OK. Here are the results of the meeting.
Our ten lessons are on the topic RECYCLING and they are as follows:
Lesson One: Tuning in 1 is the Kath Murdoch placemat idea Robyn posted about. Robyn will be creating it and Natasha, as this is the activity we will be doing in our presentation, you'll be doing this with the audience.
Lesson Two: Finding Out 1 Jeanie Baker books and Uno's Garden, looking at before and after humans. There;s lots of lovely English and Maths stuff in these books. Sam is doing this lesson
Lesson Three:Sorting OUt 1 Representing the maths data collected in the previous lesson in nice graphs and stuff. Sam is doing this lesson too
Lesson Four: Finding out 2 Excursion to Rethink /Reuse / Recycle. Sayra is doing this lesson
LEsson Five: Sorting out 2 Recycled art sculptures based on what they have seen/collected at their excursion. Refer to the work of Australian artist John Dahlsen. Sayra is doing this lesson too.
Lesson Six: Making Conclusions 1 Cause and effect wheel of recycling. Bron is doing this lesson
Lesson Seven: Making Conclusions 2 making a board game. Bron is in charge of this too
Lesson Eight:: Going Further 1 Recyclenow.com In expert groups of 4 or 5, students take their learning to other classrooms, utalising "15 mins" activity. This one is Robyns
LEsson Nine: Going Further 2 Blooms 7 stations. This is Brons
Lesson Ten: Taking Action Develop an action plan for the school. Conduct an audit or survey the rubbish/recycling. This one is Sayras.
SO
This means that over the weekend we each need to complete a PowerPoint slides on each of our individual lessons. On Monday after all the lecturers we'll head off to a computer lab to colate them all. Sam is taking care of all the VELS for us, because he is a star.
We'll start the presentation off with the Busta and Pong song (or probably about half of it, since it's a bit long and repetitive and then go onto Natasha's activity. Then We'll launch into the lessons on the PowerPoint and end up with the VELS.
Did I miss anything guys?
Sayra
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Sorting Out 1:
Action Plan - How can positive changes be made within the school?
Referring back to 'virtual world' questions/suggestions (within recycle zone site).
Does the school use recycling bins?
Compost bin?
Who is responsible for this?
Who will be responsible to ensure this is maintained?
How could teachers and students improve the waste produced within the class?
How would they go about educating the school? - A suggestion to have an assembly whereby the recycle now schools site - assembly presentation could be utilised.
This would incorporate the game design as follows (this is all on the site which requires you to register to access)
As well as the 'Busta & Pong' song sung at the end of the video.The site could be provided to all teachers (along with the lyrics) to be taught to varying levels - to ensure they grasp the 3 R's philosophy (teachers can use this to engage their own students and create units of work whilst making them aware of the changes around the school).
The Level 4 students could check back in several weeks and have a school singing assembly and perhaps design a quiz to accompany this to assess the school's collective knowledge.
Making conclusions 1:
Students to design their own eco-friendly city using Mind map format to write/illustrate ideas..
Posed questions - What elements would we need to think about?
(ie. animals, water, native wildlife/parks, recycling plants, sustainable forests, people needs, future generations...)
Recapping what they have learnt throughout unit of work.
Informed of size specifications and materials used to aid creative process.
Making conclusions 2:
Art Attack Diorama of ideal eco-friendly city in pairs/or groups of 3.
Made from recycled materials.
Presented to class with informal explanation of ideas.
hiya guys,
trying again.. this thing has had me in tears! did all this posting and some labeling thing was created which stuffed all I had done. Ahhh!!! breath Robyn.
ok and again...
Whilst I was away I proceeded to research some ideas from the info/work you had done. Unfortunately I had left in a hurry and had forgotten my newly created password I had written down (man... I was only one letter out!)
Anyway I've put together some ideas using the Murdoch & Hornsby integrated planner (as Sam suggests). I'm just not sure if it's all gonna mesh, so some feedback will be great.
Resources:
rethink site - excursion to educational program
recycle zone site - interactive waste management
recycle now schools site - assembly presentation/song presentation & lyrics
create a graph site - Maths link graphs, monitoring recycling waste
Tuning In 1:
Uno's Garden/Jean Baker book - whichever is more suitable.
Sam's suggestion of Kath Murdoch's placemats - I've found some images and am happy to create A3 page placemats for student resources.
