Students learn about how their actions impact on water quality and how they can give to each other and to their environment. There is also a literacy component, focusing on writing information reports. Knowledge Domain Science and English Topic Water Sustainability/Giving
Water, Sustainability, Giving, Science, English, Literacy, Information Report
As a result of completing this module, students will be able to:
EXPERIENTIAL OBJECTIVES
English Content Descriptors
Literature
Responding to Literature
Year 3: Draw connections between personal experiences and the worlds of texts, and share responses with others.
Year 4: Discuss literacy experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing a point of view.
Literacy
Interacting with others
Year 3: Listen to and contribute to conversations and discussions and share information and ideas and negotiate in collaborative situations.
Interpreting, analysing and evaluating
Year 3: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features.
Year 4: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts.
Science Content Descriptors
Science As A Human Endeavour
Nature and Development of science
Years 3 & 4: Participate in activities which involve making predictions and describing patterns and relationships.
Science Inquiry Skills
Questioning and predicting
Years 3 & 4: With guidance, identify questions in familiar contexts that can be investigated scientifically and predict what might happen based on prior knowledge.
Planning and conducting
Years 3 & 4: Participate in guided investigations to explore and answer questions.
Year 3 & 4: Safely use appropriate materials, tools or equipment to make and record observations, using formal measurements and digital technologies as appropriate.
CONCEPTUAL OBJECTIVES
English Content Descriptors
Language
Language for interaction
Year 4: Understand differences between the language of opinion and feeling and the language of factual reporting or recording.
Expressing and developing ideas
Year 3: Learn extended and technical vocabulary and ways of expressing opinion including modal verbs and adverbs.
Year 4: Incorporate new vocabulary from a range of sources into students' own texts including vocabulary encountered in research.
Science Content Descriptors
Science Understanding
Biological Sciences
Year 3: Understand that living things can be grouped on the basis of observable features and can be distinguished from non-living things.
Year 4: Understand that living things, including plants and animals, depend on each other and the environment to survive.
Years 3 & 4: Identify and record the stages of the water treatment process.
Science Inquiry Skills
Processing and analysing data and information
Years 3 & 4: Use a range of methods including tables and simple column graphs to represent data and to identify patterns and trends.
Years 3 & 4: Compare results with predictions, suggesting possible reasons for findings.
ANALYTICAL OBJECTIVES
English Content Descriptors
Language
Text structure and organisation
Year 3: Understand that paragraphs are a key organisational feature of written texts.
Year 4: Understand how texts are made cohesive through the use of linking devices such as text connectives.
Expressing and developing ideas
Year 3: Understand that verbs represent different processes (doing, thinking, saying and relating) and that these processes are anchored in time through tense.
Literacy
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Year 3:Identify the audience and purpose of informative texts.
Year 4:Identify characteristic features used in informative and texts to meet the purpose of the text.
Science Content Descriptors
Science as a Human Endeavour
Use and Influence of Science
Years 3 & 4: Understand that science knowledge helps people understand the effect of their actions.
APPLIED OBJECTIVES
English Content Descriptors
Literacy
Creating texts
Year 3: Plan, draft and publish informative texts, demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features and selecting print, and multimodal elements appropriate to audience and purpose.
Year 4: Plan, draft and publish informative texts, containing key information and supporting details for a widening range of audiences, demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features.
Year 3: Reread and edit texts for meaning, appropriate structure, grammatical choices and punctuation.
Year 4: Reread and edit for meaning by adding, deleting or moving words or word groups to improve content and structure.
Science Content Descriptors
Science Inquiry Skills
Communicating
Years 3 & 4: Represent and communicate ideas and findings in a variety of ways such as diagrams, physical representations and simple reports.
Learning Intention: To discover what we know about water
View the video Introduction to Water found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSENolWbyYQ&feature=related
Respond to the video by using Think, Pair, Share to discuss with a partner what you know about water.
Using the 'Thinkboard', record your knowledge and understandings about water.
Individually complete a 'survey' about water.
This learning module focuses on:
How can we improve the quality of our water?
What is giving and how can we give to our local environment?
What are the language features and structure of an information report?
This learning element addresses five of the capabilities of the Australian Curriculum:
It also addresses the Cross Curriculum Priority of sustainability.
Purpose
To establish students' current knowledge about water, including its uses, where it is found and quality.
