Destination Chocolate – Mountain Movers Education

Summary:

Part of the Planet Earth and Me Project (“multisensory hybrid learning project that aims to not only develop skills and learning but also encourage our learner’s participation in society as active global citizens. By developing their understanding of the world from past to present day, the challenges different communities and environments face and the power their decisions can make in addressing these challenges. “)

Destination Chocolate took place during the long winter COVID lockdown and was a mixture of weekly zoom sessions with a home learning kit of materials to enable further activities and learning to be complete each week in between our weekly zoom sessions.

What We Did

Using the almost universal love of chocolate amongst children, this project was a journey to Magical Mexico, past, present and future!

We looked at the popularity of chocolate over the world and held a survey to see what the most popular chocolate was in our community.

Next, we discovered the history the chocolate and found ourselves in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. Exploring their wonderful temples and learning different aspects of their society and beliefs which included the sacred Cacao Pods! The swift destruction of this Aztec Empire by Western Invaders who took brought the Cacao back to Europe which eventually evolved into our beloved chocolate.

We grow our own planets from seeds in jam jars so we could see the entire growing process and learn the basic needs of plants. We then came to understand the delicate needs of Cacao Trees.

This led us to learn about Mexico’s climate and the present-day challenges facing Cacao Farmers and the people of Mexico as a whole.

The children then developed their understanding of the impact our choices can make and discussions around future predictions for Mexico and Cacao Plants, what can we do to help?

“This was a great project, full of knowledge and lots of fun.”
Anonymous Feedback

The Results

The Project was a huge success!

We conducted anonymous online surveys at the beginning and the end of the project here are the key results.

At the start of the project, 90% of the children did not understand what being a global citizen meant.

At the end of the project, 92% of the children not only understood, they also reported feeling more connected to Mexico.

In the beginning, 62% of the children reported feeling lonely of which 25% reported feeling super lonely. 35% of the children also stated they were not happy or comfortable with taking part in virtual lessons. By the end of the project, there was a huge improvement, 92% of the children reported feeling lonely rarely or not at all thanks to taking part in the project. 65% reported feeling more connected to their home education community thanks to the project. 88% of the children felt happy and confident engaging with virtual lessons.

ALL the children reported their enjoyment of the project as good or higher, with 88% rating it as very good!