The Kindergarten has been working with university partners – Core Labs, Office of Sustainability, HSE and Averda, to develop learning spaces for the young students.
The KAUST Waste Management team and KAUST’s partner, Averda, have developed the Kindergarten Reuse Center. The Center aims to develop an awareness of waste management, the importance of recycling, and a better understanding of the importance of mindfulness in relation to our planet’s limited resources. The Reuse Center will be provided with materials on an ongoing basis, and other KG learning spaces – Tinker Lab, Art Studio, and the maker spaces in the classrooms, can source materials from the center. “Our students have used the space to learn about repurposing materials during the learning unit on ‘Sharing the Planet’, they have recycled materials to make their own computers as part of Computer Science Education Week, and they have made use of materials in the Art Studio, to discover ways to be creative as part of the ‘How We Express Ourselves’ learning unit”. Tiffany Hill, Kindergarten Principal.
In partnership with colleagues at the university’s Core Labs, the Kindergarten teachers have developed a Kore Lab space at the school – to introduce students to the concept of research, develop their scientific inquiry skills, and undertake investigations to better understand the world around them. Indeed – many of the students are already familiar with the idea of laboratories, as their scientist parents work in them!
As part of the project, students visited a number of labs at the university, where they explored some of the tools and equipment that are used, the safety and protective clothing that is needed, the experiments that are taking place, and how scientists use their senses to observe things. The children are now learning to think like scientists in their own Kore Lab!
These spaces support Kindergarten’s STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) program.