List of questions (Assessing student prior knowledge)
Initial questions/class discussion -
What is an environment?
How can we care for our environment?
What and who impacts/changes our environment?
Why do we need to look after our environment?
Then progress to placemats, asking questions suggested by Sam - Split the page into quadrants with questions in each quadrant - What do you see in this picture? How did it get this way? Where in the world was this photo taken? What lives here?
Whole class discussion - What differences are there from the
picturesque image compared to the latter? Write these down on whiteboard.
Searching through the sites you guys have provided I found a really cool presentation aimed at kids from the recycle now schools site which has some puppet characters talking about landfill waste and the 3 R's - reduce/reuse/recycle.
It's within the interactive assembly video - which I thought could be used within the 'Going further' stage where students could educate other yr levels (about the 3 R's) within the school.
I was able to download it which took over 40mins (as it runs for 20 mins), but the visual won't show up on my computer - audio only (my tech friend says this is because my computer is too advanced - so I'm wondering if anyone else is able to access???)
It sounds informative - I've searched within the site and the characters/video would be a great engagement tool.
So this would lead into...
Tuning In 2:
One of the ways we can improve the environment is to...
Watching of video - education about the 3 R's.
Teacher creates 3 butchers paper pages and scribes class discussion - What things can be put into these 3 categories? (Assessing student prior knowledge)
reduce
reuse
recycle
Finding Out 1:
Initially if students were to look at what can be done at home/around the school to make their environment more eco-friendly - using the recycle zone site - which informs them about waste, the 3 R's, incineration (effects of), fighting waste at school, virtual school questions/suggestions - students could start thinking about an Action plan.
this could be in preparation for...
Finding Out 2:
A yr level excursion to the educational program rethink site.
I recalled this educational program from 1st semesters Humanities expo group task.
I'm just going to save this... and post again the rest of my ideas.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Hey Sayra. Nice work. I agree, we need to get on with it.
Just some quick notes:
When we present we don't need to go through each lesson. We just need to give them information about what we are going to do. Are we going with my proposed format?
1. Introduce the unit, reasons for choosing it (here we can discuss info from Understandings and Key concepts)
2. What aspects of VELS (progression points, Domains etc.) are covered.
3. Discuss our Maths focus lessons/activities and their integrated links
4. Discuss out Lit focus lessons/activities and their integrated links
5. Discuss some of the other Integrated activities
If so, I would like to do the VELS section. Focus on level 4.
Re more maths: I agree. The story of a river could have a maths element - looking at fractions. eg. I have 1 cup of water and then I add 1/4 of a cup of vinegar. A new powerplant is built so I need to add another 1/4 of a cup etc.
When comparing pages in Uno's garden students can be asked to look for the algorithm that exists in the book. They can be asked to find if a similar algorithim exists in Jeanie Baker's books.
For the final activity, they can have an algorithim in mind when they create their environments. Eg for every 3 buildings we have 1 tree etc.
I know we need 10 lessons and it's easy to split it into 2 lessons in each:
Tuning In
Finding Out
Sorting Out
Making Conclusions
Going Further
Remeber that Making Conclusions and Going Further only need to be one activity. The excess can be spread across the rest. Also, we need to make sure that Finding out and Sorting out are interconnected.
I think I've now got to work on other stuff, I'll check in from time to time and see how this is going.
Just some quick notes:
When we present we don't need to go through each lesson. We just need to give them information about what we are going to do. Are we going with my proposed format?
1. Introduce the unit, reasons for choosing it (here we can discuss info from Understandings and Key concepts)
2. What aspects of VELS (progression points, Domains etc.) are covered.
3. Discuss our Maths focus lessons/activities and their integrated links
4. Discuss out Lit focus lessons/activities and their integrated links
5. Discuss some of the other Integrated activities
If so, I would like to do the VELS section. Focus on level 4.
Re more maths: I agree. The story of a river could have a maths element - looking at fractions. eg. I have 1 cup of water and then I add 1/4 of a cup of vinegar. A new powerplant is built so I need to add another 1/4 of a cup etc.
When comparing pages in Uno's garden students can be asked to look for the algorithm that exists in the book. They can be asked to find if a similar algorithim exists in Jeanie Baker's books.
For the final activity, they can have an algorithim in mind when they create their environments. Eg for every 3 buildings we have 1 tree etc.
