Objects to Learn about and Objects for Learning 2. Группа авторов

for the rest of the project, as it included locatable points of reference with sufficient precision to lead to a system of clues, one of which would be based on the location as a member of a higher level (city, country, continent). Europe was also overrepresented in this list in relation to other continents, as was France in relation to other countries and Paris in relation to other cities. A few places typically visited during summer vacations were included by four pupils (Burj Khalifa tower, the pyramids of Egypt, the old port of Marseilles and Disneyland). Major urban landmarks were included (Statue of Liberty, Tower of Pisa, Corcovado, Sagrada Familia), as were natural sites (the Nile, Niagara Falls, Sahara). What was also notable was the dominance of British (Britain having already been studied at the beginning of CM2) and especially Parisian reference points (the “cultural capital” effect). Since the work was done at home, several pupils admitted to having used the Internet, but they said they did not ask their parents. The points of reference from this list that were used in the final game are listed in yellow; we will come back to discuss this.

      1.4.3. Game stabilization and lifespan

      Keeping the pupils in suspense throughout the project was not particularly easy. A variety of factors played a part in their assimilation of the process (their own interest toward the subject, their ability to conduct research and to produce a short relevant text, projection in the development of a tool over the long term whose limits were undefined: there was no maximum number of points of reference that could be proposed).

Thus, it was necessary to accept down time in the development of the tool, and the project had to be relaunched on a regular basis in a variety of ways, essentially in order to prompt the pupils to follow through on their initial suggestions and to produce the clue sentences that would lead to the correct answer. Table 1.6 shows different elements connected to these constraints. The 24 points of reference are the ones that were kept throughout the year, which were accepted by most of the class because they were considered “finished” by the pupils that had constructed them; in other words, the three clue sentences that made them usable had been written. The pupils’ level of investment was thus quite variable; several of them were content to suggest the names of points of reference without seeking to suggest the elements that would make it possible to define them. As shown in the last column of the table, three main sets can be seen: the September–October period, which was marked by the initial suggestion of “finding important places to know how to locate”; the November–December period, during which the idea was relaunched with a focus on travel enabled by a sabbatical year and an associated budget: “what are the places you would like to visit if you had a sabbatical year and the budget to pay for travel?”; and the January–February period, when the pupils were prompted to work in groups using recommended documents (atlas, maps, dictionaries, other works, etc.) to create new points of reference in class. The last relaunch also had the objective of showing the over-representation of locatable points of reference on the map of the world, while few were kept for the maps of Europe and France, thus initiating an attempt to rebalance from then on. There were no subsequent relaunches, as the end of the year was taken up with assessments.

Table 1.6. The retained points of reference and project relaunches

	Place	Type	Location	Initiating element by period
1	Tower of Pisa	Monument	Europe (Italy)	September/October: the ten key places
2	Eiffel Tower	Monument	France
3	Statue of Liberty	Monument	World (America)
4	Amazon forest	Nature	World (America)
5	Dumont d’Urville Station	Science	World (Antarctica)
6	Easter Island statues	Monument	World (America)
7	Capoeira	Culture	World (America)	November/December: sabbatical year
8	Kangaroo	Nature	World (Oceania)
9	Kiwi	Nature	World (Oceania)
10	Cliffs at Etretat	Nature	France
11	Burj Khalifa Tower	Monument	World (Asia)
12	Hollywood	Monument	World (America)
13	Villa Mandessi Bell	Monument	World (Africa)
14	Emperor penguin	Nature	World (Antarctica)	January/February: group work and in-class creation based on documents
15	Statue of Jean Bart (Dunkirk)	Monument France
16	Lascaux Caves	Monument	France
17	Corinth Canal	Transport	Europe (Greece)
18	Blue Mosque	Monument	Europe (Turkey)
19	Christ the King	Monument	Europe (Portugal)