Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes	Part B: What Would A Scientist Do?
30 minutes	Part C: Using Stories To Understand The World Around Us

30 minutes	Part A: Stories From Our Local Ecosystem
60 minutes	Part B: Classification System To Identify Animals
10 minutes	Reflection

Lesson 1

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Step 1. Differentiation -

If students have completed the previous lesson:

Begin by reflecting with students what worked and did not work with the bush blitz. Consider the following questions:
- How could we have made this better?
- What hurdles did we face?
- Were there any unanswered questions about what was caught?
- An important question to ask, as it leads directly into this lesson, is ‘how do we make sense of what we caught’?
Refer students back to their earlier questions on the topic to adjust or take note of any new questions about their discoveries.

If students have not completed the previous lesson:

Begin by explaining to students why community groups might conduct a bush blitz of habitat to search for critters that live there. Share this clip (from 01:47 mins to the end) to find out more about the purpose of a bush blitz. Note: The terms 'bush blitz' and a 'bio blitz' mean the same thing and can be used interchangeably. In this lesson, the term bush blitz will be prioritised unless referencing an external source where the term 'bio blitz' is used.
Once complete, invite students to share their thoughts and reflections about this clip. Consider the following question:
- What did you find interesting?
- How does this clip help you understand what a bush blitz is?
- How does this clip help you understand why we would conduct a bush blitz?
Show students the Bush Blitz slides of images of species found and only give them information on their habitat (at this stage). Ask students to come up with some 'I wonder' questions they have about any of these species.

Part B: What Would A Scientist Do?

Step 1.

Discuss with students how we might make sense of who and what the Bush Blitz species are, reminding students that, at the moment, we only know what their habitat/microhabitat is.

Step 2.

Following on from this discussion, ask students how they would find out who and what these animals are from scientists. Depending on what students suggest, you may wish to add that we use conversations, interviews, online information, or stories to find out what scientists know.

Step 3.

Invite students to imagine a scientist. What ...

… do scientists look like?
… are the scientists doing?
… are some words to describe a scientist?
… are some, if any, interactions students might have had with a scientist?

Put these ideas up on the whiteboard and take a photo for reference later.

Step 4.

Show students images of scientists (you could perform a live image search with students or pre-select the images ahead of time). Ask students to match what image most reflects the idea they had of a scientist? Ask students to reflect on why they thought this.

A lot of what we construct in the world comes from an anthropocentric narrative or worldview. Anthropocentrism sees humans as separate from and above nature. It is Westernisedstyle of thinking that is perceived to be part of the reason why many people are reluctant to engage with the effects of climate change. Challenging these narratives begins by examining different ways of looking at the world.

Step 5.

Explain that when scientists are looking deeply at nature, they are gathering, observing and forming deep relationships with the world. In this way, everyone can be a scientist when we start to take a deeper look at what is going on around us.

Part C: Using Stories To Understand The World Around Us

Step 1.

Explain to students the role of stories. Stories can be a way of remembering and transmitting information from generation to generation. Stories can be rich in information and can inform us about the natural world, helping us to learn how to see beyond the item (plant, animal, thing) in isolation, but its relationship to something else. As an example, when we think of a tree we think about it on its own, and we think about how we, as people, can use it for our benefit. However, if we think of it as part of an ecosystem, we can better understand its relationship with the world around it. If we were to take this tree away, it will influence the birds and the insects that live there too, as they might lose their food source or habitat. Stories can help us to understand these relationships better.

Step 2.

Explain to students that to find a story from someone else, we need to ask open-ended questions, rather than closed questions. Display the following questions to the class, without revealing whether they are closed or open questions.

Open Question	Closed Question
What insect do you like and why? On a scale of 1-10, how much do you like insects and why? Where do you find insects? And how? Can you tell me a story about the centipedes that live in the leaf litter?	What insect do you like? On a scale of 1- 10, how much do you like insects? Where do you find insects? Do you go insect hunting?

Step 3.

Invite students to suggest any similarities between the open questions and to suggest a definition for open questions. Use the following suggested definition to help you create your definition:

Possible definition for open questions: Open questions are free-form. They describe an idea based on a pattern. However, they require more effort and time to answer.

You can then repeat the process for closed questions, looking for similarities between these questions and using these similarities to create a definition for closed questions:

Possible definition for closed question: Typically, closed questions are those with one or two-word answers.

Step 4.