I know we need 10 lessons and it's easy to split it into 2 lessons in each:
Tuning In
Finding Out
Sorting Out
Making Conclusions
Going Further
Remeber that Making Conclusions and Going Further only need to be one activity. The excess can be spread across the rest. Also, we need to make sure that Finding out and Sorting out are interconnected.
I think I've now got to work on other stuff, I'll check in from time to time and see how this is going.
Gettin' on wit' it
Hey there
Ok, So I think Sam's done a great start on organising our various ideas. Three cheers for Sam!
If we just focus on before/after, what will our 'Action' be? Usually the 'Action' activity allows the students to participate in some sort of community action and allows the unit to end on a positive note. It also helps them act on what they have learnt and links it to every day life. I was thinking that this could be students informing their peers about what they can do to be more environmentally friendly at home/have less of an impact on the environment. Maybe even assess how sustainable the school and taking steps to make it better.
A number of schools undertake sustainability accreditation, but I know that's a LOT of work, not really something that a class can do by itself. At the same time, there's no reason that the class can't undertake one of the steps for it. Schools need a frog bog, or a veggie garden, they could start a recycling drive, I saw something on TV about a school that did a callout for people's grey water (after they wash their clothing/dishes/showers or whatever) and they used that water to water their gardens. They could help with a replanting somewhere, I'm pretty sure I did that at primary school, we were all bussed out to somewhere outside of Canberra and helped plant native seedlings and put milk cartons around each one to protect it. It would have been nice to hear how it went thou, I don't recall ever hearing anything about it again. I think followup is really important, so that the students can see how their actions actually make a difference.
I like the idea of the Kath Murdoch placemats, students could do different ones in pairs or individual work, and then they could be displayed up on the wall. That way everyone gets the benifit of all those ideas while still only needing to come up with a couple of their own... Ok, I didn't word that right, but whatever. It's early :)
Also, all the links you've found are great ( Catchment Detox, Recycle Zone, US EPA and stuff from arkiveeducation.org )I think that we should use them throughout the unit rather than just at the start.
When you think about it, 10 lessons isn't that much really. It's 2 lessons in each of the:
Tuning In
Finding Out
Sorting Out
Making Conclusions
Going Further
If we work on previous suggestions,
Tuning In 1: Uno's Garden and Kath Murdoch's placemat
Tuning In 2: Trip to the Museum - why aren't these animals around any more? What happened to these animals? Also, students could look at endangered animals (hello Zoo visit) (This might be too many excursions, but we could use the zoo website or something for this?) Students can pick an animal and spend some time finding out what happened to it or why it is endangered.
Finding Out 1:Activities can be related to the texts we have discussed (Uno's Garden, Animals of Farthing Wood, Jeanie Baker books etc.). These could be used to scaffold lessons about how environments have changed. Here we talk about natural habitats (Sayra's before was bush) and then what humans introduced to the environment and what they removed. Tasks like comparing pages from different sections of Uno's Garden or looking at the changes that occur throughout the pages of the Jeanie Baker books.
Finding Out 2: Story of a River (great find Sam!) activity which has clear links to Science, Humanities (Geography), English and maybe Maths - resource sheets and instructions are on the website. With this activity, students can get an understanding of how humans and what they build can impact a river. The teacher can say: 'A power station has been built near the river', the students add the appropriate ingredient (in this case vinegar) and see what happens to the water
Sorting Out 1: Mind mapping students can look at the texts from 'Tuning In' and list key words, concepts etc. Some students may choose to take photos of their 'river' or even the animals from the museum/zoo and they can visually sort out their information. KWL charts and Venn diagrams could also be used
Sorting Out 2:
Making Conclusions 1: students can research a sustainability topic...need to find a way for them to display the information that they find. (Sam, you had this in Going Further but I think it might be better in the Making Conclusions... Going Further might be the sort of 'where to from here? Now you know about these issues, what will your next action be with this knowledge?)
Making Conclusions 2: Here might be a good place for Bron's art lesson?
Going Further 1: I think that this should be looking around to local issues and doing something about those. I know that Friends of the Merri Creek go and clean out the creek and it's creek beds, that type of thing might be a good idea, or even getting the students to make posters/write letters as to why people should do that... Though again, maybe that's a Making Conclusions... Maybe they need to research their own local issue, and what they could do about it. Although a single lesson might not be very useful for that, that activity might need more.
