Month: January 2014

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Task 3: Weather around the World.

Download word version with images: DTM4260

Theme: Weather

Learning Area: Geography

Learning Experience Focus:

Knowledge and understanding: Use development and impact of information systems in everyday life.

Content Descriptor:

Technologies: 4.6 Generate, develop, evaluate, communicate and document design decisions using manual and digital technologies.

Geography: (ACHGK017) The main climate types of the world and the similarities and differences between the climates of different places.

(ACHGS020) Collect and record relevant geographical data and information, for example, by observing by interviewing, conducting surveys, measuring, or from sources such as maps, photos, satellite images, the media and the internet.

Lesson Objectives:

  • Students will use technology to research weather across the world.
  • Students will use creativity when designing materials as a visual for their weather reports.

Lesson Plan:

  • Students will be working in pairs to research the weather forecast for the week in a selected country/city by the teacher.
  • Students will use a secure internet site to do their research.
  • Once students have investigated the weather forecast over one week, they will use materials to create and design a weather chart. For example, creating suns, rain and clouds.
  • Students will then present their weather forecast to the classroom. They will need to inform the class of the degrees Celsius as well.

Questioning:

  • What is weather?
  • How is weather measured?
  • When the weather changes, what is it called? (Seasons)
  • What kind of seasons are there in Australia?
  • Is the weather the same consistently all over the world?
  • Has anyone been on a holiday in a different country/city? What time of the year did you go and what was the weather like?

Materials:

  • Smart board (with websites up to show the children how to navigate before starting).
  • Coloured card (Yellow, Blue, White) to create suns, clouds, rain ect.
  • Coloured textas, pencils.
  • Student’s geography books to write in information retrieved from the internet.
  • Bucket list with names of each city/country to read the weather from.

Follow-up Lessons (Cross-Curricular Areas):

  • History: The history of weather.
  • English: Warm up ‘bingo’ followed by interactive online spelling lesson consisting of words to do with weather.
  • Math: How is weather measured?
  • Technology: Record students presenting their weather forecast together in pairs.

 

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Understanding cyber safety when using information systems

Download word version with images: Understanding cyber safety when using information systems

Theme: Cyber Safety when using information systems

Alignment with the Australian Technologies Curriculum:

4.2 Investigate how well information systems meet home, classroom and community needs and envisage new applications for existing information systems

4.3 Collect, access and present different types of family, classroom and community data using simple spread sheets, databases and other software to create information and solve problems

Focus Questions:

  • What can you tell me about the word cyber?
  • Is the internet safe? Why/why not?
  • What do you already know about cyber safety and using the internet safely?
  • What can we do to ensure our privacy needs are met when making online profiles?
  • What happens when carrying out a survey?
  • What are some questions we can ask our peers to get the answers we need for our task?
  • Were your peers being cyber safe?
  • Is there more information that the school population could be informed about cyber safety?

What do we WANT to know about using information systems and keeping our privacy safe?

Materials:

  • IWB
  • EA teacher for additional needs students
  • TWLH chart template
  • 30 x survey tables
  • Prompt questions and responses to generate ideas and thought processes

Cross-Curricular learning experiences:

  • Literacy
  • Numeracy
  • Sustainability
  • Information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities

Visual Instructions:

  1. