Hi
everyone,
Welcome back to 4b after a well-deserved Easter break! This
term in the Humanities and Social Sciences curriculum we will be focusing on
Geography, while still making links to Civics and Citizenship. Through this, we
will be digging deeper into sustainability. By linking Geography and sustainability,
we will examine what we can do as citizens to help the environment. Your child will be learning about this so they can contribute to sustainable patterns of
living. Taking care of the environment is important in maintaining life and
taking care of the world we live in to create a better future.
To
begin this unit, we will look at sustainability and what it means. We will then
look at certain types of resources and how they can be reused. In this time,
students will get to experiment and create sustainable products. After this, we
will focus on waste (e.g. discussions about where our waste ends up, how it
effects people, how the government contributes to waste management, and waste management strategies).
I
will implement authentic learning tasks to make this topic meaningful for your
children. For example, I will take them for a walk around the school and local
community. Students will be given gloves and bag and will need to pick up rubbish they see. When
we get back to the classroom, we will empty the rubbish and sort it out, while discussing the different types of waste. This
will lead into a discussion about what we could do to help our school
and local community be more sustainable and take care of the environment.
I also want your children to engage in inquiry-basedlearning. I will provide them with the task to fix the problem of waste in our school, which will encourage them to use their critical and creative thinking skills. In small groups, they will need to research waste management and sustainability, and create a waste campaign. Each group will present their campaign to the class and will vote on one to try and implement at school. I will provide students with some guided questions to ensure we have covered all components (compost, paper, plastics, etc.). As a class, students will present the waste management campaign to the school.
Your children will also work on getting the community involved and getting local waste
management bins. They will need to work together to investigate how to get
these approved and write letters to the appropriate people, such as the local
council. They will also need to create a poster to put in the school
newsletter. As a class we will brainstorm other ways we can get people involved
in managing their waste.
I will give students the task of
creating a waste management system at home. To do this, I will need your help.
Please support your child at home and help them create a functioning system
that they can stick to. You can also support your child by packing them a
waste-free lunch box where possible.
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
[ACARA]. (2016). The Australian Curriculum: Foundation to Year 10
Curriculum: Cross Curriculum Priorities: Sustainability. Sydney, NSW.
Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/cross-curriculum-
priorities/sustainability/
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
[ACARA]. (2016). The Australian Curriculum: Foundation to Year 10
Curriculum: Humanities and Social Sciences: Year 6. (Version 8.3). Sydney,
NSW. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/humanities-and-social-sciences/hass/
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
[ACARA]. (2016). General Capabilities:
Critical and Creative Thinking. Sydney, NSW. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/critical-and-creative-thinking/
Clean Link. (2019). Schools Respond To Student Demand For
Green, Sustainability. Retrieved from https://www.cleanlink.com/news/article/Schools-Respond-To-Student-Demand-For-Green-Sustainability--23543
Curtin University (2015). Authentic Learning. Retrieved from
https://clt.curtin.edu.au/teaching_learning_practice/student_centred/authentic.cfm
Cyber Smart. (2019). Authentic Learning and Creativity.
Retrieved from http://cybersmart.org/workshops/smart/learningcreativity/
EnvironmentalScience.org. (2019). What Is Sustainability and Why Is It Important? Retrieved from https://www.environmentalscience.org/sustainability
Lutheran Education Queensland. (n.d). Approached to Learning: INQUIRY BASED LEARNING. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/1360/lutheran-education-queensland-inquiry-based-learning.pdf
EnvironmentalScience.org. (2019). What Is Sustainability and Why Is It Important? Retrieved from https://www.environmentalscience.org/sustainability
Lutheran Education Queensland. (n.d). Approached to Learning: INQUIRY BASED LEARNING. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/1360/lutheran-education-queensland-inquiry-based-learning.pdf
Majorie Milner College. (2019). Hairdressing
Sustainability. Retrieved from https://www.marjoriemilner.edu.au/hairdressing-sustainability/
Super Healthy Kids. (2018). 10 Tips for Sending Waste Free
Lunches that won’t lose you money! Retrieved from https://www.superhealthykids.com/top-10-waste-free-lunch-tips/
Hey Sophie,
ReplyDeleteAnother great read and informative for parents of students. I really liked the flow and again the use of images supplemented the information you present really well.
One thing I thought might be an option is on your walk around the school and local community, instead of just looking and remembering the rubbish they see, which students may find hard to do if they get distracted etc. perhaps students could pick up the rubbish and place in a bag, then when you return to an area near your classroom they could empty and sort the waste for disposal and your discussion. This makes your walk an active task where students are learning and contributing in their school community.
I thought your waste free lunch box info was a great practical way to involve parents too.
Regards,
Reuben
Hi Reuben
DeleteThank you for your feedback. I did consider having them pick up the rubbish but couldn't decide whether to add it in or not. I think I will now that you have mentioned it. :)
Kind Regards,
Sophie
Hi Sophie,
ReplyDeleteWell done, like last blog, I think you have articulated what the students will learn, and what pedagogies that you will use and how parents/carers could support their child’s learning. Also, I like the way you embedded the images in your blog.
There are some very personal thoughts here, I might be wrong, just for sharing:
1. I noticed that you used ‘your children’, I think it might be better to use ‘our children’ because our students are just like our children, right? What do you think?
2. In this sentence “discussions about where our waste ends up, how it effects people and waste management strategies”, I think the word ’effect’ should be replaced by ‘affect’. I learned the ‘effect’ is a noun and ‘affect’ is a verb, but I often see native people using ‘effect’ as a verb, it really confused me, I might be wrong.
3. Like last blog, I think it might be better to use a couple of sentences to show the audience how you will integrate CCPs and GCs with teaching and learning.
4. This might be a tricky point. Form the title of your blog, the focus should be education for sustainability, and link to geography and civics and citizenship, but in the first paragraph, you wrote that, “we will be focusing on Geography”, I think it is not quit fit to the blog title. Just my thought, again, might be wrong.
5. Like last blog, I think it is better to use the in-text references for the images as well. And you may want to use the in-text references for some pedagogies you used in this blog too.
In conclusion, you did a very good job, some of my thoughts might be wrong, just want to share.
Kind regards
Mary
Hi Sophie,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! You have outlined some active and engaging learning activities for the students and I think they would enjoy their learning. I like the way you have included community, school and home in their consideration of sustainability and waste management.
As I read the blog I thought I would like to have heard more about the Geography aspect of the learning. For example, what geography skills would the students use as they went on their walk to notice or collect rubbish. Also, what are the geography concepts that are being explored when looking at sustainability? The Civics and Citizenship links that are inherently part of the active learning are there too but it might be good to make those links more obvious in your text.
The images you have used in the post are very appropriate and illustrate well the learning activities, making it easier for the reader to imagine what the learning will entail.
Cheers,
Lea