The Lyceum is currently engaged in an etwinning project with an Italian school. In this etwinning project the Maltese students are studying a Maltese ecosystem, while the Italian students are studying an Italian ecosystem. Finally, the students compare and contrast both ecosystems. But how can they do this if they are far away from each other? The answer is ICT. The internet, emails, and electronic communication can make all this possible. Josephine Ebejer Grech who is the Biology teacher at the Hamrun Junior Lyceum, found an Italian partner from the ‘twin finder’ section of the etwinning web site. They both decided that they want their students to work on ecology. One of the reasons is that the students need more hands on learning and field work observations to learn about species that are common in their respective countries. 14 students volunteered to participate from the Maltese side, and 16 students from the Italian side. The Maltese students are: Andre Portelli, Matthew Mintoff, Paul Vella, Joseph Bellizzi, Andrew Portelli, Neville Micallef, Nico Caruana, Christian Borg, Steve Mifsud, Kurt Bugeja, Dion Gauci, Ryan Saliba, Joshua Vella, and Ryan Darmanin.
The Maltese students chose part of the woodland in Buskett as their ecosystem to be studied. They were briefed by their teacher and wrote the first chapter of this project “What is an ecosystem” and “Which are the major ecosystems that one can find in the Maltese islands?”.
The next step was for them to go on location to start the work. They visited Buskett on Sundays, when they could not miss any other important lessons. The parents were asked to accompany their children, and these too were involved in the fieldwork. The students had to first, sample the area by quadrat methods. Then, they started counting the number of species and list the species richness and diversity. Later, the students were given handouts to fill in with information of their observations. Finally the students ended up with lots of handouts full of information.
Back at school, the teacher collected all the information, and prepared power point presentations with summarised information. During the fieldworks, the students were filmed, so the editing also had to be done.
Chapter 2 was written. This involves the methodology adopted for the studies. It also contains the full list of species encountered and their numbers. These are accompanied by photos.
Chapter 3 is dedicated to the information found about each species. This information was prepared as a power point presentation and sent to the Italian group. From these, we received their power point as well.
Chapter 4 includes all the handouts given to the students to fill in. These are categorised according to trees, plants, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals.
Chapter 5 includes more information, and Chapter 6 is the conclusion. In this chapter the students, together with their teacher, compared and contrasted both Maltese and Italian ecosystems. The Italians studied trees that we don’t find in Malta, and vice versa. The Maltese were so astonished when they heard from the Italians, that they have no chameleon in their country, but some are found in Sicily. The students analysed differences in temperature, humidity and soil type and accounted for certain plants growing in one ecosystem and not in another, and so on. . .
The seventh and final chapter includes information about all the students. It also includes a hard copy of the power points, and links to the blog and web site that the students did. The address of the blog is:
http://malteseecosystem.blogspot.com.
and the address of the web sites are :
http://my.twinspace.etwinning.net/ecosystem?l=en,
and
http://hamrunlyceum.multiply.com
This was a very enjoyable experience. The professional relationship between the teacher, parents and students got better, and there is more mutual respect. Apart from this, all learnt from the fieldworks and from the comparisons with the Italian ecosystem.
On the 22nd February, a small ceremony was held at the Hamrun Lyceum, where the parents of the students who participated in the etwinning project were invited. The ceremony started when Ms Josephine Ebejer Grech (biology teacher) welcomed the parents and students and presented a power point presentation to explain what the project involved by referring to every single chapter. Then, the students made their own presentations to the audience, regarding the species that they studied, and the DVD was shown. The head master made a speech and presented a certificate to every student. Then, all the parents and students were invited for a small reception.
Later on that day, Ms Ebejer Grech flew to Brussels together with 7 other teachers and heads of schools, to attend the annual etwinning awards conference. Once there, Josephine was surprised to see that the video of her students was the Maltese video chosen to be viewed by 400 heads of schools, teachers and National Support Service people from all over Europe. There was great applause and it was evident that this work was highly appreciated. Many members had good comments about this project and many teachers from different countries asked to join this project.
