Nick Jackson, Maths teacher at Poynton High School shares his student buddy experience with a Kunskapsskolan inspired school in New York.

 

“If you had to work with someone from another country for the first time, you could do something like this first before you moved to get the job,”

said Jamie, a Year 8 student in the UK, reflecting on the video conference  he and three of his peers had just had with four students in the USA.

Following the completion of a task comparing the weather in New York, USA, with the weather in Manchester in the UK (which included writing an advertisement for the city in their own country), students got the opportunity to share their ideas with students from the other country.

One of the challenges they faced was that in the US temperature is measured in Fahrenheit, whereas in the UK Celsius is the accepted unit of measure. “Which city was colder,” they were asked, “Manchester in January 2010 (-17.6°C) or New York in February 2015 (2°F)?”

Students began scribbling calculations down frantically on whiteboards to convert between the units, before holding their answers up in front of the webcam to show to their new work buddies across the Atlantic.

“It came out so quickly when they worked it out,” said Jamie, “it looked like they had done it before.”

As they discovered, there was very little difference between the two temperatures – less than 1 degree …Celsius! Afterwards, excited, the students considered the benefits of collaborating with schools in other countries.

“I want to be an architect. This could help me in the future,”

said Ben in the UK.

“I’m quite interested in travelling and different cultures,”

pondered Alyssia,

“exercises like this would build your confidence and communication with people.”

Although this is only the beginning, for these eight pioneering students the world feels now a little smaller. And it is a world where anything is possible.