Central Idea: Human decisions influence the sustainability, balance, and resilience of interconnected living systems.
Age Group: PYP 4 (8–10 years)
Duration: Full-Day Systems and Sustainability Inquiry
Venue: Big Barn Farm
Learning Style: Concept-driven • Analytical • Evidence-based • Reflective
Includes: Pre Tour, On Tour and Post Tour Activities
“Balancing the System” positions Big Barn Farm as a real-world sustainability case study. Students move beyond observing needs and food chains to analysing resource flow, power structures, ethical responsibility, and system vulnerability.
The day follows a structured inquiry arc:
System Observation → Resource Analysis → Impact Evaluation → Ethical Reflection
Students investigate not only how farms function, but how they sustain or destabilise ecological balance.
• Research – structured field documentation and categorisation
• Thinking – systems analysis, cause-effect chains, risk evaluation
• Communication – evidence-based argumentation
• Social – collaborative synthesis and peer critique
• Self-Management – independent inquiry and responsible conduct
Students will:
• Analyse resource inputs and outputs within a farm ecosystem
• Identify interdependent relationships across trophic levels
• Examine how infrastructure shapes ecological balance
• Evaluate human power and responsibility in sustaining systems
• Record structured field evidence
• Construct systems flow models
Students will:
• Map a farm ecosystem including resource flow
• Identify at least two sustainability risks
• Explain one adaptation within ecological context
• Analyse one human intervention and its long-term impact
• Propose one sustainability improvement
• Justify conclusions using field evidence
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