Resources
Introduction to water YouTube video
Thinkboard
Water Survey
Teaching tips
Think, Pair, Share involves student silent thinking, comparison with another learner’s attempt to answer the same question, and then sharing this dialogue with other learners.
It is important that students are given the opportunity to respond openly to the topic before providing them with specific questions. During the think pair share stage you may like to focus on the conversations and take anecdotal assessments of those who are known to have difficulty putting their ideas into writing.
Learning Intention : To reflect on your current feelings
Complete a 'survey' about your feelings. Record how you feel most of the time about the particular topics. Remember to answer honestly.
Survey
Purpose
To find out student's current level of happiness and self-esteem.
Resources
Feeling Survey - pre and post
Teaching tips
This is an assessment piece that will be used as a pre and post assessment. Studies have shown that people who give to others will have a positive effect on their feeling and self-esteem. This assessment will measure if students level of self-esteem has improved.
Stress to students that they should record how they feel the majority of the time about these issues. This is difficult for younger students to do, so model a few examples in order to get the most accurate results.
It is also important at this stage to collect any other data you may have on the self-esteem of the students, including anecdotal notes or time out forms.
Learning Intention: To observe the environment around our waterways and record observations
Observe our local environment surrounding our waterway.
Look at the questions in the 'survey'. Your aim is going to be to record as much information as possible about the environment around our local waterways. You will be observing things in the natural habitat and things that are man-made.
Stop at different points near your local waterway to complete survey about the environment.
Habitat and Environment Survey
Purpose
To allow students to observe the environment where our drinking water comes from and record their observations.
Resources
Habitat and Environment Survey
Water Risk Assessment
Teaching tips
Allow students to respond openly and converse with each other about their observations throughout the experience.
Take photos whilst you are at the pond to stimulate students responses in future learning activities and to display in the classroom.
Leave the predictions section in the Habitat Survey for activity 9 after excursion to the local Stromlo Water Treatment Plant as students may not have the background knowledge to form predictions yet.
Learning Intention: To learn about the process our catchment water goes through before it becomes drinking water
You will participate in an excursion to the Stromlo Water Treatment Plant and Corin Dam to learn more about our drinking water in Canberra. You will be involved in a variety of activities to help you learn more about the process of treating our drinking water. Create questions about what you would like to learn while at the treatment plant.
Water Treatment Plant Excursion
For our students in Canberra, students will participate in rotational activities at the Stromlo Water Treatment Plant (SWTP) and at Corin Dam. You can contact your local water treatment plant in order to organise an excursion at your local Water Treatment Plant.
Below are the activities that we participated in at the Stromlo Water Treatment Plant. These can be a guide for you when organising your own learning experiences at your local water treatment plant.
Activities/topics at SWTP
SWP presentation – overview of risks to water quality from urban areas in the ACT and what we can do to help.
Water testing activities – Martin Lind to bring samples of water from different sources (pool water, washing up water, water contaminated with fertilizer, salt, paint etc)
Treatment Plant tour – tour round working treatment plant led by ActewAGL engineers
Activities/topics at Corin Dam
Explain water supply system, series of 3 dams on Cotter River (map), where we are etc.
Difference between how the water in the dam looks compared with the water in Tuggeranong Lakes. Bring along a Tuggeranong water sample and do some basic WaterWatch testing to compare the two onsite.
Discussion of the difference in the surroundings of Corin Dam and Tuggeranong Lakes, and how this might result in differences in water quality – e.g. vegetation cover, development, use by people.
Note that both Corin Dam and Tuggeranong Lakes are manmade structures.
Purpose
To observe the process our catchment water goes through before it becomes drinking water.
Teaching tips
This excursion will allow students to observe the process our catchment water goes through before it becomes drinking water. It will also give them a background on water testing and give them attributes to focus on when determining whether water is clean or polluted. By going to Corin Dam (where Canberra gets most of its drinking water from) students will be able to compare this to their local waterway.
Sudents will be use the knowledge that they will learn on the excursion throughout the unit.
Learning Intention: To name the stages of the water treatment process
Watch a video or listen to your teacher read the story The Magic School Bus - At the Waterworks (Cole & Degen; 1986)
In pairs, create a flow chart demonstrating the water treatment process using what you have learnt from the excursion and the book/video.
Share your flow chart with another pair. Make changes and additions where needed.
Compare your flow chart with a diagram of your local water treatment process. e.g. Actew AGL urban water cycle diagram
Create a class mural to demonstrate the water treatment process.
