       What is a concept-based curriculum?

·       How does the structures of knowledge and process interact with each other?

·       How can we foster professional growth in concept-based instruction?

(1) Many of you are already familiar with the Structure of Knowledge. By contrasting it with the Structure of Process in the diagram below, you can see how the elements of subject areas in the Structure of Process are organized by processes, strategies, and skill instead of topics and facts. Indeed, as you examine the outcomes of Topic 1.3 (Geographical Methods), you find that the learning goals and outcomes are written as things students need to do vs. content concepts they need to know. To move from the lower cognitive levels (of knowing facts and being able to execute skills) to a higher level of transferable understandings (generalizations), both the Structure of Knowledge and the Structure of Process are critical.

You need to consider generalizations in terms of the two Structures when designing curriculum of topics especially when we are thinking about integrating fieldwork experiences (extended or bite-sized) into your lessons. Clearly, a more content-heavy cluster like climate (Structure of Knowledge) also requires that students understand key processes (such as the sampling and collection of weather data). A more process-oriented (Structure of Process) topic on the other hand, such as Geographical Methods, requires students to understand key knowledge about the content concepts in the phenomenon being studied for example, the development of tourism destination. There is an interplay between the two Structures.

(2) Depending on the cluster or topic that you are teaching, one Structure may require more attention than the other so that the authenticity of the topic and learning experience is enhanced. For example, if the sub-topic on organization of neighbourhoods is fronted only with learning concepts of hierarchy, scale and features, essential understandings about how shapes and clusters are used in base maps as secondary data may be ignored.

The new upper secondary curriculum adopts a disciplinary approach to strengthening learning progression which emphasizes continuity from lower secondary to pre-university. Students’ are expected to acquire a more “sophisticated understanding of disciplinary concepts” and “being able to understand more rigorous fieldwork methods over time” (TLS, p 7). Crafting big ideas (or generalization) that reflect important understandings of the processes, strategies, and skills students are expected to perform is therefore imperative.

Using the topic of “How neighbourhoods are organized in Singapore?” in cluster one, you will notice that when the Structure of Knowledge is used together with the Structure of Process, the conceptual curriculum built around content in the Structure of Knowledge now gains depth in the practice and application of the topic. At the same time, having the Structure of Process layered upon the Structure of Knowledge adds salience to the learning of skills, moving it beyond the mere act of “doing” fieldwork to understanding the meaning and significance of fieldwork. 

Cluster 1: Geography in Everyday Life (Topic 1.4: How are neighbourhoods organized in Singapore / Topic 3.3 How to process and analyse data)

(3) So what then can we view professional development of teachers in this Concept-based journey? Erickson et al. (2017) describes four domains in which teachers may evolve:

·       Domain 1 Understanding Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction

·       Domain 2 Concept-based Unit Planning

·       Domain 3 Concept-based Lesson Planning

·       Domain 4 Concept-based Instruction

 

At Domain 1, gaining a sound understanding of CBCI is important and takes time. Teacher leaders can consider supporting colleagues with mentoring and peer coaching, deepening their knowledge with ongoing work and collaboration with experienced Concept-based practitioners. At Domain 2, gaining an understanding of the unit design process and the relationship between different sections of the unit template is critical. Domains 3 and 4 suggest that lesson planning and enactment are critical processes that actualise a natural flow of the many pedagogical considerations in planning and eventual pedagogical moves. These are critical processes that sustain learning even among aspiring and veteran teachers. Having thought through a plan, developed resources of high-quality lessons and getting skilled at facilitating students’ conceptual understandings, the concept-based teacher rounds up his/her learning and growth with self-reflection.  

