Teaching Sequence

15 minutes – Part A: Background to Bats
25 minutes – Part B: ClimateWatch Trail Case Study
50 minutes – Part C: Create a ClimateWatch Trail Webpage
10 minutes – Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Background to Bats

Step 1.

If students have completed the previous lesson, Animals on the Edge of Environmental Change, revise learning by discussing the connection between bats and their environments focusing on flying-foxes (or megabats) and their role as long-distance pollinators. In this lesson students will extend on this learning to understand how data collected about bats is being used to improve the environment.

Link the lesson to geographical concepts by explaining to students that in this class they will be investigating our changing environment by focusing on the behaviour of animals.

Introduce flying-fox bats by playing the following clip. Invite students to keep an eye out for any unexpected characteristics of the bats shown:

Fruit bats in Australia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL0cQ0rhqN8)

Step 2.

Ask students to form pairs and discuss whether they agree with this statement and why:

Flying-foxes are important to the environment.

Invite pairs to share the main points of their discussion in a quick class sharing session.

Students may be unsure about the term 'flying-fox'. If this is the case, clarify that flying-foxes are large fruit bats. They were given this name because of their long, fox-like faces. Flying-foxes are also called megabats.

Step 3.

Project this Flying Foxes article (source: the Australia Wildlife Protection Council – https://awpc.org.au/the-animals/flying-fox/). Encourage students to independently read the article and note any new information about flying-foxes' importance in the environment in the space provided on Student Worksheet.

Facilitate a class discussion, allowing students to share the information that they read in the article. Be sure to highlight that bats are long-distance pollinators.

Step 4.

Project Google Earth or a similar interactive satellite image map. Zoom in to your school. Begin zooming out, inviting students to point out the larger green spaces around your community. Discuss the relative distance between the green spaces (depending on your location, these distances could be quite substantial). Note any green spaces that are seemingly isolated. Ask students to think about how, without flying-foxes, these isolated green spaces would become less and less diverse. In time a lack of diversity would affect not only the plants in the area but also the animals, as the variety of food and shelter becomes limited.

If you are lucky enough to be located in a biodiversity-rich area with well connected green spaces, you may choose to focus on a neighbouring town or city for this activity.

Part B: ClimateWatch Trail Case Study

In this part of the lesson, students will focus on flying-foxes in the environment. Students will investigate a ClimateWatch Trail with verified sightings of flying-foxes. By looking at the behaviour of flying-foxes and their needs, students will be able to gain insight into the distinct characteristics of the environment.

Step 1.

Introduce students to the work of Earth Watch Australia's ClimateWatch program. Explain that ClimateWatch works to record long-term data about indicator species such as flying-foxes using an app and a website. ClimateWatch asks citizens to download the app and record sightings of various indicator species. The data is then checked by trained scientists before being placed on Australia’s national database, the Atlas of Living Australia. The long-term information that citizen scientists collect can then be used to understand the impacts of changes to our environment. With this information, we can make more informed decisions about how to better manage the environment.

Show students the ClimateWatch Trails page. Explain that ClimateWatch Trails are spaces developed by Earthwatch, where the local community can collect data to investigate the behaviour of plants and animals on a planned track that can be visited regularly. Over time this data acts as a health check for the ecosystem. The seasonal behaviour of animals and plants (phenology) is fine-tuned to environmental drivers (such as temperature and rainfall). Changes in the behaviour of more sensitive 'indicator' plant and animal species on a trail can flag potential environmental disasters that may be on the horizon. The more data that we have about indicator species the clearer our image of the environment's health.

State that students' challenge in this lesson is to work in small groups to help raise the profile of a local ClimateWatch Trail. Groups will create a webpage (a single page website) that links to a local ClimateWatch Trail. This webpage should use one of the bats that can be found within the area of the trail as a feature species. Webpages should make a connection with the local audience through certain species, and encourage people to take action by going to the ClimateWatch Trail and recording their observations.

