Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes	Part A: What happens to our environment after a hazard?
30 minutes	Part B: How does a natural hazard impact land, flora and fauna
25 minutes	Part C: Australian organisations' role in protecting animals and wildlife during and after a hazard
05 minutes	Reflection

Part A: What happens to our environment after a hazard?

Step 1.

If you are a Year 7 teacher, you will be sharing and investigating the impact floods have on wildlife (Steps 2 - 4), and if you are a Year 8 teacher, you will be sharing and exploring the impacts fires have on wildlife (Steps 5 - 6).

Step 2.

Year 7 teachers, share and read the article: What are the effects on wildlife? (australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2022/03/what-are-the-effects-on-wildlife-during-flooding-and-how-can-you-help/) as a class.

Step 3.

Split students into groups of 3 - 4 students per group and ask them to discuss the following questions:

How do floods impact Australian wildlife?
Can you provide specific examples of how a flood has affected a species?
Are some species more likely to be affected by hazards than others and why is that?

Step 4.

Ask students to share their answers and report back to the class. Write your students' answers in a table, or ask your students to feed into an interactive class doc which they will revisit and use in the next part. Discuss your students' responses and create space and time for questions.

Step 5.

If you are a year 8 teacher, share this map with students: wildlife.vic.gov.au/home/biodiversity-bushfire-response-and-recovery

Step 6.

Ask students to discuss and consider the features on the map and what the information means. Gauge whether students understand how to read the data about the Victorian fires 2019-2020.

Geography teachers would be familiar with explicitly teaching the six features of a map using BOLTSS (this acronym represents the first letters of the six features: Border, Orientation, Legend, Title, Scale, Source).

Step 7.

Discuss that data on the map and ask students to answer and discuss the following questions in their groups:

How many species are of particular concern and what are they? 118 consists of the Burrowing Cray, Diamond Python, Large Brown Tree Frog, Bristlebird, Alpine Ash, Betka Bottlebrush and the Long-footed Potoroo.
Consider the animals and their habitat; does this affect their exposure to fires? Some animals live in dry bushland prone to fires.
Consider the animal and their physical features, how does this impact their chance of survival? They might already be a threatened species and live in treetops in bushfire prone areas.
Why are some plants of greater concern? Bottlebrush is found in dry bushfire prone areas.
Why are some areas of greater concern than others on the map? Specific areas are particularly dry, forest areas, and bushland.

Part B: How does a natural hazard impact land, flora and fauna

Step 1.

Explain to students that they will continue to investigate and report on the effects hazards have on a natural environment in their groups. Present the class with one hazard that is specific to their year level.

Step 2.

Write Fires if you are a Year 8 teacher and the word Floods if you are a Year 7 teacher on the board. Then create subheadings so that students can see the impacts before they start talking to each other.

Headings: Floods or Fires.
Subheadings: Land (e.g., soil, lakes, rivers, ocean, water resources) Flora (e.g., forests, plants) Fauna (e.g., animals, insects, spiders, creatures).

Step 3.

Ask students to go back into their groups and conduct further research on how fires and floods impact land degradation and Australian species (flora and fauna).

Step 4.

Present students with research Links to get them started:

Note: Information in the table about floods was retrieved from the following websites and resources

Australian Geographic website article: What are the effects on wildlife during flooding and how can you help (australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2022/03/what-are-the-effects-on-wildlife-during-flooding-and-how-can-you-help/)
Plant Scientist website article: The effects of flooding on plants (plantscientist.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/the-effects-of-flooding-on-plants/)
Chief Scientist website article: Understanding floods consequences (chiefscientist.qld.gov.au/publications/understanding-floods/flood-consequences).

Information in the table about fires was retrieved from:
Bushfirefront website article: Impact of Fires (bushfirefront.org.au/home/fire-facts/impacts-of-bushfires/).

Bushfire front website article: Impact of Fires (bushfirefront.org.au/home/fire-facts/impacts-of-bushfires/).

Below is an example of potential impacts caused by floods:

Land Degradation

Flora

Fauna

Floods tend to further degrade already degraded systems. Removal of vegetation in and around rivers, increased channel size, dams, levee banks and catchment clearing all work to degrade the hill-slopes, rivers and floodplains, and increase the erosion and transfer of both sediment and nutrients.

Some plants are perfectly fine growing in wet places, e.g. bulrushes or water lilies, and are adapted. However, in generally drier areas such as fields or pastures, the presence of excessive amounts of water can cause the plants to become stressed and even die.

