Please note: Pre-testing needs to occur as there may be students who have high potential and high interest in this topic, but who may not be identified through current school procedures or programs. Pre-testing requires a response that shows understanding and mastery of one of three questions e.g., How is survival of living things affected by physical conditions of their environment? Describe an example of a sudden geological change or an extreme weather event and how it has affected an environment on Earth? Explain an example of an interaction and connection between people, places and environments.
The focus of the unit is on developing student understanding through a study of the world’s cultural and physical (including that of its indigenous peoples), and how this connected to diverse environments.
A creative and engaging multi-disciplinary group activity is located at the end of this unit and this will extend the learning content, processes and products.
Unit designed for a Year 6 class with a gifted cluster
Content description
Elaborations
Critical and Creative Thinking
Strategies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learning
Key Concept: Interdependence
Lesson 1
Content: Familiarisation with world geography and the location of countries in relation to Australia. An exploration of mapping and its symbols.
Process: Assess prior knowledge – in groups (gifted cluster grouped together), students complete a blank map of the world adding major features e.g., capitals, river systems, equator, tropics etc. Once prior knowledge is exhausted, use computers or atlases to check accuracy and add remaining countries. Identify the mapping symbols that are the common requirements of a map – title, key, labelling, border, directional arrow, scale etc. Why and how did these develop?
Discuss location of countries in relation to Australia using compass directions.
Product: Students (in self-selected groups – no size limit) use atlases to draw a huge outline of a country of choice on asphalt. Using drama and body skills, students become the main features inside the map outline e.g., body shaped like a building for cities, bodies in a line for a river. Students should be able to name features. Give students a sheet with half of a country (using different countries) drawn on it. Students use computers to find the other half and draw it. Add landforms and major features.
Differentiation: Generating – collaboration to share knowledge and ideas
Attribute listing – geographical features and mapping tools
Explore countries and features on Google Earth - explain how it works.
Extending concepts from Australia to the world
Questioning: What features shown on our maps can change and how might they change
e.g., cities grow, rivers flood or change course.
What if we had no maps?
What other types of maps are there and how do they work
e.g., treasure maps, topographical maps, astronomical charts, GPS’s, geo-caching.
Lesson 2
Content: How the position of a country impacts on climate/weather and how that in turn, impacts on the environment and on the culture of population.
Process: Discuss factors that create weather conditions. Show pictures, video clips etc. of extreme weather events., Discuss where this currently might be happening. How is this weather event affecting the living and non-living things? Why do different countries have different climates? Lessons in latitude and longitude, contour (how to show height), proximity to oceans. Play a modified game of ‘Battleships’ on paper using degrees of longitude and latitude to consolidate concept.
Product: Interdependence Boxes: each student chooses a specific region of a country e.g., Daintree Rainforest, volcanic regions in NZ, Sahara Desert. Students put six clues in a box from their chosen geographical region without stating the location of region. Students share their clues with the class, from hardest to easiest. After each clue, the class can attempt to guess where the region might be. Suggestions for inclusion: map showing country and area where region is located, short information text on how the climate impacts the environment e.g., rainfall in the rainforest, pictures and description of the human inhabitants of the region, a description and/or images of the culture of the inhabitants and how the weather impacts that culture and living things. Further suggestions include clothing of the Inuit, a model or video clip of an insect, reptile or animal from the region and how it has adapted to the climate, a sample of an artwork showing region and climate, food of the region and why that food is dependent on weather and location, a description of the religion and how it intertwines with the weather and landforms, a short PowerPoint showing features of the environment of the region, a short text on the economic circumstances of the inhabitants and how the weather has impacted on these, architecture or dwellings of the inhabitants and how climate has been taken into consideration in the design, longitude and latitude of the region, a natural disaster that has occurred in the region and how the inhabitants are mitigating for future events and finally, any other examples of the interdependence of the people, land and climate.
Differentiation: Student choice
Integration across disciplines
Transfer of knowledge
Open-endedness
Questioning: deep questioning and deep thinking will be engendered by the
Interdependence Boxes
Lesson 3
Content: The diversity of global environments. Some examples of global environments include geo-thermal, deserts, polar, tundra, reefs, altiplano, mountains, plains, atolls & islands, canyons, foreshore, rainforest, wetlands, forests, harbours, grasslands, rivers, food bowls, rock formations, lakes, marine, (rift) valleys etc.
Process: Brainstorm and describe different global environments. Use the global environments from the Interdependence Box activity as a springboard.
Product: In pairs or singly, locate and name an example of each global environment from the list on a world map. Introduce the word ‘biome’. Map Australian landforms – rivers of all states, seas & oceans, capes, mountains, deserts, reefs, lakes, valleys, rainforests, wetlands, rock formations, bays, islands, national parks etc. Using varied technologies, such as Mapmaker, students research an environmental issue associated with some of these biomes. Study the scientific understandings that could assist in environmental management to minimise impacts and restore a balance to these environments. Probe for causes and consequences.
