Venue: Big Barn Farm
Program Type: Full-Day Experiential Systems and Sustainability Investigation
Age Group: Cambridge Primary Stage 4 (9–10 years)
Duration: Full-Day
Focus: Resource flow, interdependence, ecological balance, human influence, sustainability evaluation
Cambridge Primary Science (Stage 4 – Living Things and Energy):
• Describe food chains and energy transfer
• Explain how changes in an environment affect living things
• Investigate variables affecting growth and survival
• Identify cause-and-effect relationships within systems
• Use evidence to support explanations
Cambridge Primary Geography (Stage 4):
• Analyse how people manage natural resources
• Evaluate environmental impact of human actions
• Compare sustainable and unsustainable practices
Cambridge Primary English (Stage 4 – Speaking and Writing):
• Present structured explanations
• Justify opinions with reasons and evidence
• Participate in analytical discussion
“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, human influence, ecological balance, and system vulnerability.
The inquiry arc progresses through:
System Observation → Resource Analysis → Impact Evaluation → Ethical Reflection
Students evaluate not only how farms function, but how responsible decisions sustain or destabilise ecosystems.
• Research – structured documentation and categorisation
• Thinking – systems analysis and risk evaluation
• Communication – evidence-based explanation
• Social – collaborative synthesis
• Self-Management – responsible field conduct
Students will:
• Analyse resource inputs and outputs within a farm ecosystem
• Identify interdependent relationships across trophic levels
• Examine how infrastructure influences ecological balance
• Evaluate human responsibility in sustaining systems
• Record structured field evidence
• Construct systems flow models
Students will:
• Map a farm ecosystem including energy and 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 evidence
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