Leeds schools team up for robots and recycling

Leeds primary school pupils joined forces with children in Mexico, the USA and Norway for a robot-making project with a twist.
PIC: James HardistyPIC: James Hardisty
PIC: James Hardisty

The year two children at Featherbank Primary School in Horsforth made the models from recyclable materials before swapping photographs and judging the other classes’ models.

Teacher Stephanie Robinson said: “The children all loved it! My class did their robots as a homework project but other schools approached this in different ways. All teachers reported that children were very engaged and enthusiastic.

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“The Mexican and USA schools used Skype to look at each others’ models.

PIC: James HardistyPIC: James Hardisty
PIC: James Hardisty

“There was a growing realisation that the children in the countries were just like us even though they lived far away from us and some spoke a different language. In the current international climate I think this is perhaps the most important thing to come from the project.

“I got in touch with the Norwegian teacher through a fellow Leeds United fan on Twitter and we communicated initially via direct messaging before linking our children to become penpals.”

The three winners from Featherbank were Hassan Nawaz, Alina Newton and Betsy Allenby.

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Alina said: “I was really excited when I won because I didn’t think I would. I liked what the children in the other schools used to make their robots.”

PIC: James HardistyPIC: James Hardisty
PIC: James Hardisty

Betsy said: “I was happy that I won but also happy for the other children that won because their robots were really, really good.

“I realised that the children in the other countries are just like us.”

Hassan said: “I enjoyed looking at the other peoples’s robots because I liked the materials they used and I liked the light-up robots that worked.”

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The project included Hartland North Elementary School in Wisconsin, Jardin de Niños Jean Piaget in Ciudad Victoria in Mexico and Jørstadmoen Skole in Norway. Mrs Robinson said: “The world has become a smaller place in many ways due to ease of transport and communication so it’s vital that young people also bridge that gulf in understanding and realise we have more similarities than differences between us.”