Yesterday (Wednesday 20th February), we had Gyan's father Garrick join us to talk to the children about Anthropology. We would like to thank Garrick so much for his contribution to our understanding of culture and sharing his own knowledge and experience with us.
Anthropology is the study of people and we learnt that the word comes from the Greek words Anthropos meaning man/humanity and -logia meaning 'study'.
Garrick showed us photographs of Papau New Guinea where he has worked over the past twenty years. We saw photographs of some of the features of Papau New Guinean culture including their houses on stilts, the pigs that they keep in enclosures because they have to raise their own food, people weaving bags out of plants, and their primary form of transport which is wooden canoes to travel around the rivers. We also learnt that they suffer from a lot of bush fires so to protect their homes they burn the grass around the communities. This also keeps the dangerous animals like snakes further from their homes.
We found it facinating to learn about the Papau New Guinean culture and make some connections and identify the differences between their culture and ours in Australia.
If there is someone in your family who can share their expertise with us in some of the areas below we would love to have them come and speak in our Neighbourhood.
Our Inquiry is unfolding in three different directions with regard to how we can have a positive impact on our Culture. These will become the three projects for our Inquiry and the children will be writing persuasive letters to us this week in order to be selected into one of the projects. Children with strengths in other forms of literacy may have the opportunity to also provide an oral recording of their persuasive text or a drawing etc. A third party will assist in reading the letters and selecting the three groups.
1. Sustainability and gardening (knowing how to care for our environment and grow our own food can make a very large difference to our global culture).
2. Me and My World (rights and responsibilities). Knowing myself and accepting myself allows me to accept others and positively contribute to my culture. Where do I fit in to the various cultures I belong to?
3. Where do we come from (family histories and stories, appreciating other cultures through stories and history).
We are very excited to be embarking on this Inquiry and seeing where the children take it. We welcome ideas from everyone.
Thank you,
Simone and the Year Two Team.
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