'Hunters with amnesia' in Bonhoeffer College Enschede

Suppose a prehistoric tribe of hunters and gatherers wakes up one morning with complete amnesia. How can they survive? Help this tribe by making a survival plan.

This was an assignment about prehistory for class 1v1, a class of more gifted students at the age of 12, of Bonhoeffer College in Enschede. They do this assigment in groups of three to five students, using the activating teaching method AQUA. First of all they recall, in a associative way, their knowledge of the subject. Then they formulate a number of questions. The answers to these questions should fill the gaps in their knowledge and allow them to write a short survival plan to help the tribe to suvive.

Step by step

Soon it proves that the students already have considerable knowledge about the prehistory. However, the knowledge is very diverse in the different groups. A girl draws, somewhat dreamy, a bag to carry all sorts of things. 'Do you think', I asked, 'that people in prehistoric times had such a bag'. She remains silent. Indeed, there is never found such a handbag. But another member of her group doesn't agree with me. He reports that with the ice mummy Ötzi such a bag was found. In another group someone writes down:  'The first people in prehistoric times lived in America.' Would the current powerful position of America have brought her there to assume that the first people must have lived in America? 

The students don't have problems asking questions about the obvious issues like housing and work. Remarkably, however, no one group asks a question about religion. Nobody gets the idea that people might have brought sacrifices to the gods in order to assure a good hunt. However someone asks, somewhat furtive, but with eyes that speak a different language, whether they should pay attention to reproduction. 

To find information most students use the internet, but there's still a number of students who go tot the school library to find information in books. The students are free to decide how they exchange the information needed to answer their questions. One group makes a website because a member is experienced in building websites. Other groups use a wiki or a blog. Still others use e-mail. No group is using the existing e-learning environment at school. Maybe that's due to the fact that the students entered the school some weeks ago.

Results

The ultimate survival plans have yielded very nice things. For example, one group 'sent' send their survival plan in an envelope addressed to the honorable gentlemen hunters and gatherers in Eurasia. When the girl handed in the letter, she was asked whether she realised that the gatherers were probably mostly women. She promptly reported that a male member had types the address. Their survival plan opens with a picture of a bald skull and the words: 'Dear hunters and gatherers, we believe that you do not like to look like this, so listen to us.' This group was the only one who devotes a paragraph to health care:

"Medication can be found in the woods. You need to have someone who knows which plants are poisonous and which arent. And what'plants can heal. Usually the best medicine is rest. If someone really can't be cured, you havo to kill him."

A cave is, according to another group a great place to dwell if you only ensure that the water does not flow inward. To check this, they have to put in the cave a hollow tree trunk filled with water. If the water then 'remains flat' and doesn't flow, it's ok. "According to the same students, the prehistoric man not only have to hunt but also search for edible fruits, berries and mushrooms. But they add "It is important to take a taster with you, just in case the fruit, berries or mushrooms are poisonous." Modern ideas about hygiene have left their traces in the opinions of another group on the food-gatherers, "Wash the fruit in water. Now you can eat it. " 

Sometimes the advice is very detailed:

"With a spear, you go behind a small animal such as a bunny. You can recognize bunnies by their long ears and a little round tail. You stick the spear into it and pulls out a piece of meat (the rest of the meat you can eat). If you've done so, you dig a hole in the ground with your hands. You put the meat in the pit to attract a bigger animal, for example a deer. You stick your spear into the beast and so you have still more meat. "