Differentiation: Analogy
Using controversy and provocations to problem solve
Generating – brainstorming
Questioning: What is an ecosystem?
What does an ecological balance look like in the various environments?
Can one be harmed by an environmental management action even if one benefits overall.
Why is the Simpson Desert (or landform of choice) located where it is? Why isn’t it located elsewhere?
What biome are you most like and why (analogy)?
Lesson 4
Content: The impact of geological changes and extreme weather events on global environments and how these events are measured.
Process: Brainstorm the types of disasters that result in changes to the environment (e.g., tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, cyclones, fire, flood, drought, global warming). How are these events measured (e.g., Richter scale, Beaufort scale, coastal tide gauges, Volcanic Explosivity Index). What inventions have increased scientific knowledge about natural events that cause rapid changes at the Earth's surface? Investigate a natural disaster or environmental tragedy. What global environments were affected and how? Invite a member from the emergency services to speak on the strategies for dealing with a specific natural disaster. Invite a geologist to discuss landforms, tectonic plates or geological events.
Product: Choose a global environment or biome that has experienced a natural disaster. Students can work singly, in pairs or in groups to create a news broadcast describing what happened, the impact on the environment and on the people, the response by emergency services and others and the long-term consequences and changes. Various perspectives can be considered: emergency crews, TV news team, victims etc.
Differentiation: Scrutinising underlying ideas
Connections to real-life purposes and contexts
Skills of search
Questioning: How could this disaster have been prevented?
What detection systems already exist and how can they be improved?
(STEM task) How could people work with nature to help restore environments after disasters?
Lesson 5
Content: Investigate the cultural diversity of the local area
Process: Break students into 4 groups (mixed ability) and investigate the cultural diversity of the class, school, local area and state. Use student generated surveys and data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to locate this information. Invite a statistician to make this subject child-friendly with reference to the ABS.
Product: Representatives from each group report their findings to the class using computer-generated graphs and tables. Ensure everyone has a role. The gifted cluster then compares and analyses the results from the class, school and local area with the state data, and answers the question: Do results from the class, school and local area mirror the state’s cultural diversity and if so, how? While the gifted cluster is working on the analysis, the rest of the class can be identifying the natural and built environments that help the survival of the community. How might each cultural group interact with the places in the local environment? Both groups report back to the class.
Differentiation: Applying new skills and knowledge to a different context e.g., constructing and analysing
surveys, statistics
Using real world problems from the local community
Providing opportunities for students to learn advanced level content through mentoring
(guest speakers) and enrichment provision
Questioning: How does population growth affect environments?
How can diversity in populations improve environments?
What kinds of specific changes could occur in our class, school and local area? Elaborate.
Lesson 6
Content: Building deep understanding of cultural knowledge by investigating a group of indigenous peoples, including their unique customs and beliefs related to their environment.
Process: Help students develop an open-ended geographic question that provides the class with direction for an investigation or research regarding indigenous people. Negotiate clear criteria to guide students in their research. The question should promote analysis of the interdependency between the human world and the natural world.
Product: Students create a multimodal ‘tour’ of the lived experience of an indigenous group, (using a sequence of images and other multimedia such as music, voice-over, text, sound effects, film, interviews etc). Share with the class. At the conclusion of the presentations discuss how people around the world differ in their interactions with their environment.
Differentiation: Compare and contrast two indigenous cultures instead of one.
Expectation that some students will choose a lesser known indigenous culture to extend
themselves e.g., Sami over Inuit, Orang Asli, Hmong, Dayak, Okinawans, a specific
Aboriginal group e.g., Kamilaroi over all Aboriginal people
Choice – increases engagement
Questioning: How have indigenous peoples adapted to their environment?
Consider some of the challenges indigenous peoples face in maintaining:-
their traditions, their way of life and their ability to look after their environment.
Give some examples e.g., Dayak.
What interconnections do we, as Australians, have with the indigenous peoples that have been studied?
Appendix 1
BIOME BAZAAR
Groups of four students will work through the activities below to create a biome, which will form a total learning environment in the classroom. Each group will choose a biome and set up a display in the classroom. Invite parents and other classes to share the learning, providing an authentic audience. Adequate time will be needed for students to set up their biome display. As work is handed in at the end of each two-week period, evaluate and store the work for the ‘Bazaar’.
Due end of Week 2
Due end of Week 4
Due end of Week 6
Due end of Week 8
Post - event
With the students evaluate the plan and management of the biome, the information products and processes for themselves and for the needs of the particular audiences. Evaluate the learning.
Extension and enrichment / Homework Tasks
Rainforest
Polar
Robert Byrd. Asimov, Perry, Sir James Clark Ross, Douglas Mawson, Roald Amundsen, Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Sir Edmund Hillary, Will Stegar, Ann Bancroft, Tim Bowden, Captain John Davis, George Hubert Wilkins, John Rymill,Philip Law, Edgeworth David, Dick Smith
Created by Lynda Lovett