Last week I was working with a primary-age student at Oddicombe beach. We were originally there to do a litter pick in order to note and survey what we found, but once at the beach, my student grew greatly distracted by the sea. If he stood in the same spot, what would happen?, he asked.
This opened up a conversation: was it going in, or out? How could we tell? How could we measure it?
We put our litter pickers down and began getting creative with thinking about how we could measure and observe the outgoing tide.
Sitting down amongst the wet sand, we did the age-old strategy of building miniature battlements and defenses to mark its path, noting down the time between the intervals. Was it going over our battlements, or was it struggling to reach them? Shall we do another line, and see if it can reach that?
A moment of ‘I wonder’ opened up a line of inquiry, and we pursued it.
We also tried this with our toes and feet but did end up getting quite soggy. But who can resist, in the name of science and adventure?
Sometimes, we don’t always stick to the plan. We continued the litter pick afterwards, but it was this child-led moment of wonder that felt like the most meaningful learning moment of the day — working 1-1, we had the freedom to explore and nourish these questions.
