Teaching Sequence

10 minutes – Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
50+ minutes – Part B: Class Reporters (this can be completed over several sessions)
15 minutes – Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Step 1.

Begin by inviting the class to work together to brainstorm answers to the following question:

How am I connected to farming and agriculture?

Ensure your answers include mention of:

Food
Fibre
Cosmetics and medicine

Step 2.

Now, create a mind map on the board (or use an online tool like mindmeister or bubbl.us) around the following question:

Why is it important to understand how we are connected to farming and agriculture?

Work with students to add ideas in response to the question. You could suggest that understanding our connection to farming and agriculture means that we can:

Make choices about the food and fibre we buy, and choose products that support local farmers.
Choose foods from farms that try to minimise their environmental impact by adopting practices like organic or biodynamic farming.
Think twice about wasting foods and fibre because we understand the work and resources that are required to produce these products.
Know that farming and agriculture isn't just something that happens somewhere else or somewhere a long way away.

Once complete, explain to students that in the rest of this lesson they will be creating a report that can be used to share what they know about our connection to farming and agriculture with the community.

Part B: Class Reporters

Introduction:

Explain to students that they will now work to plan and create a report that answers the following question:

How can we help our community understand our connection to farming and agriculture?

The report will be in the style of a TV news story, with the story being presented to the camera, complemented by additional footage and music where relevant.

Before commencing the project planning phase of this lesson, emphasise to students that whether they are working as a class or in groups, each student should take responsibility for collecting evidence and artefacts about the work 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 experienced both personally and as a group as a result of facing the challenges inherent in a project of this type.

The teacher could document student work and the process required to design and deliver a project using video or photos.
The footage could then be edited by students at the end of the project deliver to share with the school community.

Step 1. Deciding on an idea

Break the class into groups or work as a class. Explain they will now begin planning their news report. The first stage in this process is to develop an idea of what you would like to say in your news report, remembering that whatever you create needs to answer the following question:

How can we help our community understand our connection to farming and agriculture?

Explain to students that the story they choose to tell will largely depend on where they will be basing their report (e.g. the Show or a local farmers market) and who they will be able to include in their report. There will be advantages and disadvantages for the location you choose to conduct your report in. For example:

If you are visiting the Show, it could be challenging to conduct interviews with farmers or food producers simply because they may not have time, but you will be able to get a wide and varied selection of footage to use, with many animals, farmers and food producers in the one area. To overcome this issue, students could plan to integrate information from a farm's website as voiceovers, or even ask just a single question of many farmers at the Show.
If you are visiting a farmers market you may be able to conduct short interviews with a wide range of food producers, however, there may not be many or any animals available to record and collect footage of.
If you know a farmer who you are able to interview, you may get an in-depth interview, and if you are able to visit their farm you may get footage of their farm and animals if they have any. However, you will only have one interviewee in your report.

Depending on the location of their report, students can focus on one theme and start thinking about how this could be turned into a story, for example:

A particular food product (e.g. milk or wheat), leading their audience on a paddock to plate journey
Fibre, explaining the many ways we use different fibres in our daily lives
The farmers, describing some of the work farmers and agricultural workers do to keep food on our plates and fibre on our backs.

Play the following clip to show students an example of an interview that helps inform people about one farmer's work:

Journey to the Show – Hanging Rock Speckle Park (https://youtu.be/IFF4RK_MXqM)

Now, invite groups (or work as a class) to spend 10 minutes thinking about the story they would like to explore in their reports, remembering that they don't need to focus on details at this stage; these will be decided in the next steps of the planning process.

Students should record this idea on their Student Worksheets. In addition, you can encourage students to create a series of questions that they would like answered in their news report. These questions can be used to help guide students through the creation of their story, and students can check later to see whether they have answered the main questions they wanted answering, such as: Where does wool come from? How many different types of cows are there at the Show? What types of vegetables are grown locally?

Encourage students to think of at least three questions and to record these on their Student Worksheets.

Step 2. Building your idea

Explain to students that the next step is to elaborate and build on their idea. A useful way of doing this is by adding in the 5Ws (Who, What, Why, Where and When – and maybe How).

Invite students to access the Student Worksheet and work through the 5Ws table together. Students may need to amend their story ideas in order for all the 5Ws to be addressed completely.

Step 3. Writing a script

Explain to students that it's now time to write a script. If you are visiting the Show or a farmers market you may not be sure who you will get to talk to, however, having an idea about the questions you would like answered is critical to the success of the story. A script will also help you to understand what additional footage you will need, as well as what props and costumes you might need.

The script should include:

An introduction – here is where you introduce your main idea and main characters and pose some of the main questions you are hoping to answer. If you don't yet know who or how many people will be in your report, you could include information like 'details to be confirmed'.
The body – here is where you have the main details of your story and where you answer any of the main questions you are posing.
A conclusion – here is where you summarise the answers to the questions you posed in the introduction.

In addition, invite students to think about the following when writing their scripts:

How will you engage and inspire your audience?
What language will you use? Will you use any persuasive techniques (Persuasive Devices)?
What information will you present visually and what information will you present verbally?

These tips might also be useful:

Tips for Creating a News Report

Step 4. What resources and assets do you need?

Students will also need to think about the following:

Where will you film your news report? Can you use an app such as Green Screen?
What props or costumes will you need?
What will you use to film your news segment? A tablet or camera?

Ensure you have parental permission for students appearing in films of photographs.

Step 5. Creating your video report

Advise students of the amount of time they have to complete their news piece.

Step 6. Editing

Once they have finished filming, students will now be ready to edit their story. Explain that this means that they will be putting all parts of the story together and making sure the story and main messages are clear. Advise them to ask themselves the following:

Does your story answer this question:

How can we help our community understand our connection to farming and agriculture?

And then ask them to check the following:

Check that all spoken parts can be clearly heard (make sure music or background noise isn't too loud)
Check that visual features complement the story and don't confuse the reader.

Provide students with a copy of the News Report Assessment Rubric to help guide them through what is expected of them.

Step 7. Sharing with the class

Consider inviting students to share their reports, either with each other if they have worked in groups, or with another class if it was a class project.

Encourage readers/audience members to use the News Report Assessment Rubric to provide feedback, remembering to be kind, helpful and specific when providing feedback:

Step 8. Sharing with the community

Invite students to think about how they can share their reports with the community. You could consider:

Holding a screening session
Uploading your reports to a class blog or school YouTube channel
Share via a newsletter

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to complete the following reflection questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What did I learn during the creation of our news report? What was the most interesting thing for you?
What parts of our report were the most successful and why?
What parts of our report were the least successful and why? How would we improve these parts?
What was the most challenging thing for you in creating your report? How did you rise to this challenge?
What questions does this lesson leave you with? What do you still want to know about farming and agriculture?

Take It To The Show

Students can incorporate elements of the Show into their reports, including filming and recording animals and examples of food and fibre, and observing farmers and farming exhibits. Students should seek out filming opportunities that extend their answers to the question: How can we help our community understand our connection to farming and agriculture?

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?

The Show - Connecting the Community to Farming and Agriculture

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