Purpose
To name the stages of the water treatment process
Resources
The Magic School Bus - At the Waterworks (Cole & Degen; 1986) Video or Book
ActewAGL Urban Watercycle Diagram
http://kids.actewagl.com.au/education/_lib/Flash/Water_cycle/water.swf
Teaching tips
By doing the process in pair first, students are given the opportunity to demonstrate their levels of understanding about the process. Refining by adding, editing or removing sections in small groups will allow students to end up with a successful diagram. To ensure cooperation, you may like to give each person a role in the pairs, or call upon a mystery member in each group to present the diagram. This will ensure that all class members are accountable.
The mural can be created in groups or as a class depending on teacher/class preference.
You can find an example of a class mural on page 34 and 35 of The Magic School Bus - At the Waterworks (Cole & Degen; 1986).
The process in the The Magic School Bus - At the Waterworks (Cole & Degen; 1986) may be different to the process students observe at their local water treatment plant. You may like to create a venn diagram comparing the two and question why the process may be different.
Learning Intention: To read and respond to Isabella Pond Rowing Regatta
Listen to the teacher read a story about your local water way. e.g Isabella Pond Rowing Regatta (Dr Skinner). Listen to the connections that they are making to the text.
Think, pair, share your connections to the text.
Read and Respond (Bug Book)
Read the text Isabella Pond Rowing Regatta, making comments about the features of the bugs as you go. Think aloud connections to the text.
Purpose
To allow students to read and respond to Isabella Pond Rowing Regatta (Dr Skinner)
Teaching tips
By thinking aloud your connections, you are modelling to the students how to make connections. This may also spark further connections for the students.
It is important that the children respond openly to the text before answering more structured questions. This allows students to enjoy and make connections to the text before analysing it for a different purpose.
Learning Intention: To learn about the bugs that we will see in their local water system
Choose a bug from the story. Give your bug an award taking into consideration the qualities of the bug that you choose. Decorate the award with things that your bug would like. e.g. you could give a reward for resilience to a bug who lives in polluted water.
Identifying the features of the bugs
Using the Bug Book "name" the bugs that will be discovered in the bug survey.
Purpose
To introduce the children to bugs that they will see in their local water system
Resources
Isabella Pond Rowing Regatta (Dr Skinner)
The Drammies (BLM)
The_Drammies.docx
Teaching tips
This activity supports students to recognise and name bugs that will be found in the bug survey in the next lesson. To give them the award the students will need to identify features of the bugs. This may also lead into their predictions about how the types of bugs influence water quality in the learning activity Where are all the bugs?.
See The Drammies, p.g. 215 First Steps Reading Map of Development for more information in this activity.
Learning Intention: To discover the bugs in our local water way and use them to predict the quality of our water
Listen to guest speaker from water watch showing a bug sample from your local waterway. Sort and classify the types of bugs.
Complete a bug survey to recording the types of bugs found in your local waterway.
Look at the results from the bug survey. What animals/bugs were discovered at the pond.
Discuss that there are specific bugs that live in "healthy" water. Refer to poster from Martin.
Discuss if these bugs are there. If not, what would be the cause of them not being there?
The students will explore bug samples and identify them using the bug poster (attached is the one from Murrumbidgee River). They will then record the bugs that they find in a manner of your choosing. This data will be used to analyse the water quality at the end of the lesson.
Purpose
To discover the bugs in our local water way and make predictions about the quality of the water based on these results
Resources
Bug Poster
Bug_Chart.pdfBug sensitivity chart
Bug_sensitivity.docxBugs from local waterway
Teaching tips
The resources for this lesson are based on the Murrumbidgee River. You may need to contact your local waterways officer to collect resources for your local area.
Book your local waterways officer to support you in collecting and discussing the bugs in your local water way.
Learning Intention: To share data with our local water ways officer
Think, pair, share who would use the bug data and how we could give them this data.
How could we present the data so that it is easy for this person to read?
Using the data you have collected collate in in your chosen method (e.g. in a graph).
Data Analysis
Send 'bug data' on to your local waterways officer.
Purpose
To share data with your local water ways officer
Teaching tips
This activity is important as it incorporates giving. By providing the data to the waterways officer the students are giving to the community and helping keep records of the quality of water in our local waterways. Make this explicate to the students to help them become more aware of the different ways of giving.
