Stephen Buckley

2024 Semester One Spark Program: For Years 5 & 6 Students | Your 14 Subject Choices!

2024 Semester One Spark Program: For Years 5 & 6 Students | Your 14 Subject Choices!

Dear Parents, Carers & Years 5-6 Students,

Please find below our 2024 Semester One Spark Flyer outlining the 14 subject choices on offer.

There are some favourites carried over from last year and some great new additions too!

Please make some time to read through ALL the Spark options carefully.

Students will submit their preferences this week and class teachers will assist with this process.

The hardest decision will be choosing your favourite…

THANK YOU and kind regards,

Mrs Joelene Anderson
Teacher & Coordinator of Community & Leadership (Prep – Year 6)

2024 Canterbury College - Spark Learning Subjects - Semester 1 - A4 Flyer PDF

3D MOVIE ANIMATION | Ms Kristy Blinco

Do you like making movies? Designing characters and stories? Do you love art and design? Then this subject is for you! Students will work collaboratively to create their own stop-motion characters, design and create sets and props for their movie, and finally, film and edit their motion picture. Become a storyteller to make your characters and world come to life through stop-motion animation.

$20 BOSS | Mrs Joelene Anderson

This immersive program introduces students to the exciting world of entrepreneurship, and inspires them to become innovators. They will work in teams to identify problems, create product or service solutions, and turn their ideas into a real business! This subject promotes critical and creative thinking while embedding financial capability. It will equip students for their future careers and empower them to forge their own pathways. Students will set up market stalls and promote their products and services at the Spark Expo.

MISSION TO MARS | Mrs Sharna Te Hau

Imagine 50 years into the future and we need to find alternative settlements to cater for our ever-growing population. Spacefaring organisations seek to establish a settlement on Mars. Students will need to consider key factors around establishing this settlement – such as getting there (exploring rockets); the complexities of landing on Mars; Mars rovers; daily operations; human factors and automation. They will create the settlement’s structural designs and infrastructure using Minecraft. Students will unveil their individual and collaborative solutions, and pitch their designs and ideas at the Spark Expo.

FAST FASHION | Ms Juanita Purvis

This unit allows students to lead an inquiry into how the clothes we buy, use and throw away can impact the environment. They will investigate ways to ‘upcycle’ clothing and its link to protecting our environment. Students will explore possible solutions to the problem of clothing ending up in landfill, which may include a clothing swap event or clothing repair stall. They will design and create ways to upcycle old clothing items to transform them into new useable products.

JUNIOR CREATORS LEARNING LAB | Mrs Emma Crooks

Do you love creating games and activities? Would you like to work with teachers to help our younger students with their learning? Then this course is for you! Students will begin by interviewing Prep teachers to find the most important skills their students require for Maths and English. They will then research, problem solve, design and create fun activities that support our younger learners in the classroom. Participants have the wonderful opportunity to work with younger students to trial and refine their activities and aid their teaching process.

BODYWISE EXPLORERS | Mr Michael Brown

This is an exciting, interactive and physical learning journey through the fascinating realm of the human body. In this course, students will unravel the science of the human body – how it works and how we can get the best out of it! Through hands-on activities, experiments, investigations and research, they will gain a profound understanding of the body’s mechanics. Participants will test themselves physically and creatively to self-design a health program, as well as supportive ‘easy to build’ equipment from everyday objects.

INTERNATIONAL SPACE FARM | Mrs Therese Higgins

Food security is a global issue. We MUST have food available, it must be affordable, and good enough to provide the nutrition we need to be healthy. Students will focus on the difficulties faced when growing food crops and consider developing an International Space Farm as a solution. This farm may be based on a station orbiting the Earth, on another planet, or even a moon! Students will investigate what’s required for designing and operating an International Space Farm – creating the farm itself; what crops they could grow; what they need to grow these crops; and how they will harvest, store and distribute the crop yields.

RECYCLE, REPURPOSE & REINVIGORATE | Mr Ben Woolacott

This unit will expose students to the endless opportunities that repurposing technology affords society. They will work in small teams to solve everyday problems, by building devices that recycle, repurpose and reinvigorate technology. Students will scavenge their required materials from previously used technology to signify the importance of recycling in contemporary society.

COMMUNITY AWARENESS ADVENTURE | Miss Courtney Jones

This unit allows students to investigate current community issues and bring awareness of these to others through storytelling. The learning journey begins with students working collaboratively with younger students to design and build a character. This character will become the explorer of a community issue. From research gathered, a storybook will be created where the character will be confronted with the community issue and learn valuable lessons and ways to help solve the problem throughout the story.

CREATIVE COMMUNITIES | Ms Lauren Steer

Students will be introduced to the foundations of working with clay to create clay pots for permanent outdoor display at Canterbury College. Students will work together to create pieces that represent what it means to be part of our community, incorporating elements from the kitchen garden. They will research different perspectives to help them design, develop and refine their ceramic pieces, to showcase their skills and understanding. Learning a variety of hand-building and finishing techniques, students have the opportunity to create clay pieces that grow our sense of community and environmental awareness.

TECHNO TALES: A Journey Into AI Powered Sci-Fi Creation | Mr James Jenkins

Techno Tales looks at the genre of science fiction. Students will begin by studying sci-fi stories and then embark on creating their own. Generative AI will be used throughout this creation process, from expanding ideas, to guiding the storytelling process, to building the graphics. By the end of the course, students will have created a polished science fiction story in a multimedia format.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES | Mr Ben Edwards

Students will use the problem-solving process of ‘explore, develop, generate and evaluate’ to create a website for the Canterbury House Cup. They will conduct research that informs their design, then plan, manage and implement it, to produce a full working product capable of appearing in MyCC. Students will learn a range of skills including HTML/CSS, standard coding, graphic design, and general IT. They will explore existing ideas and meet with stakeholders to develop design concepts. Student will further refine their designs, before presenting this to stakeholders and generating their final solution.

INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY SKILLS | Mr Matt Beiers

This topic allows students to explore their creative side while designing and building. Students will make two items: a timber pencil box with a pivoting lid and a Tangrams puzzle. They will learn about product design, manipulating timber and cutting out basic timber joinery, laser cutting, and creating and drawing solutions. Toward the end of the course, students will have the opportunity to visit younger classes to present their work and set challenges for students to complete.

PROFIT FROM PLANTS | Mr Paul Penny

This unit will teach students gardening skills and plant propagation techniques to give them a ‘green thumb’. It will also welcome them to the leisurely and productive world of self-sufficiency. In addition, they will explore how they can make money from these enjoyable pursuits. Students will produce a variety of plant and gardening products to market and sell at the Spark Expo.

by Stephen Buckley