Table 4 Third Workshop design: Te Whare Toka ō Paerangi (A look to the Tectonic Rock Cycle)

3. Te Whare Toka o Paerangi (Mt. Ruapehu: Paerangi’s house of stone)

Theatre-dance: māori and/or the scientific story performing through body sensitization and somatic dance exercises. A free-style movement was guided to recreate the tectonic Rock Cycle, the action of water and wind on rocks. According to the physical processes experienced with the body, the scientific explanation was provided either during the dance or in short pauses used for discussion circles. At the end of the movement-session a discussion circle served to construct concepts about igneous and sedimentary rocks, erosion, metamorphic rocks, and the tectonic rock cycle as Earth’s recycling processes.

Ruaumoko, Te Whare toka o Paerangi

Earth Dynamics, Surface processes and the Tectonic Rock Cycle.

Lesson in the classroom drawing the Rock-Cycle process and explaining each step. This explanation occurred with continuous questioning from the students.

Laboratory class: children were grouped in different teams according to age. A rock sample representing each rock-type was given to each group for observation and description. The teacher provided the name of each rock, and a representative of each team exposed the observations and the location of each rock within the cycle to the rest of the teams. An additional aid was the exhibition of thin-section pictures of each rock-type on a screen.

Pictures and new vocabulary.