Teacher Resources
The Schoolgen website is linked to best practice in teaching and learning in New Zealand and across the world. As part of the Genesis Energy's “Hello Tomorrow” programme we want to support teachers, students and their parents with key information which we see being used in a variety of ways, but particularly in the context of Inquiry Learning for teachers and students.
The Schoolgen resources have been developed to align closely with the New Zealand curriculum. The strong links to the key curriculum areas of the New Zealand Curriculum are:
- The Vision with young people wanting to be actively involved contributing to the well-being of New Zealand.
- The Principles of Future Focus with future focussed issues of sustainability and globalisation being at the heart of the website focus.
- The Values to be encouraged, modelled and explored are innovation, inquiry and curiosity which have a very strong link to ecological sustainability, which includes care for the environment.
- And The Key Competencies of Participating and Contributing with students being supported in their learning within a global context.
As your school goes through the process of developing Effective Pedagogy the content of the Schoolgen programme will be of real value. We are embarking on the same journey. We have created resources to support and empower teachers and engage students with particularly strong links to Science, Social Sciences and Technology.
The Schoolgen site provides Electricity Generation Data, Glossaries, Teacher-led Activities (lesson plans), Student Fact Sheets and Independent Student Inquiries. The Teacher's Resource Table provides an overview and access to all of the Schoolgen learning resources.
The Schoolgen website provides up-to-date data (tables and graphs) recording the amount of electricity generated by photovoltaic panels in Schoolgen Schools. Some of the Schoolgen activities focus on developing students' skills in interpreting this data and building their understandings of how fluctuations in power generation are related to a range of factors and variables.
Even if your school does not have the solar panels you can still use the electricity data from other schools on the Schoolgen website in your classroom.
The Schoolgen programme is designed to make a difference.
The Activity Developers
The Schoolgen activities were developed by Lift Education in partnership with a number of experts from the education sector. We would particularly like to acknowledge the contribution of the following people:
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Dr Gillian Turner, senior lecturer in physics and geophysics, Victoria University of Wellington
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Rex Bartholomew, senior lecturer in science education, Victoria University of Wellington
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Pam Jones, educator for Enviroschools
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Sue Campbell, primary school teacher
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Judith Morrogh, secondary school social science teacher
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Sarah Edwards, secondary school science teacher
