For Focus Day on Thursday, our students were divided into groups and spent the day focusing on the senses. Each class had a focus on one specific sense and the students were given various activities centred around using that sense and discovering its importance.
P.E – Sight:
In P.E. the focus was on sight. The students experienced Goal Ball – a paralympic sport for the visually impaired. The game involved the teammates wearing blindfolds and using a sound ball. The aim was to defend the ball as a team to prevent the opposing team from scoring. This game helped to demonstrate the importance of sight.
Maths and Art – Touch:
Maths and Art teamed up and focused on touch. During this lesson, students were making flextangles. They created patterns on a piece of paper and then folded them into flextangles, which are made up of 24 isosceles triangles. The purpose of this was for the students to see the significance of touch.
Biology and Chemistry – Taste and Smell:
In the combined Biology and Chemistry class, students were discovering the importance of taste and smell. They played a game of Jelly Bean Beanboozled, while blindfolded, to see if they could identify the different flavours without being able to visually identify them. They then took turns playing with pegs on their noses to see whether a lack of smell would alter the taste of the sweets. Students were also experimenting with making esters by combining a variety of compounds and considering what smell they produced. These activities exhibited the significance of taste and smell, how the two are connected, and whether one is affected if the other isn’t being used.
Music and Physics – Hearing:
In a combined Music and Physics class, students studied the physics and effects of sound on the human condition: Its physical attributes as well as the emotional impact of music. Students watched a demonstration of music creation from singer, composer, producer and YouTube sensation Rachel K Collier and were then introduced to music technology using MIDI devices and trigger pads to create their own mixes, samples and productions.
