Hot seating and more

I came into class in role as a very ignorant fisherman, named Dan who had been caught fishing inside a marine reserve. I even had a real newspaper article about it.
About fifteen minutes before Dan arrived the children had been given time to work out in groups to discuss and develop questions they would like to ask him.
 Dan had been away from New Zealand for a long time and reckoned he did not know about marine reserves or about fish and shellfish quotas. The children asked him well thought out questions and were horrified with most of his answers. He had no idea!!!! At the end of our meeting, he had to rush off to his court hearing.
When I came back into the room and asked what had been happening I was told that we needed to help that fisherman and was told how hopeless he was plus that he was breaking lots of rules and laws.
We decided as a company to simplify the information found on the Ministry of Primary Industries website about daily fish limits and sizes and also the same about shellfish.
In two groups, fish  and shellfish, we analysed the  information printed off the website, highlighted key info, interpreted the charts, and then each group decided how  they would present their info as a simple chart as well as in a practical way. e.g rulers for measuring fish and shellfish.
Dan will come back into the class to be presented with our gifts, along with an explanation.
 The children learnt more about fish sizes, limits, etc in a fun way with a purpose, even though they did all the activities we would have done in a plain old shared reading session!!
Hot seating is powerful.