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- Andrew Stocker (Senior Coordinator Education Services)
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Alien Invaders
What a great team of Students we're working with!
The students were asked to spread themselves out in a circle and stand as still as a statue, as quiet as a mouse and listen carefully to the sounds of the school yard.
'I heard 3 different types of birds' said Mary. 'And I heard and aeroplane and a dog' said John.
There were many different sounds occurring and the students were able to talk about these sounds and think about how we can find out the types of animals we have in our school yard, just by listening quietly.
Then, I produced a space ship! (a wooden box with a lid) and told the students 'This is an intergalacic flying saucer from the planet Xenon' travelling to earth on a very important mission. It has flown around the world looking for a great place to land and decided that the grassy area in you school is the perfect landing pad'.
'Now that the spaceship has landed, I'd like each student to take it in turns telling a sentance in the story of the Aliens and what they got up to while at your school.'
So, each student held the talking stick, and added a sentence to the story...
Firstly, The aliens landed and came out of their ship.
There was Bacon on the ship that Kylie ate
The aliens got angry that students were eating their Bacon,
So they came out with their Ray Gun and 'vapourised' some students
Teachers were concerned so they came out to help and Mrs McCarthy got vaporised as well.
The Aliens yelled out 'We coming to take over your planet' and they started spreading out from the school.
Finally, the students teamed up and fought back against the aliens and everything went back to normal.
At the end of the story, I mentioned that I really do have aliens in the spaceship and ask the students 'would you like to see them?'.
I carefully opened the lid and pulled out a Plant - plantango lanceolata a common invasive weed in Australia. I explain that this plant was introduced to Australia and is now invading areas around Melbourne, just like the Aliens in our story.
This activity is one that we have been running for a number of years. It is a really great activity to run when you are creating a habitat area in your school to deepen students understanding of weed species and how and why we need to look at removing them.
-Andrew Stocker (Senior Coordinator Education Services)
Yesterdays session was about Alien Invaders...
The students were asked to spread themselves out in a circle and stand as still as a statue, as quiet as a mouse and listen carefully to the sounds of the school yard.
'I heard 3 different types of birds' said Mary. 'And I heard and aeroplane and a dog' said John.
There were many different sounds occurring and the students were able to talk about these sounds and think about how we can find out the types of animals we have in our school yard, just by listening quietly.
Then, I produced a space ship! (a wooden box with a lid) and told the students 'This is an intergalacic flying saucer from the planet Xenon' travelling to earth on a very important mission. It has flown around the world looking for a great place to land and decided that the grassy area in you school is the perfect landing pad'.
'Now that the spaceship has landed, I'd like each student to take it in turns telling a sentance in the story of the Aliens and what they got up to while at your school.'
So, each student held the talking stick, and added a sentence to the story...
Firstly, The aliens landed and came out of their ship.
There was Bacon on the ship that Kylie ate
The aliens got angry that students were eating their Bacon,
So they came out with their Ray Gun and 'vapourised' some students
Teachers were concerned so they came out to help and Mrs McCarthy got vaporised as well.
The Aliens yelled out 'We coming to take over your planet' and they started spreading out from the school.
Finally, the students teamed up and fought back against the aliens and everything went back to normal.
At the end of the story, I mentioned that I really do have aliens in the spaceship and ask the students 'would you like to see them?'.
I carefully opened the lid and pulled out a Plant - plantango lanceolata a common invasive weed in Australia. I explain that this plant was introduced to Australia and is now invading areas around Melbourne, just like the Aliens in our story.
This activity is one that we have been running for a number of years. It is a really great activity to run when you are creating a habitat area in your school to deepen students understanding of weed species and how and why we need to look at removing them.
-Andrew Stocker (Senior Coordinator Education Services)
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Making Progress
So, today was another fantastic session at FPS. Students were engaged in a mathematics activity that focused on area and space which is an extension of an earlier activity that encompassed a range of mathematical principals (I'll provide a link soon). Today's session was aimed at grades 4/5, but can easily work with younger and older students.
Students have thus far been focusing on their desire to create habitat for butterflies and other animals by creating an authentic learning space in the school yard. In designing this space, students need to develop a practical sense of space and determine the types, numbers and requirements of a variety of indigenous plants that are ideal habitat plants for butterflies.
Step one
I asked students to go into the planned space and stand at the geometrical extremities (the edges) of the space they felt would be ideal for their butterfly garden. We discussed what we think should be included in the garden and developed an understanding of the space required for a number of features:
Step 2Jobs were delegated to the remaining few students - A scribe or map drawer and measurers.
The measurers measured from one person to the person on the opposite side of the space so we ended up with a width and length of the area.
Step 3
The scribe drew a rough outline of the space and wrote in the measurements (width and length) - we then calculated a rough area (136sqmtr).
Step 4
Because our area was not perfectly rectangular, we also measure the length and widths of a variety of other features so we ended up with a rough outline of the space.
Surprisingly, A, O and M were keen to extend this concept and measure other features within the space - How can we figure out exactly where to draw the large trees on the Map? I know, said A, we could measure from this line (the baseline) and also from the back fence to the tree (giving an approximate grid reference to the trunk of the tree).
Once we had the 'floor plan' mapped out, the students then started to place the physical features of their butterfly garden.
Students have thus far been focusing on their desire to create habitat for butterflies and other animals by creating an authentic learning space in the school yard. In designing this space, students need to develop a practical sense of space and determine the types, numbers and requirements of a variety of indigenous plants that are ideal habitat plants for butterflies.
Step one
I asked students to go into the planned space and stand at the geometrical extremities (the edges) of the space they felt would be ideal for their butterfly garden. We discussed what we think should be included in the garden and developed an understanding of the space required for a number of features:
- Plants
- Lizard Lounge(s)
- Paths
- Outdoor classroom
 |
| 'M' adding details to the map |
The measurers measured from one person to the person on the opposite side of the space so we ended up with a width and length of the area.
Step 3
The scribe drew a rough outline of the space and wrote in the measurements (width and length) - we then calculated a rough area (136sqmtr).
Step 4
Because our area was not perfectly rectangular, we also measure the length and widths of a variety of other features so we ended up with a rough outline of the space.
Surprisingly, A, O and M were keen to extend this concept and measure other features within the space - How can we figure out exactly where to draw the large trees on the Map? I know, said A, we could measure from this line (the baseline) and also from the back fence to the tree (giving an approximate grid reference to the trunk of the tree).
Once we had the 'floor plan' mapped out, the students then started to place the physical features of their butterfly garden.
In the last part of the session, I introduced some of the indigenous plants that butterflies are attracted to and talked about their space requirements. For example a Grass Tussock takes up around 50cm - 1m of space - so, how many grasses can we plant in our area? 100? Do we want to plant only grasses? do we want to put plants everywhere?
By the end of the session the students had a really great understanding about the space they want to create, the types of plants they require, the area n which they'll be working and the volume of mulch we require to create the garden beds.
So the next session will be confirming these understandings and then getting ready for creating an awesome butterfly garden.
- Andrew Stocker (Senior Coordinator Education Services)
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