Going Further 2:
We also need some maths stuff in there. I think we've got English covered, and the science in Story of a River is awesome, but we're rather lacking in maths. I'm not great at thinking up maths activites...
Ok, here's a Kids Footprint website http://www.kidsfootprint.org/, unfortuntaly with this damn slow web connection I can't see it. Are there any maths stuff in there, can someone check?
Here is a Sustainability Board Game idea which is sort of maths based (sort of) http://blogadmin.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers/globciti/lesson9.htm
A 50 years of Change in the environment lesson plan http://www.landscapesmag.com/teachers/lessonplans/50_years_of_change/50_Years...Sec_lesson_plan.pdf
I found a good idea (though it might be a little young) of being Urban Archeologists, where students go out and in a metre square (or something) find all the rubbish, plastic, glass, whatever, and next lesson they have to graph the results, but the damn browser crashed and I can't find it again (bangs head on desk repeatedly) Ahh! Ok, it's here http://www.gosmartpay.com/files/smartpay_tigertheme3.pdf but I can't download it cause it's 4meg. Damn internet! If I connected my freakin' bike to it, it'd run faster... Can someone download it and copy the god bits out or something? See if it's appropriate?
There's heaps of great lessons here (more for future resource than right now) http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=35982
If there';s no suitable maths lessons in there, tell me and I'll continue the hunt, maybe on a different connection!
Sayra
Ok, So I think Sam's done a great start on organising our various ideas. Three cheers for Sam!
If we just focus on before/after, what will our 'Action' be? Usually the 'Action' activity allows the students to participate in some sort of community action and allows the unit to end on a positive note. It also helps them act on what they have learnt and links it to every day life. I was thinking that this could be students informing their peers about what they can do to be more environmentally friendly at home/have less of an impact on the environment. Maybe even assess how sustainable the school and taking steps to make it better.
A number of schools undertake sustainability accreditation, but I know that's a LOT of work, not really something that a class can do by itself. At the same time, there's no reason that the class can't undertake one of the steps for it. Schools need a frog bog, or a veggie garden, they could start a recycling drive, I saw something on TV about a school that did a callout for people's grey water (after they wash their clothing/dishes/showers or whatever) and they used that water to water their gardens. They could help with a replanting somewhere, I'm pretty sure I did that at primary school, we were all bussed out to somewhere outside of Canberra and helped plant native seedlings and put milk cartons around each one to protect it. It would have been nice to hear how it went thou, I don't recall ever hearing anything about it again. I think followup is really important, so that the students can see how their actions actually make a difference.
I like the idea of the Kath Murdoch placemats, students could do different ones in pairs or individual work, and then they could be displayed up on the wall. That way everyone gets the benifit of all those ideas while still only needing to come up with a couple of their own... Ok, I didn't word that right, but whatever. It's early :)
Also, all the links you've found are great ( Catchment Detox, Recycle Zone, US EPA and stuff from arkiveeducation.org )I think that we should use them throughout the unit rather than just at the start.
When you think about it, 10 lessons isn't that much really. It's 2 lessons in each of the:
Tuning In
Finding Out
Sorting Out
Making Conclusions
Going Further
If we work on previous suggestions,
Tuning In 1: Uno's Garden and Kath Murdoch's placemat
Tuning In 2: Trip to the Museum - why aren't these animals around any more? What happened to these animals? Also, students could look at endangered animals (hello Zoo visit) (This might be too many excursions, but we could use the zoo website or something for this?) Students can pick an animal and spend some time finding out what happened to it or why it is endangered.
Finding Out 1:Activities can be related to the texts we have discussed (Uno's Garden, Animals of Farthing Wood, Jeanie Baker books etc.). These could be used to scaffold lessons about how environments have changed. Here we talk about natural habitats (Sayra's before was bush) and then what humans introduced to the environment and what they removed. Tasks like comparing pages from different sections of Uno's Garden or looking at the changes that occur throughout the pages of the Jeanie Baker books.
