Interpretation: Assess your data, make proposals!
Having obtained sensual certainty of the quality of their river, interpretation and consequences now have to be drawn. There are no general procedures for this stage since evaluations are highly dependent on the context. After the ecological checkup of the river (and after the data input into your Book of the river), a score or ecological index is automatically generated. Please don’t consider this to be the final result! Rather, you should use it as the starting point for your evaluation discussions:
- Considering your context, how do you interpret the score? (e.g. headwaters versus a river in the flat country with a lot of indystry)? Which values form the basis for your interpretation?
- What is your perception of the investigative procedures and analysis that lead to the score? Are there any aspects of the river that the procedures don’t cover? Are there any aspects which should be weighed more or less when calculating the score?
- Which environmental impacts or environmental changes are acceptable? Under which circumstances? And from which points of view?
- What needs protection and why? Against what and what for? What should your local authority do for river protection?
For such interpretations, the findings obtained from different perspectives (see knowledge) have to be mutually interrelated. At the level of conventions, the group can consult interpretations from one community (e.g. local economies or environmental care and disaster control agencies). At a level of discourse, the group could take into account the interpretations of different information communities. Come in contact with other groups of learners and confront your students with other viewpoints!
- Using the FyR platform, the pupils can search the results of other groups (Book of the River) and transform their results of investigation with larger connections, thus finding the leading points for the evaluation (e.g. comparison of water quality in different sections of the river).
- Discussions and discourses (cf. fore-chat; forum with moderation; virtual thought rotation) may be held on the above questions.
- The groups can also anticipate together possible future developments of their river. With the virtual future workshop, they can design a desirable future and draw conclusions (requests to the local authority / plans for action). Keep in mind there may be tasks that are not feasible only at a local level and where cooperation would be very useful.
In this phase (and also the next), a working method transcending school and national boundaries can help construct knowledge. The emotional and symbolic results also become visible (own longings, fears or high esteems influence the evaluation and the following practical actions). This exchange at the levels of contents and relations makes cultural learning possible.
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