Display the following criteria for the class. Their webpage should:

Include the name and location of the trail.
Include accurate information about the importance of the bat species to the wider environment.
Include the type of environment the trail is based on, e.g. forests, deserts, grasslands, farmland, inland water, coast, marine or urban area.
Include information about the environmental features of the area in which this trail is based. In particular, the elements of the environment that affect and are affected by the bat species present.
Include changes to this environment that could threaten bats.
Persuade the audience to take action by using their local ClimateWatch trail.
Be grammatically correct and have a logical flow of information.
Be aesthetically pleasing.
Include a list of credible sources.

Note: The majority of these questions encourage students to investigate features of the local biome applicable to flying-foxes. Students will need to be encouraged to use systems thinking to connect the behaviour to these species to environmental management. If students are having trouble making connections between flying-foxes and the environment you could encourage them to visualise the information they find in a brainstorm or flowchart format. These options can help students see the many links a single species has with its surrounding environment.

If your local ClimateWatch Trail is close to the school, consider organising a field trip and inviting students to collect firsthand data on the environment. This could also include taking photos that could be included in students' websites.

Step 2.

Invite students to form small groups and use an internet-enabled device to visit one of the ClimateWatch Trails featuring the bats that are closest to you from the list below (available in the Student Worksheet):

Encourage groups to explore the ClimateWatch Trail page, familiarising themselves with its features.

Step 3.

Explain that the class will work to critique a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) project page as inspiration for their own page. Invite groups to open the WCS page (link available on the Student Worksheet). Ask students to select one of the species pages.

Invite students to use the questions below (and on the Student Worksheet) to critique the webpage and help inspire the design of their own webpage:

Which species did you select and what information is provided about this animal's environment?
Describe how visuals have been used on the page and what their effects on the viewer are.
The first few sentences of a call to action-style text are often called 'the hook'. What is the hook on this page? How effective is the hook and why?
What action is the webpage trying to encourage and how does it do this?
What have you learned from the WCS and how will it improve your ClimateWatch Trail webpage?

Part C: Create a ClimateWatch Trail Webpage

In the final part of this lesson, students will be creating a ClimateWatch Trail webpage that uses flying-foxes as the feature species. To do this students should conduct further research, synthesise what they have learned and present it in an engaging and creative way. If possible, it can be beneficial to team-teach this part of the lesson with a Digital Technology teacher.

Step 1.

Invite students to research and draft their text on the Student Worksheet. Remind students about the criteria for the task, and that the text should be concise and engaging.

Step 2.

Invite students to create their webpage draft on a piece of A4 or A3 paper. Students can prototype their webpage design using sticky notes. Simply write the elements that are to be included in the page on the sticky notes and begin rearranging them around the page.

Step 3.

Using a website making tool, such as Wix, Google Sites, Wordpress or Sway, invite students to begin creating their sites. When complete, ask groups to share their site's URL with you. Project each group's work, inviting them to briefly speak about their design before encouraging students to ask questions of the group about their page.

Step 4.

Facilitate a class discussion around how students can share their new webpage. This could include but is not limited to using school social media accounts and newsletters, contacting local councils (or the council local to the ClimateWatch Trail), and sending them onto the creators of the trails or ClimateWatch themselves.

Reflection

Invite students to read and respond to the following prompt on the Student Worksheet:

Bats are an often misunderstood species, as their value to the environment is not widely known. Many communities around Australia have proposed relocating known flying-fox roosts because of this very reason. These proposed changes to the environment often have to go through local councils. One of the most effective ways to have your voice heard regarding a local change in your community is to write to your local Councillor with your concerns.

If you were drafting a letter advising on the value of flying-foxes in the environment you have researched in this lesson, what three points would you raise and why?

Differentiated Learning

Extension – Work with the class to plan a trip to a local ClimateWatch Trail where students can experience recording indicator species.

Provisions for Learning Support – Work as a class on a single webpage. Together, create a series of subheadings for your page, e.g. 'The Species', 'The Trail', 'The Challenge'. Invite students to form small groups and allocate each group a subheading. Challenge students to draft two paragraphs maximum for their section of the webpage. Provide editing and grammatical suggestions on drafts before asking for a final version and adding this to your final webpage.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

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

Citizen Science - Investigating Climate Trails

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