EPA School's News - July 2007 edition

Incursions

Incursions are most valuable when they are part of a well designed program and when the incursion session can build on or reinforce what the teacher has already taught.

Primary School incursion - Gardenvale Primary School

The three Grade 6 classes at Gardenvale Primary School have completed a unit of work about Ecological Footprint. Teachers found that the Ecological Footprint concept built on the learnings that had taken place in the younger grades in areas such as waste and water. The Grade 6 teaching team commented that the unit of work they had developed around Ecological Footprint offered students the opportunity to look at global issues and pursue some more abstract concepts.

Prior to the EPA Victoria incursion the students had all completed their online calculation and used the primary data they had collected to present their results in table and graphical form during a number of maths sessions. After the visit the students used their growing knowledge to develop arguments in persuasive writing and used the PMI (Plus Minus and Interesting) approach to think about many of the issues that arose to do with sustainability.

This integrated unit of work culminated in each student completing a comprehensive project called ‘Leaving Our Mark’. In this project students were required to interview every person in their household over the age of 10, calculate the Ecological Footprint of every individual in the family, show creatively the impact their own family has on the planet and then write an environmental impact report including recommendations on how their family could reduce the size of its Ecological Footprint.

Ecological Footprint is also a great vehicle to introduce discussions about values, particularly about what we value and what different groups value and issues of social equity and justice.

The structure and purpose of the unit of work prepared by the grade 6 teaching team from Gardenvale Primary School and the work that the students had already completed meant that this incursion had a context and added value to what was already happening in class.

A Lesson From Year 6

The piece below is a letter from Year 6 Gardenvale student that appeared in The Age, 6 April 2007.

Hi I’m a year 6 student at Gardenvale Primary. Our subject at school is currently the "Ecological Footprint". This basically means our impact on the environment.

Even though I am a young person with a young brain, I understand that when you get hot you feel like, well, getting cooler. So one of the first things that comes to mind is turning on an air-conditioner. In class we do have an air-conditioner and we do get hot too – but we don’t turn it on because we understand what it’s doing. By turning on an air-conditioner you use energy, by using energy you burn coal, by burning coal you create greenhouse gas. So you can see how the cycle works.

So, think about what you do and how you use it. You really could make a difference.

Examples of artwork created by students participating in the unit of work on Ecological Footprint.

A Secondary School incursion – Fairhills Secondary College

The ‘Fairhills Cluster’, which consists of Boronia Heights Secondary College, Fairhills Secondary College, Scoresby Secondary College and Rowville Secondary College, received funding from ASISTM, the Australian School of Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics project branch to establish a ‘Community Classroom’ project for Year 9 students. Students investigate a range of science issues in their local community through fieldwork, and experts in various science fields conduct incursions at school relating to the science issues. Some time is spent in the classroom understanding key science concepts relating to the fieldwork and following up after fieldwork is carried out.

During one of the units within the Community Classroom project, Sustaining Our Environment, students from Fairhills Secondary College and Boronia Heights Secondary College explored Ecological Footprint. Information and activities during the morning incursion were provided by EPA Victoria. At the conclusion of the incursion session students calculated their personal Ecological Footprint and made comparisons between their footprint size, the Australian average, and other country averages. Ecological Footprint was a great segue into viewing the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth.

There was positive feedback from the teachers about the learning from the activities. Many students were able to make the link between the size of their Ecological Footprint and that of Australia to the issues of global warming and climate change raised in the film. Future incursions will be structured so that students view the film before they explore the Ecological Footprint concept.

The movie, An Inconvenient Truth is now freely available to all secondary schools. Visit www.jackgreen.com.au/media-releases/ to find out how your school can receive a free copy of this film.

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