There are many ways that flooding can damage plants. Excessive moisture in soil decreases oxygen levels. This impedes respiration (where energy is released from sugars) in the roots leading to the build-up of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen gases. Ultimately, the roots can suffocate and die. Toxic compounds such as ethanol and hydrogen sulphide can also build up in the soil and damage plants. If leaves and stems are submerged, photosynthesis (absorption of energy from the sun to produce sugars) can be inhibited and plant growth can slow or even stop.

Floods rapidly turn land habitats into underwater habitats, allowing aquatic animals to venture into places you wouldn't expect. Flooding during northern Australia's annual wet season, for example, sees crocodiles occasionally turn up in people's backyard pools.

Land-dwelling animals typically don’t fair as well in floods. Some may be able to detect imminent inundation and head for higher, drier ground. Others simply don’t have the ability or opportunity to take evasive action in time. This can include animals with dependent young in burrows, such as wombats, platypus and echidnas.

Fish, waterbirds, turtles and other aquatic or semi-aquatic life may benefit from an influx of nutrients, increasing foraging opportunities and even stimulating breeding events.

Other wildlife may face harsher realities. Some may become trapped far from their homes. Those that attempt to return home will have to run the gauntlet of different habitats, roads, cats, dogs and foxes, and other threats.

Below is an example of potential impacts caused by fires:

Land Degradation

Flora

Fauna

Negative: High-intensity wildfires have very adverse effects on water supply catchments. The immediate impact is a great increase in runoff from the next rainy period due to the lack of interception by tree and understorey foliage. it is accompanied by extensive soil erosion and the transport of large quantities of silt and ash into the water storage facility

Positive: heats the soil, cracking seed coats and triggering germination.

Most native forests are not “destroyed” by wildfire.
Some plants are destroyed such as Ash-type eucalypt forests. Drier forest types, such as jarrah in WA are not destroyed, although they are severely damaged and high-intensity bushfires kill many trees. Some germinate or benefit in other ways from fire.

Intense bushfires cause the death, by incineration or smoke suffocation, of large numbers of native animals and insects that cannot avoid the flames. Any animals that are able to take refuge in holes in the ground or in logs are usually quickly lost after a bushfire as they no longer have any cover from predators.

Step 5.

Once students have filled in their tables, ask each group to share one impact each.

Part C: Australian organisations' role in protecting animals and wildlife during and after a hazard

Step 1.

Discuss with students that although they’ve spent the first half of the lesson learning about how hazards have affected the ecosystems, they are now going to learn a little more about what people and organisations are doing to restore and support nature. To do this, we are going to create a 'call to action' awareness campaign to explain the effects of hazards on living things and how we can restore biodiversity.

Step 2.

First, we will have to do some research and investigate some key organisations such as WWF and ZOOS Victoria. They save threatened species from extinction and have a big part to play in restoring biodiversity after hazards.

Step 3.

As a class navigate either the WWF website (wwf.org.au/what-we-do/bushfire-recovery/protect#gs.vvbp7i) or the ZOOS Victoria website (wildwelfare.org/the-conservation-mission-of-zoos-nabila-aziz/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw37iTBhCWARIsACBt1IxR85qJD0g5OmXr8YV-nM6HI5QOFN6tgy9QGIihKycXRN8KB04WlcaApnnEALwwcB) to discover how WWF and ZOOS Victoria and discover a specific project that your school could take part in and answer the following questions:

What is the name of the organisation?
What does the organisation or project endeavour to do or change?
How is the project carried out?
How can the project or something similar be implemented in schools?

Step 4.

Assign your students into groups of three to four students per group and ask them to create a script for their call to action to educate people about the effects of natural hazards on Australian species and how we can help. Ensure you discuss and explain that in the student's 'call to action' script, you are educating people about:

The effects of fires or floods on Australian land and species
A project run by an organisation that requires support
How you or the community can support the organisation to restore biodiversity.

This call to action scrip should not exceed 5 minutes and students should aim for a 3 minute presentation.

Step 5.

Ask your class to chose a scriptwriter, director, cinematographer, speaker/s (actor/actress) and editor. Once all roles have been assigned commence filming your 'call to action campaign'.

Reflection

Based on what they have learned in this lesson, ask students to record:

3 ideas or thoughts
2 further questions
1 piece of information that surprised them.

Differentiated learning

Extension

Invite an expert to talk to students about the effects of fires and floods on the community and how Schools can help conserve and protect biodiversity – incursion/excursion.

Provisions for learning support

Throughout most of the class, the teacher is expected to scaffold the learning and create groups based on mixed abilities and skill sets to ensure students learn from the teacher and one another.

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?

Resilient Australia - How Do Natural Hazards Impact The Land And Australian Species?

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