In pairs, ask students to come up with three open questions they could ask someone in their local community about stories (or ideas) they have about local animals/ insects (caught or from the Bush Blitz slides). Share these with the class and collectively choose the top five.

Our aim here is to find the stories of local animals in their local ecosystem. We are looking for stories that relate to place, as well as mutual reciprocity (a giving and taking with the natural world which implies respecting living things).

Step 5.

Give the class instructions for their homework activity:

They are to find one person in their community, who is older (grandparents ideally, but parents also work). So that students can find a local story, they need to ask an older person one of the three questions the class has chosen. They may accompany this question with a photo or drawing of what they found in the microhabitat. Students can either record this information on a device to bring back to school or remember the story to retell once in class.

Note: Depending on your local area, it might be challenging to find a story related to the Bush Blitz animals and so students should feel successful with any story they can obtain.

Lesson 2

Part A: Stories From Our Local Ecosystem

Step 1.

Once students return to class, they can present their stories back in class or tell the story on A4 paper (through the use of drawings or as a written account). Display a cultural map of these different stories that the local community has about local animals found in microhabitats.

An example of this is the South Island tribe in Aotearoa, New Zealand, Ngāi Tahu (https://www.kahurumanu.co.nz/cultural-mapping-story#chapter-intro)

Step 2.

Encourage students to reflect on what the class caught during the bush blitz. Do the stories change what they knew about what was caught? How does this make sense of what we found? Explain that this is one perspective on what we know about the animals in our local community but there are others.

Part B: Classification System To Identify Animals

Step 1.

Explain to students that other scientists use a classification system to find out what they have caught. Below is a nice example from New Zealand, which shows how to use various physical characteristics to narrow down what type of insect you might be looking at. In the example below, the task of recognising the insect begins with simple questions, such as looking at whether or not legs are present, before asking questions about what they have found.

What is this bug? - Land Care Research (https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/resources/identification/animals/bug-id/what-is-this-bug)

For Australian invertebrates, CSIRO has a similar website displaying the different insect families:

What bug is that? - CSIRO: https://anic.ento.csiro.au/insectfamilies/

Alternatively, you could use the Bugs And Slugs ID Chart to help you identify the type of invertebrates you have found.

Step 2.

Use an example (from what you found or the Bush Blitz slides) to demonstrate and scaffold the steps to find out what animal is in front of them.

Step 3.

In pairs or groups, invite students to take five of the animals found in either the school or the Bush Blitz slides and go through the steps to find out what they have caught. Compare and share findings with the rest of the class.

You could then demonstrate how to find examples of their particular animal, using a search engine to find the anatomy of the chosen creature. Or have some pre-designed sheets of animal parts, ready to be labelled.

The Insect Anatomy sheet and Insect Lifecycles sheet may be useful. Further information can be found here.

Step 4.

Assign each student (or allow them to choose) one animal to focus on, trying to ensure that as many different animals are assigned as possible - the aim here is to showcase the variety of animals found in the schoolyard.

Each student should then work independently to complete this Parts Of An Insect Worksheet. On these sheets, encourage students to use both words and detailed drawings to help describe their animal.

Step 5.

Once students have completed their descriptions of their animals, work with students to create a gallery of their completed worksheets. In this gallery you could also include any photos of students conducting their bush blitz.

Step 6.

Finally, invite students to reflect on how their new knowledge about the animals they studied changes what they thought they knew about invertebrates and microhabitats in the schoolyard. When they compare their latest research with the stories they had been told, has their appreciation or thoughts on invertebrates changed?

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to respond to the following questions (also on the Student Worksheet):

Why is it important to look at more than one perspective when investigating an issue or topic?
How can we use multiple perspectives to make sense of what we found in our school grounds?

Differentiated Learning

Extension -

Students could ask more than one person in their community about a story related to place. They could ask someone from a different ethnic background versus a family member. The choices are endless.
As a class, create an identification and classification system similar to the one linked in this lesson.
Students could add notes to their diagrams to illustrate different adaptations the animal has that allows it to survive in their local environment.

Provisions for Learning Support –

As a class, students can start to build a terminology wall for key terms using images and words to represent them.
For a community story, consider inviting an older person from your community (this could include a farmer, an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Elder, or someone who lived in your area as a child) to share a story about small animals. Note: If working with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples, you must foster a reciprocal relationship or respect and trust.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Backyard Bush Blitz - Understanding Different World Views in Insect Identification

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