The following lessons are optional post-visit activities that can be completed after your excursion. Both lessons include assessment tasks.
Stage 1: Human Society and its Environment
People are connected to places and groups (HS1-GEO-01)
People care for Australia's water environments
Observe and describe natural and human features of Australian rivers, lakes, beaches and oceans by collecting and representing data.
Stage 1: English
Creating written texts (EN1-CWT-01)
Text features
Write texts that describe, explain, give an opinion, recount an event, tell a story.
Use a logical order to sequence ideas and events in sentences across a text.
I am learning to describe the natural and human features of Longneck Lagoon.
I can
Recall observations of the freshwater environment at Longneck Lagoon.
Write a postcard describing the features of this freshwater environment.
Introduction:
Re-read the postcard from Cairns that was shared on the excursion. As a class, identify key features of this descriptive text (use of adjectives, visual imagery, sensory description).
Review the observations students made at Longneck Lagoon during the excursion (e.g. sound map, field sketch). Make a class list/mind map of key observations.
Activity:
Ask students to imagine that they are writing a postcard in response to Mia and Pratyush from Saltwater State School in Queensland. Students will use their observations to describe the natural and human features around the freshwater environment of Longneck Lagoon.
Distribute the postcard template (below) for students to complete their descriptive writing task. Alternatively, students may write their descriptive passage in their workbooks.
Stage 1: Human Society and its Environment
People are connected to places and groups (HS1-GEO-01)
People care for Australia's water environments
Observe and describe natural and human features of Australian rivers, lakes, beaches and oceans by collecting and representing data
Stage 1: Mathematics
Data A (MA1-DATA-01, MA1-DATA-02)
Ask question and gather data
Gather data and track what has been counted by using concrete materials, tally marks, lists or symbols.
Represent data with objects and drawing
Use comparative language to describe information presented in a display, such as ‘more than' and ‘less than’.
Interpret a data display and identify the biggest or smallest values.
I am learning how to display the data collected on the excursion.
I can
Create a bar graph to represent the number of macroinvertebrates we counted and tallied.
Identify which macroinvertebrates had the biggest and smallest values.
Introduction:
Ask students to recall the types of macroinvertebrates that were collected on the excursion.
What did we discover about the health of Dragonfly Creek when we used the Water Pollution Index?
Activity:
Distribute the tally recording sheets completed on the excursion. Students may choose to sit with the students they were grouped with on the excursion in order to share/refer to their group recording sheet.
Explain to students that they will display the data that they collected on the excursion as a bar graph. Demonstrate how to represent numbers on the bar graph by colouring in the relative number of boxes. Note - if students collected 11 or more of a certain species, they will colour up to the 11+ point on the graph.
After students have completed the graph, read out each question in Activity 2. Assist students to decipher the biggest and smallest values represented on their graph. Assist students to complete the sentences provided on their worksheet using comparative language such as 'more than' or 'less than'.
Ask students to use their bar graph to make further data observations or comparisons if relevant.