Action is an integral part of the Primary Years Programme (PYP) and an opportunity for students to seek the opportunity to make a significant contribution to their local and global communities. It is a core component of agency and offers learners the ability to see that they can not only make a meaningful contribution to the world around them but also be change-makers. In the PYP, ‘Taking Action’ is broken into five essential elements: Participation, Advocacy, Social Justice, Social Entrepreneurship and Lifestyle Choices. These ideas have been put together to support these elements of action, and to encourage learners to take meaningful action to make a difference in the world.
ACTION IN PYP
ACTION AT DBIS
Aahana displayed action during the unit on Celebrations by making an eco-friendly Ganesh idol with mud and immersing it in a tub of water at home. Promoting the lifestyle choices that need to be made to help our environment.
Senior Kindergarteners decided to spread awareness about the importance of plants during their culmination by choosing to share their understanding with Jr. Kg. Students worked in pairs and individually for their presentation. The entire culmination was student initiated as they used different modes to present like charts, story, skit, songs, survey and so on.
Advocating to support a positive cause Amaira from grade 1 decided to step into the shoes of a cancer patient by sensitising with them during the inquiry Communities thereby displaying the learner profile attribute of being Reflective.
‘When I came to know that there are people who suffer from cancer and they lose all their hair due to chemotherapy, I thought I should try and make a small part of their lives a little bit better, by donating my hair. When the patients wear the wig made with my hair, they might feel happier and more confident. I am grateful that I could do a small part to help my community.’ – Amaira Shah, Grade 1B, DBIS.
Students take up the role of entrepreneurs as they combine their knowledge, skills and understanding from the UOI: Economic system to create sustainable products and services further addressing the UN SDG 11.
Unity of Inquiry: Adaptations and Habitat
As a part of their action plan, students enthusiastically engaged in exploring and using digital tools like Google Slides and Canva to create awareness posters, songs, poems and performed role-play about the endangered species.
Going further they listed ways in which we can act responsibly and help protect these species. They developed an understanding of the key concept of Responsibility through their plan.
Focusing on SDG #3 Good Health and Well Being, the students of Grade 3 created an awareness drive about Covid-19 and ways to prevent it, organ donation and its benefits and ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle. They shared their views through a presentation.
Students of grade 4 took pledges to conserve energy after learning all about their Carbon footprint and understanding its overall impact on our world. Small lifestyle choices can go a long way in achieving sustainability and our future global citizens have demonstrated the ability to be eco warriors in the true sense of the word.
These pledges may seem miniscule yet are formidable to bring about the change our planet truly needs. The students are often seen reusing resources, conserving paper and even talking about carbon dioxide emissions given off by human actions as well as what can be done to offset the carbon footprint.
Taking action: Inquiry - Nutrition
First graders take a positive lifestyle change to maintain their physical, social and mental wellbeing as they respond to their learning during the inquiry Nutrition.
These pledges may seem miniscule yet are formidable to bring about the change our planet truly needs. The students are often seen reusing resources, conserving paper and even talking about carbon dioxide emissions given off by human actions as well as what can be done to offset the carbon footprint
Unit of Inquiry: Poetry and celebration of international women’s day
The students of grade 4 had been exploring the Transdisciplinary theme of ‘How we express ourselves via the Unit of Poetry. In the course of this, they were able to equip themselves with the understanding of expressing themselves through poetry. They explored the types and elements of a poem while glazing their understanding of the same with figurative language. They explored the spectrum of the types of poems from a couplet and limericks, a haiku and found poetry.
On the occasion of Women’s Day, the students glued together their ideas to create poems using found poetry. They worked around the theme: A tribute to the women in our lives.
Advertising Unit Culmination
Giving back to the community is what DBIS strives for, in view of their unit of Advertising our 5th Graders created advertisements supporting several social issues.
One of the groups created advertisements to promote beach cleanliness drive adopted by an organisation named ‘Beach Please India’ and created awareness about the same.
Students passionately worked towards creating awareness about Our Lady’s Home through their advertisement. They displayed respect and empathy towards the children and tried to create awareness about the purpose and need of the organisation positively.
Aaron, Kaavya and Vihaan from grade 5 created a green challenge to spread awareness among the students of the school about Global Warming. Simple tasks were given to the students and they were encouraged to complete it.
A group of students worked on creating an awareness about adoption of dogs through their ad. They also created posters and distributed them in their locality.