Teaching Sequence

10-20 minutes - Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
40-50 minutes - Part B: Observing Our School
40-50 minutes - Part C: Creating Your Map
10-20 minutes - Part D: Analysis And Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Begin this lesson by working with students to refresh their understanding of the following terms (TIP: some of these words may be familiar to students if you have completed the Tuning In To Animals, People & Environment lesson; for students who haven’t completed this lesson, more time may be needed to clarify definitions and examples).

Invite students to suggest definitions and examples for the following (suggestions included):

Community
- Definition: A group of people who live in the same area and who share similar interests, backgrounds or ideas.
- Example: A community can be the people who live in your town who you know and who you share something with. You might be part of the Italian community, or the football community, or the art community. You might be a part of a community garden where the people who live around you work to create a garden together. Or you might work on a community newspaper where the people in your area contribute stories about and for your area.
Neighbourhood
- Definition: A defined area within a town or city where people live.
- Example: A neighbourhood can be the street you live on or it could be the places that you walk your dog everyday. It is usually smaller than your suburb, and is usually the area that you are most familiar with in the town you live in.
Human-made feature
- Definition: Something that is made by people as opposed to something that occurs naturally in nature.
- Example: Buildings, roads, footpaths and some parks are all examples of features that have been made by people.
Animals
- Definition: A living creature that eats plants or other animals, that has senses and that grows and reproduces.
- Example: Native animals include kangaroos, possums, koalas, frogs, insects and some birds. Introduced animals include rabbits, foxes and some birds. Domestic animals include cats and dogs. Farm animals include cows, sheep and horses.
Environment
- Definition: All the living and non-living things that occur naturally.
- Example: Living things that occur in our environment include plants, animals and people. Non-living things that occur in our environment include sunshine, water, air, soil and rocks.

Record student thoughts on the board; you will access this information in the next activity.

Part B: Observing Our School

Step 1.

Explain to students that in this lesson they will be observing the human-made and natural features of their school and recording these visually by creating a map that they will annotate to show features relating to people, other animals and the environment.

Share your map of your school with students. Work with students to identify the main features on the map, such as the building they are in, the toilets, play equipment and oval.

Now invite students to suggest other features this map includes, particularly those features discussed during the Activating Prior Knowledge activity.

Reading maps can be tricky for people of any age. To help children orient themselves on the map, encourage them to use their fingers to imagine to the different features marked on the map, staring from the place they are now.

You can then invite students to think about what information this map doesn’t include by posing some or all of the following questions:

What does this map tell us about the plants and animals at our school?
What does this map tell us about where animals at our school live, for example where they nest or have burrows?
What does this map tell us about where kids do or don’t like to play?
What does this map tell us about the places where you will usually find the most litter?
What does this map tell us about the plants that smell nice or that have the best flowers?
What does this map tell us about which parts of the school yard are the muddiest?
What does this map tell us about the things that might be broken or not working in the school yard?
What does this map tell us about the good and bad bits of our school yard?

Step 2. Using the descriptions below, explain the type of map students will be creating.

It is recommended that for younger students you work as a class to create a class map. However, more capable or independent students could work in groups to create their maps.

Differentiation –

Step 3.

Before you head out into the school yard, remind students of your guidelines for going outside as a class. For example:

As you walk around your school, invite students to consider the following questions:

Do you notice any people in the school yard: what are they doing and where might they be going?
Do you notice any animals in the school yard? Are they native? What are they doing? Where do you think they might get food? Or where do they go to play? Or where do they go when they are sick?
Do you notice any plants or trees? How do you think they got there? What makes them important to your school?
Do you notice any bad bits in your school yard like broken things, or litter or things that don’t work? Why are they like this? How might they have gotten this way?
Which things that you notice are human-made and which ones are natural? How can you tell?

In addition, the teacher can take photos of features that stand out for students. These can then be incorporated into the map you create.

Part C: Creating Your Map

Back in the classroom you can begin compiling the information you collected in preparation for creating your map. If you are using photos, you may choose to display them via a data projector and have printed copies to include on your paper map.

Differentiation –

Foundation – Display the images you collected. Work with students to identify where these images should be located on your map, focusing on the use of terms that describe their location, such as ‘next to’, ‘beside’, ‘below’, ‘above’, ‘opposite’ etc. Add the images of your school yard to your map and invite students to create written descriptions to accompany these images. Once you have added all the information to your map, you could extend the activity by working with students to categorise the features that are included in your map according to whether they are human-made, animal or environmental. For example, you could add coloured stickers to the map that describe human-made features as blue, animal features as pink, and environmental features as green.

Instead of creating a map of your schoolyard you could consider creating a model using blocks or Lego to construct features.

Year 1 – Display the images you collected from your school yard. Work with students to categorise the features that you recorded as being either human-made, animal or environmental. You can then work with students to decide how you will identify these differences on your map; for example, by adding coloured stickers to the map that describe human-made features as blue, animal features as pink, and environmental features as green, or using different coloured writing for different features. You can then work with students to identify where the features they recorded should be located on your map. Add the images to your map and invite students to annotate these images.
Year 2 – Display the images you collected from your school yard. Work with students to categorise the features that you recorded as being either human-made, animal or environmental. You can then work with students to create symbols to represent each of these features and add them to your map in the correct places. Students can then create a key on their map that describes what each of these symbols represents.

Part D: Analysis And Reflection

Step 1.

Display your map and invite students to discuss what they have created. Consider the following questions in your discussion:

What interesting or surprising things did you notice in your school yard?
In what ways is your school yard a good place for:
- People?
- Animals?
- The environment?
In what ways is your schoolyard a bad place for:
- People?
- Animals?
- The environment?

Through your discussion encourage students to start thinking critically about what could be improved at their school. Invite students to think about some of the things they observed that were problematic; for example why things were broken, why there was lots of litter in some places, where animals might sleep or feed, or how some parts of the school were difficult to access.

If you're planning to take action with the Roots & Shoots – Take Action lesson then keep a record of student ideas - particularly the things they found problematic - to use in the next lesson.

Step 2.

Finally, invite students to reflect on the part of the school yard that they found most interesting, surprising or worrying and to create a drawing of this feature. Older or more capable students can annotate this drawing to describe why they chose this feature and why we should think about how to care for this feature.

Take it Further

An important element of any observation is to ask questions about what is being noticed. This could be extended by encouraging students to dig deeper into specific problems or observations they are interested in. For example:

Identify and research specific observations to find out the impact that it is having on animals, people and the environment.
Write a letter to an expert to find out more about a specific problem or observation.
Create a survey for teachers and students to complete to find out what people think about a problem.
Invite parents or visitors to the school to interview them about the problems they have observed.

The Roots and Shoots Taking Action lesson has been designed to follow on from this lesson and help students dig deeper into observed problems and take action.

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?

Roots & Shoots - Observe Your School Environment

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