Allow students to discover their own way to present the data. If they decide to present it in a different way other than a graph allow them to do so.
Learning Intention: To read and respond to 'The Lorax'.
Read The Lorax by Dr Seuss
Respond openly by think, pair, sharing what you thought about the text. Discuss any connections you may have to the text.
Think about what happened once the Once-ler came. Do a speed round robin to record ideas.
Read and respond (The Lorax)
Read the text, thinking aloud connections to the text as you are reading. You may like to draw attention to the actions that the Once-ler is taking and the impacts of this.
Keep records of students ideas to use in the next learning activity.
Purpose
To read and respond to 'The Lorax'.
Teaching tips
By thinking aloud your connections, you are modelling to the students how to make connections. This may also spark further connections for the students.
It is important that the children respond openly to the text before answering more structured questions. This allows students to enjoy and make connections to the text before analysing it.
Learning Intention: To define an impact
Read statements and sort them into the things caused by the Once-ler. Sort the consequences into things directly caused by the Once-ler and the flow on effects that occurred from these actions. This will help you discover that things can be caused directly or indirectly.
Participate in 35 activity to define an impact.
You will need to compile statements about things caused by the Once-ler from the previous lesson. You may like to do this on the IWB or on slips of paper so that students can move them around and draw connections between them.
Students will be defining an impact. They will be looking at direct impacts and indirect impacts.
Purpose
To define the meaning of 'impact'
Resources
The Lorax By Dr Seuss
Teaching tips
This activity allows students to define an impact in general as well as finding the direct and indirect impacts. This will help students understands concepts such as rubbish causing poor water quality, which causes insects to dies, which disrupts the food chain, etc. It is important that the difference of direct and indirect impact are made explicate to students in order to extend this learning.
The round robin sharing strategy is an effective tool for sharing a whole class brainstorm. This is a competitive but collaborative strategy in which students must work as a team and listen carefully to each other’s responses. Students are placed in groups of 3-4 and asked to respond to the topic. One student acts as a scribe while the rest of the group brainstorms their responses. The groups then share their ideas with the larger group, on group by group basis. Students must listen carefully to what the other groups have said as no idea may be repeated.
35 activity
This is an energising activity that facilitates the exploration and discussion of concepts. All students write their definition of a particular concept on a card or post it note. In an open space they mingle with people greeting each other, exchanging cards and moving on until the agreed signal is heard. On the signal they stop and pair up. In pairs they discuss each definition on the card and agree on a score for each. The two scores must add up to 7 and be in whole numbers. The scores are written on each card. The group then mingles again, exchanging cards, discussing and scoring for a total of 5 times.
At the end of the fifth rotation students tally up the card they finish up with. The leader then determines which definition(s) received the higher or highest scores. These definitions are read out and discussed in terms of why they would have been rated so highly. This activity can also be sued in ‘Experiencing the known’ to draw out students’ prior knowledge about a concept or topic.
Learning Intention: To recognise the impact of water quality on wild life
Look at the results from the bug survey. What animals/bugs were discovered at the pond?
Remind students that there are specific bugs that live in "healthy" water. 'Review bug chart'.
Colour code bugs found relating to their sensitivity to pollution. e.g. red means very tolerant to pollution, orange means moderately tolerant and yellow means not tolerant to pollution.
Reflect on data collected by answering the questions - What sort of bugs are there? Are there many bugs that aren't tolerant to pollution? If not, what would be the cause of them not being there?
Record reflections on sheet. Bug reflection sheet
Question: Would we expect to find similar bugs in nearby ponds. (compare data with other school - swap data)
Purpose
To recognise the impact of water quality on wild life
Resources
Bug sensitivity chart
Bug reflection sheet
Impact_of_Water_Quality_on_Bug_Life_-_Bug_Survey_Reflections.docx
Teaching tips
The resources for this lesson are specific to the Murrumbidgee river. Please contact your local waterways officer to find resources for your area.
Name the bug survey as another method for measuring water quality.
Learning Intention: To recognise the impact of water quality on wild life
What other animals would you expect to see around our waterways?
Complete activities on the IWB.
In groups of three, create your own example of a food chain using animals from your local waterway.
Reflect on the impact of water quality of animal life. What would happen if the bugs couldn't survive?
The IWB activities involve students identifying living things and exploring their features including where they live and what they eat. Students are then required to make a woodland food chain and pond food chain.