Finding Out 2: Story of a River (great find Sam!) activity which has clear links to Science, Humanities (Geography), English and maybe Maths - resource sheets and instructions are on the website. With this activity, students can get an understanding of how humans and what they build can impact a river. The teacher can say: 'A power station has been built near the river', the students add the appropriate ingredient (in this case vinegar) and see what happens to the water
Sorting Out 1: Mind mapping students can look at the texts from 'Tuning In' and list key words, concepts etc. Some students may choose to take photos of their 'river' or even the animals from the museum/zoo and they can visually sort out their information. KWL charts and Venn diagrams could also be used
Sorting Out 2:
Making Conclusions 1: students can research a sustainability topic...need to find a way for them to display the information that they find. (Sam, you had this in Going Further but I think it might be better in the Making Conclusions... Going Further might be the sort of 'where to from here? Now you know about these issues, what will your next action be with this knowledge?)
Making Conclusions 2: Here might be a good place for Bron's art lesson?
Going Further 1: I think that this should be looking around to local issues and doing something about those. I know that Friends of the Merri Creek go and clean out the creek and it's creek beds, that type of thing might be a good idea, or even getting the students to make posters/write letters as to why people should do that... Though again, maybe that's a Making Conclusions... Maybe they need to research their own local issue, and what they could do about it. Although a single lesson might not be very useful for that, that activity might need more.
Going Further 2:
We also need some maths stuff in there. I think we've got English covered, and the science in Story of a River is awesome, but we're rather lacking in maths. I'm not great at thinking up maths activites...
Ok, here's a Kids Footprint website http://www.kidsfootprint.org/, unfortuntaly with this damn slow web connection I can't see it. Are there any maths stuff in there, can someone check?
Here is a Sustainability Board Game idea which is sort of maths based (sort of) http://blogadmin.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers/globciti/lesson9.htm
A 50 years of Change in the environment lesson plan http://www.landscapesmag.com/teachers/lessonplans/50_years_of_change/50_Years...Sec_lesson_plan.pdf
I found a good idea (though it might be a little young) of being Urban Archeologists, where students go out and in a metre square (or something) find all the rubbish, plastic, glass, whatever, and next lesson they have to graph the results, but the damn browser crashed and I can't find it again (bangs head on desk repeatedly) Ahh! Ok, it's here http://www.gosmartpay.com/files/smartpay_tigertheme3.pdf but I can't download it cause it's 4meg. Damn internet! If I connected my freakin' bike to it, it'd run faster... Can someone download it and copy the god bits out or something? See if it's appropriate?
There's heaps of great lessons here (more for future resource than right now) http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=35982
If there';s no suitable maths lessons in there, tell me and I'll continue the hunt, maybe on a different connection!
Sayra
Life after people TV show
http://www.history.com/shows/life-after-people
Hi all,
Check out the website for more info on this show. It's airing on channel 7 on Wed at 7.30pm. Could be a great resource for our unit.
Hi all,
Check out the website for more info on this show. It's airing on channel 7 on Wed at 7.30pm. Could be a great resource for our unit.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Unit Plan Rantings
Hey all, I'm stressing out about this. Below are some ideas, let me know what you think. Also, when we work out what the unit will be about/lessons, we need to workout how we will present it.
I haven't broken things down into individual lessons, I've just stuck ideas under the relevant sections from Murdoch and Hornsby's planner (up on LMS in Integrated studies).
I don't mind the idea of before was bush etc. I just think it should be part of a greater sustainability unit. If we just focus on before/after, what will our 'Action' be? Usually the 'Action' activity allows the students to participate in some sort of community action and allows the unit to end on a positive note. It also helps them act on what they have learnt and links it to every day life. I was thinking that this could be students informing their peers about what they can do to be more environmentally friendly at home/have less of an impact on the environment. Maybe even assess how sustainable the school and taking steps to make it better.
Sayra's lessons could still be used, but they would be used in conjunction with other activities. Here's an example:
I'm going to assume that the before/after dioramas fit into the 'Making Conclusions' section of the Murdoch and Hornsby planner. Also, I'm going to assume the peer information sessions slot into the 'Action' section of the proforma.
'Tuning In', one activity could be using place-mats.
Kath Murdoch uses place-mats: put a photo of an environment in the middle of an A3 piece of paper. Split the page into quadrants with questions in each quadrant (What do you see in this picture? How did it get this way? Where in the world was this photo taken? What lives here?)
Photos could be of:
lush rainforest
logged forest
nice beach
oil spill near a beach
pretty country town
congested city
Students fill in each quadrant. Other Tuning In could be playing some games such as: Catchment Detox, Recycle Zone, US EPA and stuff from arkiveeducation.org (to name a few); these can be used throughout the unit as we see fit, but work well as Tuning In.
