Teacher preparation:

Overarching learning goal: The aim of this activity is to engage student curiosity in biodiversity and to encourage students in rich, High Order Thinking around this topic. By participating in this activity students will develop their own ideas, build their knowledge, attitudes and values through in-depth learning experiences around biodiversity.

Teacher content information: Having all the information we could want quite literally at our fingertips is fantastic: we can type a question into Google (sometimes you don't even have to type the whole question because Google thinks up the rest of the question for you) and we get instant answers. However, this type of questioning doesn't necessarily engage the questioner in the problem or in the answer. We are not asked to think about why this question is important, why it is important to answer it, how it could be answered, who has answered it and whether or not you can answer it yourself. By asking students to be problem finders (identifying the questions that they need to be asked and answered) you can begin to engage students in the topic on a deeper level. This type of questioning also allow students to scrutinise sources of information. Having unlimited access to so much information means that critical thinking skills are more important than ever.

Defining questions as either Googleable or Non-Googleable is a simple way of:

Identifying which questions encourage more than just fact finding,
Creating questions that stem from curiosity,
Developing questions that build thinking and analytical skills; and
Building depth in student learning on this topic.

For more information on Googleable and Non-Googleable questions, check out NoTosh's great website.

Remind students that there are no right or wrong questions in this activity: instead encourage students to think critically about their questions and conduct a 5-whys analysis of their question to gain a deeper understanding of their question.

Student and classroom organisation:

Preparation - Ask students to watch the following clip in their own time before the class and answer the questions on the student worksheet. This strategy provides the opportunity for students to build their knowledge, attitudes and values by themselves in preparation for the main activity:

Step 1.

Begin by clarifying student knowledge on biodiversity. Engage students in a class discussion around the following questions:

What is biodiversity?
Where is biodiversity?
How important is biodiversity?
What is happening to biodiversity?

Step 2.

Working individually, give students 3 minutes to come up with three questions they would like to know about biodiversity. Ask students to write each question on a post-it note.

On the board create two columns with the headings; Googleable and Non-Googleable. Briefly discuss with students what a Non-Googleable question might be (a questions that Google can’t answer, for example, ‘how will biodiversity loss affect me?’ Or ‘is saving biodiversity a waste of time?’). If students are need clarity around what Googleable and Non-Googleable questions are, ask students to briefly experiment with entering the following questions into the Google search bar (students can work as from the student worksheet or as a class):

What is the highest mountain in the world?
How many snowflakes are there in Antarctica?
Has time always existed or is it a human invention?
Why do people want more stuff when they already have enough?
Does Google know everything?

Ask students to work as a class to decide which questions they have written on the post-it notes are Googleable and which ones are Non-Googleable. Consider Googling some of the questions to see which category they might fall into.

Are any of the questions similar?
Can questions be themed or grouped together?
Which column has the most questions?

With your Googleable questions…

Divide the class into as many groups as you have themes of Googleable questions. Ask groups to undertake research online to explore their theme.

Groups should create a Prezi presentation to share their research with the class.

Once complete, engage the class in a discussion around presentations. Consider the following questions:

What were the most interesting things about biodiversity that the groups found?
Did groups manage to answer the Googleable questions?
What new questions do students have about biodiversity?

With your Non-Googleable questions…

Explore the Non-Googleable questions as the basis of a rich class-wide project. Depending on how many questions you have you may want to divide the class into groups or work as a class. Consider undertaking the following forms of research to answer the Non-Googleable questions:

Design an experiment
Survey members of the school community
Interview an expert
Host a guest speaker

As a class, decide on a medium for presenting your information, such as:

Video – e.g. documentary, short film, news report, animation
Podcast
Performance – e.g. song, play
Visual art – e.g. mural, graffiti wall, sculpture, 3D model
E-book
Online – e.g. blog, memes or gifs

Reflection questions

Ask students to reflect upon this activity using the following questions (also available on the student worksheet):

What is the difference between fact and opinion?
What is knowledge and how does it relate to fact and opinion?
How do we build our knowledge?
Where do we get our facts from?
How do we create opinions?

Non-Googleable Questions About Biodiversity

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