Student Worksheet

Activity Instructions

Students will...

You will understand what a news article is and how a news article can be a catalyst for rallying people to a cause
You will understand how to effectively communicate ideas
You will plan and create an informative brochure on the ways our community can help flora and fauna affected by bushfires.

Students can...

You can write an informative text that explains how people can help flora and fauna affected by bushfires
You can select language and maintain a tone appropriate for your audience
You can organise your ideas strategically through a planning process.

Part A: Read the article by 'The Conversation' below

Want to help save wildlife after the fires? You can do it in your own backyard

Thinking outside the animal box

Despite the focus on animals, it is plants, making up 1,336 of the 1,790 species listed as threatened, that have been hit hardest. Early estimates are that the fires had severe impacts on 272 threatened plant species. Of these, 100 are thought to have had more than half of their remaining range burnt.

The impacts on individual plant species is profoundly saddening, but the impacts on whole ecosystems can be even more catastrophic. Repeated fires in quick succession in fire-sensitive ecosystems, such as alpine-ash forests, can lead to loss of the keystone tree species. These trees are unable to mature and set seed in less than 20 years.

Losing the dominant trees leads to radical changes that drive many other species to extinction in an extinction cascade. Other badly impacted ecosystems include relics of ancient rainforests, which might not survive the deadly combination of drought and fire.

It is difficult to know how best to “rescue” threatened plants, particularly when we know little about them. Seed banks and propagation of plants in home gardens can be a last resort for some species.

You can help by growing plants that are indigenous to your local area. Look for an indigenous nursery near you that can provide advice on their care. Advocate for mainstream nurseries, your council and schools to make indigenous plants available to buy and be grown in public areas.

Example of alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) forest in Victoria. Holly Kirk

Providing for urban wildlife

Planting native species in your backyard is also the best way to provide food for visiting wildlife. Many species feed on flower nectar, or on the insects the vegetation attracts. Putting out dishes of fruit or bird feeders can be useful for some species, but the best way to provide extra food for all is by gardening.

Plants also provide shelter and nest sites, so think twice about removing vegetation, leaf litter and dead wood. Fire risk can be managed by selecting species that are fire-suppressing.

Urban gardens also provide water for many thirsty creatures. If you put out a container of water, place rocks and branches inside so small critters can escape if they fall in.

Backyard ponds can provide useful habitat for some frog species, particularly if you live near a stream or wetland. Please don’t add goldfish!

The best frog ponds have plants at the edges and emerging from the water, providing calling sites for males and shelter for all. Insecticides and herbicides harm frogs as well as insects and plants, so it’s best not to use these in your garden.

Piles of rocks in the garden form important shelters for lizards and small mammals.

Reducing threats

It’s important to consider threats too. Cats kill native wildlife in huge numbers. Keep your pet inside or in a purpose-built “catio”.

When driving, think about killing your speed rather than wildlife – especially while populations are moving out of fire-affected areas in search of food. Slowing down can greatly reduce animal strikes.

With the loss of huge areas of forest, species like grey-headed flying foxes will need to supplement their diet with fruit from our backyards. Unfortunately, they risk being entangled in tree netting. If you have fruit trees, consider sharing with wildlife by removing nets, or using fine mesh bags to cover only select bunches or branches.

Living with the new visitors

People have different levels of knowledge about our native wildlife, and some will be more affected by new wildlife visitors than others. Some of these critters are small and quiet. Others are more conspicuous and may even be considered a nuisance.

Try to discuss what you are seeing and experiencing with your neighbours. When you can, provide information that might ease their concerns, but also be sympathetic if noisy or smelly residents move in. It is important to tolerate and co-exist with wildlife, by acknowledging they might not conform to neighbourly conventions.

Given the unprecedented extent and intensity of these fires, it is difficult for scientists to predict how wildlife will respond and what might show up where. This is especially the case for species, like the regent honeyeater, that migrate in response to changing resources. New data will be invaluable in helping us understand and plan for future events like these.

If you do see an animal that seems unusual, you can report it through citizen-science schemes such as iNaturalist. If an animal is injured or in distress it’s best to contact a wildlife rescue organisation such as Wildlife Victoria or WIRES (NSW).

Our wildlife is under pressure now, but we can help many populations by ensuring safer cities for the species that share them with us.

Resources

This article is republished from The Conversation under a CC license. Read the original article.

Part B: Find The Answers

Step 1.

Read the article and answer the following questions.

1. What is this article about? What is happening in this article?

2. What are the key messages of this article?

3. How is this article connected to what you already know?

4. What does this article make you think about?

5. How does this article make you feel?

Step 2.

Use a dictionary or an online dictionary such as: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ to find the definitions of five new words you learned in the article.

Step 3.

The article makes many suggestions about the different actions that can be taken to help wildlife affected by the bushfires.

Summarise five of these in the organiser below. You will be using these five actions later so choose carefully.

Step 4.

The article also highlights the impact to our plant species which have been hit the hardest.

Using information from the article, the link https://apsvic.org.au/nurseries-and-public-gardens/ from the article and your own research, find out the following information about Indigenous plants in your local area:

1. What is an Indigenous plant?

2. Why should we plant Indigenous plants?

3. What are some Indigenous plants that can be found in your area?

4. What are some of the benefits of planting native species according to the article?

5. What are some of the consequences of losing plant species according to the article?

Part C: Putting It All Together

You will now be working on planning to complete an informative brochure titled ‘What you can do to help our flora and fauna’.

Who will your audience for this brochure be?

What is your purpose? What do you hope to achieve from your audience by distributing this brochure to them?

Step 1.

Using your planning template, you can now go ahead and create your information brochure titled, ‘What you can do to help our flora and fauna’.

Each of the sections completed in the planning document can be a section on your brochure but you can also add further sections if you wish.

To complete this activity, you could use a template found in a program such as Microsoft Word or you could design this using one of the templates found at: https://www.canva.com/templates/search/brochures/

Step 2.

Edit your work. Read back through the brochure you have just written and check for each of the following things:

Have you included a balanced mix of images and text?
Have you used bold, stylish heading that stand out?
Have you used language relevant to your audience?
Can you change or strengthen any key words using a thesaurus?
Have you included all of the sections from your planning template?

Start A Conversation

Connect and collaborate with family, friends, neighbours or classmates.

Send your brochure to one of the above and offer to assist them with implementing one of your suggestions to help our wildlife.
Ask them to share your brochure on to other people to encourage them to also take action.

Taking It Further

Print out copies of your brochure and distribute them around your local neighbourhood through a letterbox drop.
Ask a teacher if you they can publish your brochure at your school through one of the following options:
1. School LMS eg. Compass
2. School Newsletter
3. School Facebook page

Bushfires - What You Can Do To Help Our Flora And Fauna

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Summary

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