Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Part A: What do I care about?

25 minutes

Part B: Ideation - 100 ideas in 10 minutes

35 minutes

Part C: Project planning

Learning intentions

Students will...

synthesise their learning from the Love Food? Love Bees! unit to develop a plan for taking action on an important theme.
work collaboratively to plan, execute, and reflect on an action project that addresses themes from the unit.

Success criteria

Students can...

identify a theme from the unit and develop a meaningful action project related to it and reflect on the success of their project and their role in its execution.

Introduction

Explain to students that in this lesson they will be reviewing what they looked at throughout the Love Food? Love Bees! unit, selecting the points or issues that they found most important or interesting, and developing a plan to take action or raise awareness in their school or community.

In this lesson students will be asked to:

Think about what they care about
Develop a range of ideas for taking action
Select one idea for taking action
Plan a project around this idea
Execute the project
Reflect on the success of their project and celebrate their efforts

Part A: What do I care about?

Step 1

This activity involves whole class teaching time. Working as a class, engage students in a discussion around the themes and issues raised throughout the unit. Write a list on the board and ensure the list below in Step 2 is included.

Step 2

Invite students to suggest possible solutions or ideas that they can undertake to address each issue. Use the examples below to get the ball rolling:

Theme or Issue	Examples of possible solution
Bee populations are decreasing	Share information with the community about bees and how we can ensure their survival Increase bee habitat in the school Increase bee habitat at home
People are scared of bees	Create a love for bees by sharing factual information about all of the benefits of bees Help other year levels in your school understand bees by running a class in the school garden
Bees are suffering from the effects of pesticides	Research and make pesticide alternatives Educate the community about the benefits of pesticide-free farming Encourage use of seeds that don't contain pesticides
People don't understand the impact that bees have on food production	Create a mural that illustrates the role bees play in food production Perform a play that explores the issues around declining bee populations Create a video or short film demonstrating the importance of bees
Bees' habitats are disappearing	Plant a bee-friendly garden at home/school Create a bee hotel Label bee friendly plants in your school garden and invite parents in to explain how they can do it too

Step 3

Invite students to choose the issue or theme they care about the most and to form groups based on these issues. Redistribute students if some groups are too large and others too small (try to ensure each group has at least three members).

Part B: Ideation - 100 ideas in 10 minutes

Step 1

Now that students have identified the issue they are interested in, they need to start thinking about what actions they can take to address this problem. This activity will guide them in brainstorming ideas by completing the '100 ideas in 10 minutes' challenge.

Students will work in their groups to come up with as many different and varied solutions as possible in 10 minutes. The ideas can be as abstract and off-the-wall as students like, but they should also add some practical and realistic ideas too. The aim is to have as many as possible, with a view to being able to choose one that can be developed, refined and put into action. Remind students about the approaches that they researched and shared with each other in the Beeing Helpful lesson.

The group brainstorm could be run like this:

Give each group a piece of butcher’s paper and each person a texta.
Before starting the countdown, ask students to write their issue or theme on the top of their piece of paper.
Students should stand around the tables rather than sit in their chairs as this encourages more creative thinking.
They should:
- Write everything down as fast as possible on the butcher's paper.
- Work fast: they only have 10 minutes and they need 100 ideas.
- Do not discuss the ideas at this stage ... just get them recorded.
Give time markers as they progress - 'Three minutes left! Two minutes! One minute left!'. You could project a countdown of 10 minutes using this website.
Share a rough figure of how many ideas have been generated across the whole class - remind students how productive they can be in 10 minutes.
You could offer a prize for the group that creates the most ideas within the 100 minutes.

Step 2

Once groups have completed the '100 ideas in 10 minutes' challenge, ask each group to spend the rest of the brainstorming time viewing and discussing their list of ideas They could also be invited to circulate around other groups to view and consider other ideas.

Invite each student to nominate their favourite ideas by:

Drawing a star next to the idea they think is the most creative
Drawing a bee next to the idea that they like best and want to make a buzz about!

Step 3

Explain to students that each group will be selecting one idea to bring to life. It is important that each group selects an idea that is feasible and realistic to complete within the time frame. One way to do this is using the S.M.A.R.T. project criteria.

Ask each group to use the S.M.A.R.T. project criteria to select one idea that they will complete. Explain to students that this criteria can help focus on what you what to achieve, how you will achieve it, how long it will take and how you will measure your group's success.

Examples of S.M.A.R.T. ideas include:

Communicating with the local council about bee-friendly gardening practices
Creating a short video that explains some bee-friendly practices
Conducting a school garden audit - how bee-friendly is the school garden? - and suggestions for actions
Creating posters for the school explaining why bees are not to be feared and their benefit to the environment and food production

Step 4

Explain to students that if any of the ideas don't stand up to the S.M.A.R.T. criteria, they should be discarded. If they have more than one idea that stands up to the S.M.A.R.T. criteria, then the group should decide fairly on which one to choose. If none of the ideas stand up to the S.M.A.R.T. criteria, then groups will need to adjust or adapt existing ideas to meet the criteria.

