20 October 2015

Science as a Human Endeavour: Science knowledge helps people to understand the effect of their actions and Cross Curriculum Priorities: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

Australian Curriculum/ Year 4/ Science as a Human Endeavour/
Science knowledge helps people to understand the effect of their actions
e.g. We want students to explore how science can contribute to a discussion, about how human activity has changed the local environment, such as causing the loss of habitat for living things.
Cross Curriculum Priorities/ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures/ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have unique belief systems and are spiritually connected to the land, sea, sky and waterways.
Australian Curriculum/ Year 4/ Science Understanding Biological Sciences/ We want students to understand that living things depend on each other and the environment to survive.
Mopoke's
Image http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/15830130
What do you notice?
How many different kinds of birds can you see? What might help you to find the birds? What actions might you need to take to observe the birds? How might you identify the birds living in this wetland?
What are the birds doing? What is the same and what is different about how the different birds get their food and water?
What do you think?
Where do the birds get their water from? Where do they go when it rains? What do the birds get from the plants in the wetlands? What do the plants get from the birds?
What do you think might happen if a cat lived nearby? Or if more trees were added nearby? What do you think would happen if the water dried up? How might a fire affect the birds? How might night affect the birds? What would the birds do if the wetland was filled with dirt and turned into a soccer field?
What is the connection of the Kaurna people and the birds in this wetland? Did they connect with all the birds you have identified? Which of the birds are native? Which of the birds were introduced? How could you investigate what happened when the introduced species of bird had to share the wetland with the native species? What impact did this have on the Kaurna people? Who else might have been affected? What animals and plants would have been affected?
Does the dreaming story of the Mopoke give you any clues on how it provided information on the environment for the Kaurna people? What messages did the Mopoke bring?
How can you review and share what you found?
What tools (list, table, graph, and drawing) might you use to identify patterns and share this information?
Did other people find something different to you? Was what you found the same or different from what you predicted? How? How could you improve your investigation?
So what? What next?
Who might be interested in or need to know about the dependence relationships in the tree? Why? What else might you investigate?
(This example is based on Warriparinga Wetlands, Marion South Australia, if you were using this science conceptual narrative for another wetland you would need to research the dreaming story and bird life relevant to that place.)

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