Purpose
To recognise the impact of water quality on wild life
Resources
Life Cycle IWB activity
Teaching tips
Depending on your students levels, you may like to provide students with pictures of a variety of animals found near waterways (e.g. algae, plant life, insects, bugs, turtles, frogs, ducks, swans, fish, birds, pelicans, foxes, cats). Students could also draw these animals.
Ensure that the animals you include are from the area around your local waterway. Encourage students to use the animals that they observed and identified in their food chains.
Discuss what would happen if one of the animals in the chain are removed. Ensure you relate their answers back to the water quality. e.g. if the water quality is not good, there may not be good bug to eat, thus the animals may live somewhere else or die.
Learning Intention: To identify the impact humans have on our local waterways
Think, pair, share the question: Do humans have an impact on waterways? Why?
Look at photos of the local waterways. Think, Pair, Share the question 'What impact to humans have on our waterways?'
In pairs, students complete a 'PNQ' on the positive and negative impact of human activity on local waterways.
What do humans do to impact waterways?
Negative and Positive impacts
Purpose
To identify the impact humans have on our local waterways
Resources
PNQ chart
Impact_of_Human_Activity_on_Local_Waterways.docxPhotos of local water ways
Teaching tips
Show students photos of a variety of different ways humans impact the waterways, including rubbish, leaf litter, blue green algae, etc.
Refer to the presentation at the excursion. Students may have been given a variety of ways that humans impact on waterways.
A PNQ chart (positive, negative and questions) involves students discussing the positive and negatives impacts that humans have on the waterways. In the third column students write questions that they may have about the topic.
Learning Intention: To identify ways that we can help their local water ways
Our waterways officer has put a call out for enviro heros. He needs some dedicated students to accept the mission to save our local water ways.
Come up with some ideas of how you can help save the environment. Participate in Give One, Get One and add the new ideas to your list.
Watch Drain Man movie and refer to drain man poster. Discuss the actions that drain man took to help the waterways.
Remind students that going into the drains is dangerous, and this should be left to Drain Man!
Purpose
To identify ways that students help their local water ways
Resources
Comic Strip (BLM)
Comic_Strip_-_Enviro_Hero_Saves_Our_Local_Waterways.docxDrain Man clip
http://cleanup.noco2.com.au/ - Fun cleaning up the water ways game
Teaching tips
Give One, Get One
Students fold paper lengthwise to form 2 columns and write “Give One” at the top of the left-hand column and “Get One” at the top of the right-hand column. After brainstorming a list of things they know about the topic and writing their ideas in the left column, they then talk to other students about what is on their lists. Students write the new information in the right column along with the name of the person who gave them the information. Have a whole class discussion on the lists as students again write new information in the right column.
Play cleaning up the water ways game (see resources). This will be used as inspiration for board game homework.
Students will use their ideas formed in this lesson to create a comic next lesson.
Learning Intention: To name the features of a comic strip to use to convey our message
Have a look an example of a comic strip.
Identify the features that you notice. Create a class list of the features.
In small groups, create a comic strip showing what you would do as an enviro hero to improve water quality in your local area.
Some of the features may include spoken language in speech bubbles, thinks that are thought in thought bubbles, the higher speech bubble is said first, there are characters, etc.
Purpose
To name the features of a comic strip to use to convey a message
Teaching tips
The focus of this lesson is for student to come up with plans in order to look after our waterways. To complete this task successfully they do need to understand the components of a comic strip, however it is important not to forget the message.
Learning Intention: To identify reasons why we should care for our waterways
Think, pair, share the questions: What will happen if we clean up our water way? What will happen if we don't clean up our waterways?
In pairs, complete a cause and effect organiser. On each table one pair completes the effect cleaning up the water ways has. The other pair completes the effect that not cleaning up the waterways has.
Share your cause and effect organiser with your table group pair.
Write a personal reflection on the question: Do you think that we should clean up our waterways and why?
Impact effects
What are the effects of our impacts? Both positive and negative?
Purpose
To identify reasons why we should care for our waterways
Resources
Cause and effect organiser (BLM)
Cause_and_Effect_Organiser.docx
Teaching tips
Think, pair, share is an effective way to get students thinking about ideas to do with the topic. In this case students can think, pair, share both points of view. This will encourage them to think about more detailed justifications for their argument.