Students can be taken to a museum (as per Sayra's suggestion) to look at all the animals we used to have. This can be part of Tuning In; why aren't these animals around any more? What happened to these animals? Also, students could look at endangered animals (hello Zoo visit). Students can pick an animal and spend some time finding out what happened to it or why it is endangered. Sites like Red List, the ABC site (and maybe Seed Hunter if we look at native plants that are endangered) could be relevant here.
'Finding Out'
Activities can be related to the texts we have discussed (Uno's Garden, Animals of Farthing Wood, Jeanie Baker books etc.). These could be used to scaffold lessons about how environments have changed. Here we talk about natural habitats (Sayra's before was bush) and then what humans introduced to the environment and what they removed. Tasks like comparing pages from different sections of Uno's Garden or looking at the changes that occur throughout the pages of the Jeanie Baker books.
I think this leads nicely to the Story of a River activity which has clear links to Science, Humanities (Geography), English and maybe Maths - resource sheets and instructions are on the website. With this activity, students can get an understanding of how humans and what they build can impact a river. The teacher can say: 'A power station has been built near the river', the students add the appropriate ingredient (in this case vinegar) and see what happens to the water.
We can use Robyn's mind maps as part of 'Sorting Out'; students can look at the texts from 'Tuning In' and list key words, concepts etc. Some students may choose to take photos of their 'river' or even the animals from the museum/zoo and they can visually sort out their information. KWL charts and Venn diagrams could also be used.
During 'Going Further' students can research a sustainability topic...need to find a way for them to display the information that they find.
Looking at the proforma, we would need to flesh out the Understandings, Related Values/Attitudes/Issues, Key Concepts sections. I think that's about it. Have I made any sense?
Since we don't have to have individual lesson plans, we just have to demonstrate that the unit consists of about 10 'activities/lessons', 3 of which are Maths related and 3 that are Lit. Maybe a vague presentation outline could be each person does one of the following:
1. Introduce the unit, reasons for choosing it (here we can discuss info from Understandings and Key concepts)
2. What aspects of VELS (progression points, Domains etc.) are covered.
3. Discuss our Maths focus lessons/activities and their integrated links
4. Discuss out Lit focus lessons/activities and their integrated links
5. Discuss some of the other Integrated activities
I haven't broken things down into individual lessons, I've just stuck ideas under the relevant sections from Murdoch and Hornsby's planner (up on LMS in Integrated studies).
I don't mind the idea of before was bush etc. I just think it should be part of a greater sustainability unit. If we just focus on before/after, what will our 'Action' be? Usually the 'Action' activity allows the students to participate in some sort of community action and allows the unit to end on a positive note. It also helps them act on what they have learnt and links it to every day life. I was thinking that this could be students informing their peers about what they can do to be more environmentally friendly at home/have less of an impact on the environment. Maybe even assess how sustainable the school and taking steps to make it better.
Sayra's lessons could still be used, but they would be used in conjunction with other activities. Here's an example:
I'm going to assume that the before/after dioramas fit into the 'Making Conclusions' section of the Murdoch and Hornsby planner. Also, I'm going to assume the peer information sessions slot into the 'Action' section of the proforma.
'Tuning In', one activity could be using place-mats.
Kath Murdoch uses place-mats: put a photo of an environment in the middle of an A3 piece of paper. Split the page into quadrants with questions in each quadrant (What do you see in this picture? How did it get this way? Where in the world was this photo taken? What lives here?)
Photos could be of:
lush rainforest
logged forest
nice beach
oil spill near a beach
pretty country town
congested city
Students fill in each quadrant. Other Tuning In could be playing some games such as: Catchment Detox, Recycle Zone, US EPA and stuff from arkiveeducation.org (to name a few); these can be used throughout the unit as we see fit, but work well as Tuning In.
Students can be taken to a museum (as per Sayra's suggestion) to look at all the animals we used to have. This can be part of Tuning In; why aren't these animals around any more? What happened to these animals? Also, students could look at endangered animals (hello Zoo visit). Students can pick an animal and spend some time finding out what happened to it or why it is endangered. Sites like Red List, the ABC site (and maybe Seed Hunter if we look at native plants that are endangered) could be relevant here.