References:

Erickson H. L., Lanning L. A. & French R. (2017) Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction, Corwin, Thousand Oaks

2023 Upper Secondary Geography Teaching and Learning Syllabus, CPDD, MOE.

https://corwin-connect.com/2016/11/need-know-structure-process/ (Last accessed 27 March 23)

Teaching climate change conceptually

Just a few days ago (2 Mar 23), ST reported that the ability of our land ecosystems are declining in their ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. This spells trouble for mankind. How might we help our students understand the nuanced and inter-related nature of global warming? To do this, it is important to also teach the concepts of feedback loops and tipping point. The article by Climate Reality Project defines climate feedback loops as processes that can either amplify or diminish the effects of climate forcings. Forcings are factors like solar input, greenhouse gas emissions, and airborne particles like dust, smoke, and soot that come from human and natural sources which influence Earth's heat budget. Feedback loops strengthen or weaken the effects of these factors which then starts a cyclical chain reaction all over again. Tipping point is defined as a small change within the (climatic) system that can move a fairly stable system to a very different state.

These are two important steps you can take to help your students uncover these concepts and transfer their learning (Stern et al., 2017, Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).

1) Uncovering concepts (instead of covering content) 

You can consider using the SEEI framework (Paul & Elder, 2013) to help students learn these concepts more effectively. The steps for SEEI are:

1) Provide clear explanations of the target concept(s) e.g. feedback loops and tipping point. You can consider providing a one page overview with elaboration and examples, and or use video clips.

2) Assign students to small groups and ask them read the explanations together with the goal of understanding the target concept(s). Encourage them to ask questions and seek answers using their PLDs.

3) Have them work collaboratively to explain the concepts using SEEI 

• State the idea clearly 
• Elaborate on the idea (in order words ... this also means ... )
• Exemplify (for example ... a non example would be ...)
• Illustrate with a metaphor, analogy or image (it is like ... )

Circulate to provide feedback, encourage students to generate good examples and non-examples, and provide illustrations to the concepts. Do not allow students to use examples embedded in the provided text. Students should come up with their own examples or non-examples to demonstrate understanding.

4)  Students groups can present to the class. For example, some groups can share their statements of the ideas, while others can elaborate or provide examples. You can have more groups share their illustrations as they are more varied than the other elements of SEEI. This is a good time for AfL as students demonstrate their understandings and (mis)understandings.

2)  Transferring knowledge

Transferring knowledge is a critical step in helping students see the world differently. For example, instead of rote learning Topic 3.2 on climate change in the new upper sec syllabus, they would now understand the significance of anthropogenic factors and inter-connectedness between human and natural systems.

After students have uncovered the concepts of feedback loops and tipping point, they need to practice transfer. Consider this next step: Students read articles and watch videos related to the real world phenomena of:

• Melting of permafrost in the Arctic, which is a huge global store of methane and carbon, resulting in the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
• Losing of polar sea ice causing a lowered reflective index (albedo), thereby exposing the darker ocean surface which absorbs heat more readily.
• Die-back of the Amazon rainforests which makes them more susceptible to fires, therefore releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
• Large-scale coral bleaching which reduces the ability of our oceans to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide.  

You can present this inquiry: "Knowing the importance of the inter-connectedness of climate change within our natural systems, how might you design an educational programme to highlight the fact that global warming is more urgent and immediate than we might have imagined?"

Students then work in groups to come up with proposals that take into consideration the inter-connectedness of global warming and immediacy of climate action. They will present their proposals to the class, and discuss how their understanding of concepts such as feedback loops and tipping points influenced their decisions.  

Concluding remarks

While it takes more time and effort to teach conceptually and effect transfer, you can also see that authentic transfer tasks such as the one suggested above make for a meaningful learning experience. Students have the opportunity to learn about authentic real-world examples and collaborate in decision-making that concretise abstract concepts. Instead of merely repeating them without real understanding, you will also see right away if their ability to apply the concepts is weak. 

In summary, concepts and conceptual relationships are like keys to opening treasure chests. These keys are buried in the ground, which have to be uncovered in specific contexts. The transfer task is like the treasure chest, which presents that novel situation to unlock students' conceptual understanding. The burden of uncovering the key, and thinking about how to unlock the treasure chest lies on the learner, not the teacher.

References:

Stern, Ferraro & Mohnkern (2017) Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding, Corwin CA

Wiggins G P & McTighe J (2005) Understanding by Design, Alexandria VA

 The Climate Reality Project (retrieved 4 Mar 23)