It is important that students come up with their own decision about whether they think it is their responsibility to clean up the waterways. If students make the decision on their own they will be more likely to feel passionate about going ahead with some of the plans that they have made.
Learning Intention: To identify the need to educate the community about the improving our local waterways
Complete a circle time activity.
Check in - The thing I like most about our environment is...
Mixer - Frogs/Bugs/Turtles/Slime
Activity - Hand out examples of rubbish to the students. In small groups determined by your place in the circle, identify where this rubbish should go. e.g. compost, rubbish, reycycling and why?
Review pictures of rubbish in waterways. Complete a hot potato to answer the questions - Why do you think this is happening? Who is doing this? Who should be responsible for cleaning it up? Who should be responsible for cleaning it up. Should we bother cleaning it up?
Discuss the effect on the waterway if we clean it up without educating the community.
Think about different ways to inform the community. What can we do to help others help keep our waterways clean? Record ideas on a class list.
Energiser - Thunderstorm
Check Out - I can help my local waterways by...
Do not expose the Learning Intention of this lesson until the end, as students should come to the realisation themselves the importance of educating others in the community.
Purpose
To identify the need to educate the community about the improving our local waterways
Resources
Hot Potato Questions
Hot_Potato_Activity__Circle_Time__-_Cleaning_Our_Local_Waterways.docx
Teaching tips
Circle time involves students sitting in a circle taking turns to speak. They face each other to promote a feeling of importance and inclusion.
Mixer - Frogs/Bugs/Turtles/Slime
Each of student will receive a living thing from the waterways. They change places when their living thing is called.
Hot Potato
Hot Potato in is an effective brainstorming strategy, ideal for generating lists of new ideas and data in a short period of time. Students are placed in groups of 3-4 with each group being given a different sub-topic relating to a larger overall topic. For example in a hot potato about natural disasters the sub-topics would be earthquakes, volcanoes, cyclones etc. One student acts as a scribe while the rest of the group brainstorms their responses. At a signal from the teacher the groups pass their pieces of paper to the table group on their left. Look at the new sub-topic, the group reads the responses from the previous table, generating and adding more ideas to the new piece of paper. This process is repeated up until each group has looked at each subtopic.
Energiser - Thunderstorm
The teacher leads the thunderstorm. The person to the right copies and it is repeated in a circle. (Start with rubbing hands together, two fingers tapping, clapping, thigh slapping, stamping feet) The noises get louder and louder. Reverse the order making the noises more quiet each time until you are silent.
Learning Intention: To think about the most persuasive way to convince the community to look after our waterways
Review the ideas that you have come up with in the previous lesson.
Read the imformation on drain stenciling.
As a class, look at a range of drain stencil templates. The teacher begins by sorting stencils into two boxes without making the rule explicate.
As you work out the rule see if you can continue sorting the images.
Reflect on the drain stencils with a positive message and those with a negative message. Think, pair square which is more persuasive and why?
Look at the questions on reflection sheet and reinforce the purpose of the drain stencil. Think about the effect you would like your stencil to have on the viewer. Design your own drain stencil.
Use the reflection sheet to think about what effect your stencil will have on the viewer.
As a class, choose one design to paint onto a drain at school.
Create a Stencil
Sort stencils into those with a positive message and those with a negative message. (e.g. The drain is just for rain vs Please don't pollute)
Purpose
To think about the most persuasive way to influence the community to look after our waterways
Resources
PDF on drain stenciling - http://cfpub.epa.gov/npstbx/files/wiexstencil.pdf
Drain Stencil Images
Drain_Stencil_Images.docxDrain Stencil Reflection Sheet (BLM)
Reflections_on_Drain_Stencil_Design.docx
Teaching tips
This will be a reflective journal piece.
Get approval from your school principal to paint a drain around the school.
The purpose for sorting the messages into negative and positive is so that students will gain un understanding about how to influence the viewer. It is important to discuss the feelings associated with viewing a positive versus a negative message (e.g. inspirational versus guilt). It is also important to discuss the audience that will be viewing the stencils. Students can then draw their own conclusions about which sort of message they think will be more effective.
Learning Intention: To identify the purpose of looking after our waterways
Think, pair, share the question: Does the quality of water in our ponds matter?
Who gains if the quality of the water is good? Who loses if the quality of our water is bad?
Write an exposition stating what you believe and provide arguments as to why.
Does the quality of the water in our ponds matter?