'Finding Out'
Activities can be related to the texts we have discussed (Uno's Garden, Animals of Farthing Wood, Jeanie Baker books etc.). These could be used to scaffold lessons about how environments have changed. Here we talk about natural habitats (Sayra's before was bush) and then what humans introduced to the environment and what they removed. Tasks like comparing pages from different sections of Uno's Garden or looking at the changes that occur throughout the pages of the Jeanie Baker books.
I think this leads nicely to the Story of a River activity which has clear links to Science, Humanities (Geography), English and maybe Maths - resource sheets and instructions are on the website. With this activity, students can get an understanding of how humans and what they build can impact a river. The teacher can say: 'A power station has been built near the river', the students add the appropriate ingredient (in this case vinegar) and see what happens to the water.
We can use Robyn's mind maps as part of 'Sorting Out'; students can look at the texts from 'Tuning In' and list key words, concepts etc. Some students may choose to take photos of their 'river' or even the animals from the museum/zoo and they can visually sort out their information. KWL charts and Venn diagrams could also be used.
During 'Going Further' students can research a sustainability topic...need to find a way for them to display the information that they find.
Looking at the proforma, we would need to flesh out the Understandings, Related Values/Attitudes/Issues, Key Concepts sections. I think that's about it. Have I made any sense?
Since we don't have to have individual lesson plans, we just have to demonstrate that the unit consists of about 10 'activities/lessons', 3 of which are Maths related and 3 that are Lit. Maybe a vague presentation outline could be each person does one of the following:
1. Introduce the unit, reasons for choosing it (here we can discuss info from Understandings and Key concepts)
2. What aspects of VELS (progression points, Domains etc.) are covered.
3. Discuss our Maths focus lessons/activities and their integrated links
4. Discuss out Lit focus lessons/activities and their integrated links
5. Discuss some of the other Integrated activities
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
yeh i think this could definitely work but i think there would definitely need to be strong focus on the sustainability aspects of it. maybe instead of maths because those design aspects of the city could fall under the art realm, we do two civics and community or whatever it is and focus on the damage to the environment, and that could definitely lead onto an english piece of writing where the students choose the perspective of an animal and how the environment has damaged their habitat. i suppose then the sustainability learning could look at the impact on animals which links into this piece of writing? not sure, just chucking it out there...
Saturday, March 27, 2010
the city the students create could be our whole unit
(sayra)
This just occured to me. What do you think of making the city/bush the whole unit?
So the art would be 2 lessons, the city diarama and the old bush diarama
they could have a maths lesson drawing out where everything is going to go and deciding on what building is what.
Science could be the type of bush that their city used to be - the open scrub/dense forest/ plains/desertand thus the type of animals they would have had back then.
There could be an English lesson on writing a article/story about their city, hmm, ok, I dunno.
But what do you think about using the Before Was Bush Now Is City idea for the whole unit?
This just occured to me. What do you think of making the city/bush the whole unit?
So the art would be 2 lessons, the city diarama and the old bush diarama
they could have a maths lesson drawing out where everything is going to go and deciding on what building is what.
Science could be the type of bush that their city used to be - the open scrub/dense forest/ plains/desertand thus the type of animals they would have had back then.
There could be an English lesson on writing a article/story about their city, hmm, ok, I dunno.
But what do you think about using the Before Was Bush Now Is City idea for the whole unit?
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
VELS for Create a City
I'm thinking something along the lines of:
The Arts
If we get them to present it, we could work English (speaking and listening) in too. Maybe this could be the final task where we assess what they have learnt.
The Arts
VELS progression point 3.25 Creating and Making
* Exploration of ideas generated from presented sources; for example, ideas for a music work prompted by viewing a photograph
VELS progression point 3.5 Exploring and Responding
* Consideration of possibilities, content and influences when planning, developing and refining their own arts works for presentation to specific audiences
Humanities (Geography)
VELS progression point 3.25 Geographic Knowledge and Understanding
* Identification and understanding of the various types of land use and their distribution in Australia; for example; farming, forest, towns, parks
VELS progression point 3.5 Geographic Knowledge and Understanding
* Identification of the impacts of various land uses on the environment; for example, the effect of land clearance on soil quality
VELS progression point 3.75 Geographic Knowledge and Understanding
* Identification of human and physical characteristics of local and global environments
Communication
VELS progression point 3.25 Listening, Viewing and Responding
* Attentiveness to and understanding of ideas and information in peers’ oral presentations; for example, project reports in Science or the Humanities
VELS progression point 3.25 Presenting
* Inclusion of a small number of related ideas in written, visual and oral presentations
VELS progression point 3.75 Presenting
* Organised structure, including a beginning, middle and end in short, prepared individual or group oral, written and visual presentations
Design, Creativity and Technology
VELS progression point 3.25 Investigating and Designing
* Generation of design ideas – labelled sketches and drawings, explanations or models – in response to a design brief
If we get them to present it, we could work English (speaking and listening) in too. Maybe this could be the final task where we assess what they have learnt.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Hiya all,
Awesome ideas guys. Lovin the before/after human existence diorama concept. The art attack instructional display looks great, it will surely be a winner.