Part C: Project planning

Note: Emphasise with students that before commencing the project planning phase of this lesson, each group member should take responsibility for collecting evidence and artefacts about the work that they put into the project, including drafts of everything they create as part of the project and records of any opportunities they pursue (either successfully or unsuccessfully). The most important thing for students to remember is that the PROCESS of completing the project is really important, perhaps even more than the final product. Students should aim to demonstrate the growth and learning that they experience both personally and as a group as a result of facing the challenges inherent in a project of this type. You could also refer to the Reflection part of this lesson and ensure students have a clear understanding of the assessment criteria. It would be a great idea to direct students to the self-reflection and project reflection assessment activities.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

Step 1

Write the above quote on the board and explain to students that now they have developed an idea for action, it’s time to start planning a project around this action.

Step 2

Using the idea developed and refined in Part B, groups should complete the Project Planning Tool (also available on the Student Worksheet). Groups should fill in one per group.

Some tips for supporting groups through the project planning phase:

ensure groups are allocating roles and dividing up the workload fairly
encourage all group members to contribute so that all students have ownership over the project
remind students to be realistic and make the project achievable
advise students to consider possible challenges and obstacles 0 being prepared is a great way of ensuring the plan will be a success
encourage groups to keep communication lines open at all stages of project planning and actioning.

Part D: Execute the project

After students have completed the planning process, allow time for students to action their projects. This could be done in one day or over a number of weeks to complete the project. The Project Checklist can be used to help groups run their activity or event.

Consider the following tips when supporting students through the action phase of their projects:

be clear about time allocation - remind students how much time they have to complete the project and encourage students to be realistic about the tasks they have to complete in that time
keep communication high making sure everyone has everything they need to complete the work they have been allocated, and that everyone knows what they should be doing
talk to your principal, and to parents and staff about what the students are doing and how/why they are completing and actioning their projects
remind students to prepare for set-backs, and remind them that making change can be hard; encourage them to continue even in the face of obstacles or challenges.

Part E: Bee festival

An important part of real-world learning such as in this project is the opportunity for students to present their learning in a public arena. This could mean hosting people from the local community at an exhibition where the final products as well as details about the process students went through to execute the project are displayed for the audience.

The public display of students' projects (and their reflections about their learning during the project) could take the form of a Bee Festival, where bees and their impact on the local environment are celebrated through the exhibition of students' projects.

If students have chosen to create short films, developed a performance, created a mural or other artwork or even appealed in writing to local authorities to make bee-friendly changes, their projects should be showcased during the Bee Festival. This will ensure that students' projects are authentic and have a far reaching impact.

The responsibility for organising the Bee Festival could be something that is allocated to a small group of students. They could work together with you to:

ask school leadership about the potential for hosting a Bee Festival
negotiate a time and place for the Bee Festival with school leadership
identify members of the local community that they would like to see at the Bee Festival
create and send out invitations to the Bee Festival
organise the different displays/performances etc., that will make up the Bee Festival
create a schedule for the event
identify the jobs that might need to be done before, on and after the event, and allocate them to class members.

Reflection

Note: Emphasise with students that before commencing the project planning phase of this lesson, each group member should take responsibility for collecting evidence and artefacts about the work that they put into the project, including drafts of everything they create as part of the project and records of any opportunities they pursue (either successfully or unsuccessfully). The most important thing for students to remember is that the PROCESS of completing the project is really important - perhaps even more than the final product. Students should aim to demonstrate the growth and learning that they experience both personally and as a group as a result of facing the challenges inherent in a project of this type.

An important part of real-world learning such as in this project is the opportunity for students to present their learning in a public arena. This could mean hosting people from the local community at an exhibition where the process and final products of students' projects are displayed as posters. It could mean creating a newsletter about students' projects and distributing it to parents and community members. Another option could be producing and screening a two-minute film that documents students' projects. The main objective is that work (including the process) is presented publicly, thus making it authentic and real.

Invite students to complete the project reflection and self refection (available on the Student Worksheet). Each student should complete both sets of reflection questions independently.

Project reflection

What impact did our project have?
Was our project a success? Why or why not?
What parts of the project were the most successful and why?
What parts of the project were the least successful and why? How would we improve these parts?
How would we improve the project overall?
What challenges did we face and how did we overcome them?
How could we extend our project?

Self reflection

How did I work in the group?
What would I do differently next time?
What was the best part of working on this project and why?
What was the worst part and why?
What impact did I have?
What am I most proud of?

Finally, congratulate your students on their efforts and remind them to be proud of what they achieved, even if they didn't achieve all they hoped to. Making change is hard and efforts to make change should be acknowledged and celebrated.

Beeing Friendly Project

Go to

Summary

Learning intentions

Students will...

Success criteria

Students can...

Lesson guides and printables

Lesson Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Additional Info

Related Professional Learning

In this lesson