Purpose
To identify the purpose of looking after our waterways
Teaching tips
As we have been studying expositions previously to this unit, we have explicitly taught the structure and language features. If you have not done this teaching you may like to think of an alternate way to present their ideas.
This learning activity is important because it allows students to draw conclusions about the importance of water quality. They can use what they have learnt to critically reflect on the social purpose of looking after our waterways and form their own opinions.
With a partner, discuss these questions and be ready to share with your class:
What do you know about information reports?
What is an information report?
What is the purpose of an information report?
Where have you seen information reports before?
What are the features and structures of an information report?
Gathering the Known about Information Reports
Use the Cooperative Learning strategy Think, Pair, Share to explore what students know and recall about information text forms.
Record student responses on a concept map and display in the classroom. Allow space on the map to return to at the end of the unit of work for students to add what they have learned about information reports.
Purpose
The purpose of this activity is to find out what students already know about information reports. This will help determine which structural and language features to focus on for whole class and differentiated instruction.
Today we are going to read an information report titled What Is Water?
Before reading: predict what this text will be about. Share your prediction with a partner.
After reading: think about and discuss the following questions with your partner:
1. What is the text telling us?
2. What is its purpose?
3. What do you notice about how the text was written?
Introducing Information Reports
Read the text 'What Is Water?'
After reading the text, have students discuss the message/s in the text. Use the Think, Pair, Share strategy to ensure all students participate in the learning. Record the key ideas.
As a final discussion point, ask students what they noticed about the text form.
Purpose
The purpose of this activity is to familiarise students with information reports. Familiarising raises awareness and activates prior knowledge. This will scaffold an introduction to the structural and language features in subsequent lessons.
Teaching tips
During Guided Reading sessions introduce information report style texts to reading groups to build familiarisation of the text form. Ongoing familiarisation of a new text form is crucial in supporting students to write a new text.
Using a Think, Pair, Share structure, discuss with a partner all the ways in which you use water in your daily lives.
We will now read a text on Water Use.
After reading think about the following questions:
- What does this text tell us about?
- What do we learn from the text?
- How else is water used? Are these different from your original responses?
Read and Respond (Information Report)
Students use the strategy of Think, Pair and Share to discuss the many ways in which they use water.
Following on from the discussion, teacher reads to students the text 'Water Use', which describes three ways in which water is used, at home, in manufacturing and farming.
Students then reflect on the text through the discussion of its purpose.
Students also compare the uses described in the text to those which they identified initially.
LI: To define the difference between a fact and an opinion
Students record one fact and one opinion on a small piece of paper. Using the Cooperative Learning strategy Quiz-Quiz-Trade, children choose to read either the fact or the opinion. The other student identifies if it is a fact or an opinion and justifies their answer. After both students share, they swap papers and find a new partner to quiz.
Create a class definition for 'fact' and 'opinion'. Display in class, together with the students’ examples.
Defining Facts and Opinions
Using some examples of facts and opinions (examples), sort into two boxes, ones that are facts and ones that are opinions. Place a few examples in each box and challenge the children to guess the rule. Continue as needed. As a class, discuss the difference between the two boxes. Explicitly explain how a fact is something that is true and an opinion is something that a person thinks but may not be true for everyone.
With your teacher re-read What is Water? and think about how the text has been written.
Name each of the parts of the information report and explain what those parts do.
One-text model - Step 1 Labelling
Enlarge a copy of the text What is Water? on to chart paper or similar so that students can see it. This will be labelled during the lesson and displayed in the classroom.
Re-read the text with students. Before reading explain that together you will be identifying and labelling the parts of the report so that they can use this as a guide.
Guide students through each of the components (see below) and ask them what each part does and how it might be labelled. If students give generic answers such as 'heading', accept the answer and build on it so that the structural component is explicit.
Information Reports
Purpose: to describe
Organisational framework components:
1. Title (tells us what the report will be about)
2. Classification or generalisation paragraph(identifies the focus/scope of the report)
3. Description organised into paragraphs of similar information
4. Concluding or summarising statement (impersonal evaluative comment)
Purpose
The purpose of this activity is to make explicit the structure and language features of an information report. This will then be used as a model on which students can base their own information report writing.
Resources
Details about how to use the One-text Model to introduce a new text form can be found in the First Steps Writing Resource Book p.32 (Annandale et al, 2005, Rigby Heinemann, Melbourne, Victoria)
Teaching tips
It is important to co-constuct the knowledge of the text form with the students rather than just 'giving' it.