Whilst completing my art lessons based on a text, I discovered these cool mind maps which I thought could be incorporated in the process as a lesson wh
en looking at the past and present. Also what can be done to improve the stability of the earths environment for future generations.
Sorry I'm not contributing much at this stage, I have to complete th
e arts lessons before friday and have a few other things in need of my attention.
I will be on board (all hands on deck) next week.
Cheerio :)
some other ideas
Hi All, I'm doing these as posts cause you can only have 10 pages and I figured we could chat about the lessons and then make pages once we've settled on what we're doing...
(sayra) There's a science lesson in there too, what would have lived here back then and what kinds of wildlife lives here now. I don't think we should go back to the dinosaurs or anything, just pre-1788 really. What do you think? There's probably an interesting way we can come up with to find out the back then bit. They can be Environmental Detectives. Or a geography lesson looking at the way the landscape changes as they level out hills to build. That might be getting too complicated and too far afield thou...
We could take them to the museum to look at all the taxidermied animals maybe? It could lead into extinct and endangered animals, especially Australian animals. SO that could lead to the zoo instead. Go see a bunch of live animals rather than a bunch of dead ones. They could make venn diagrams of the animals who are winning out (like feral cats, brumbies, fox and possums) and the guys who are loosing the battle (ahahaha, I was about the write 'bunyips', but I mean bilbies, quoll, erm, a bunch of others). They could look into why do some thrive and some don't. I think there's probably a good poetry lesson in there too. Poetry is all about opposites, or can be, and this is examining two opposite environments.
(sayra) There's a science lesson in there too, what would have lived here back then and what kinds of wildlife lives here now. I don't think we should go back to the dinosaurs or anything, just pre-1788 really. What do you think? There's probably an interesting way we can come up with to find out the back then bit. They can be Environmental Detectives. Or a geography lesson looking at the way the landscape changes as they level out hills to build. That might be getting too complicated and too far afield thou...
We could take them to the museum to look at all the taxidermied animals maybe? It could lead into extinct and endangered animals, especially Australian animals. SO that could lead to the zoo instead. Go see a bunch of live animals rather than a bunch of dead ones. They could make venn diagrams of the animals who are winning out (like feral cats, brumbies, fox and possums) and the guys who are loosing the battle (ahahaha, I was about the write 'bunyips', but I mean bilbies, quoll, erm, a bunch of others). They could look into why do some thrive and some don't. I think there's probably a good poetry lesson in there too. Poetry is all about opposites, or can be, and this is examining two opposite environments.
The city idea
From Bron:
heya all,
love this idea, it is uno's garden all over and is reminding me of
the myer christmas windows. awesome. check out this model of how to make a rad city. it uses recycled materials which in itself ties beautifully into sustainability. loves it!
http://www.hitentertainment.com/artattack/menu_artattacks.html
scroll down slightly and click on 'Create a city'. for some reason there was no direct link into this activity.
(sam) As for the diorama, I'd prefer to have students choose their own environment and represent it before and after. It gives them the freedom to choose something that they feel will engage them. That said, I'm always going to go for the option where kids choose their own topic.
heya all,
love this idea, it is uno's garden all over and is reminding me of
the myer christmas windows. awesome. check out this model of how to make a rad city. it uses recycled materials which in itself ties beautifully into sustainability. loves it!
http://www.hitentertainment.com/artattack/menu_artattacks.html
scroll down slightly and click on 'Create a city'. for some reason there was no direct link into this activity.
(sam) As for the diorama, I'd prefer to have students choose their own environment and represent it before and after. It gives them the freedom to choose something that they feel will engage them. That said, I'm always going to go for the option where kids choose their own topic.
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