It is also important to build on what students know so that there is explicit unpacking and labelling of the text structure.
Add the structural labels to one side of the enlarged text.
With your teacher look for how the information report What is Water? has been written.
Add to your class chart.
One Text Model - Step 2 Language features
Provide time for students to discuss how the text has been written (language features). They will need support to focus on the key features. Be ready with some prompting questions such as:
What do you notice about the author's voice?
What do you notice about tense, verbs, etc.
What do you notice about the paragraphs.
Label the chart from the previous activity with the language features that have been identified.
Resources
First Steps Reading Resource Book, Annandale et al, 2005, Rigby Heinemann, Melbourne. p.40
Teaching tips
Add the labels for language features to the other side of the class chart.
With your teacher look at some of the choices writers make when writing information texts.
Tense
Adjectives
Pronouns
Language Features - Retrieval Chart
Use the IWB to construct a retrieval chart that identifies a few key language features that students need to develop control of in their writing. For example:
| Language feature | Effects |
| Timeless present tense | Factual feeling |
| Adjectives are factual | Trust the information |
| Pronouns | Impersonal |
Purpose
The point of this activity is that authors make deliberate choices about language when composing texts. These choices are determined by audience and purpose.
Resources
First Steps Reading Resource Book, Annandale et al, 2005, Rigby Heinemann, Melbourne. p.40
Teaching tips
This retrieval chart can be printed for students to put into their workbooks. It can also be printed, enlarged and displayed in the classroom for use as a reference point by students.
This activity can be differentiated for students. Concentrate on the few language features important for the whole class. Build on these with some more sophisticated examples for students who are ready for more in small group/guided group work.
Make a checklist or rubric with your class so that everyone knows what you must do to write a good information report.
Use the models in the classroom to help.
Criteria and Quality
Refer to the labelled One-Text model with students to generate the criteria for judging a an information report as successful. Describe the quality that is expected for each criteria.
Display in the classroom as a checklist for students to refer to.
Purpose
Create a marking rubric for success.
Resources
Classroom charts and displays from previous activities about information reports.
Teaching tips
Use a Round Robin (see Teaching Tips in Activity 11) structure to involve all students.
Watch and listen as your teacher shows how he/she writes the first part of an information report.
Check to see if the paragraph is a PEC paragraph.
Select a topic that students have knowledge of such as Bodies of Water.
Model writing the Title and first paragraph (Classifying or Generalising paragraph) using Think-Alouds to make clear to students how you are constructing the text.
Re-read your title and first paragraph aloud and check:
1. That it makes sense.
2. That the paragraph follows the PEC structure. Explain that PEC paragraphs work perfectly for information reports.
Purpose
The purpose of this mini-lesson is to make explicit the thinking and choices writers make when constructing their opening paragraph.
Resources
See Modelled Writing p 8 First Steps Writing Resource Book, Annandale et al, 2005, Rigby Heinemann, Melbourne.
Teaching tips
This is a minilesson that of no more than ten minutes.
PEC paragraph structure:
P = Point (main idea)
E = Elaboration/Evidence/Example
C = Concluding sentence
Display the guided writing piece as a model for students to refer to when composing their own texts.
With a partner discuss the important things to include in an information report about where our drinking water comes from. Think about who you are writing this for.
Start your writing project in Scholar by writing the title and first paragraph of an information report about where our drinking water comes from.
Use the examples in the classroom to help you write a good report.
Guided Writing
Introduce the topic for students information report writing: Where our drinking water comes from.
Discuss:
Purpose and audience
Title
Key information
Support students to start their writing projects in Scholar. Go through the rubric. Use peer editing in Scholar to refine the first draft.
Select some examples to share with the class and identify successful features of each piece.
Purpose
For students to write, with guidance, the first paragraph of an information text using correct format and language.
Resources
Direct students to the One-Text model, modelled writing piece and PEC paragraph prompts displayed in the classroom.
Teaching tips
Use a Think, Pair, Share strategy throughout the discussion and invite shared responses.Record key ideas and group/paraphrase ideas as necessary.
Project Rubric
Lets display our information in a way that we can easily share with others.
Students create an information brochure.
Information Brochure
Using examples of various brochure identify with students the features of an information brochure including:
Students will use this knowledge to create their own information brochure on water to share with others.
Students will include information from their reports in their brochures.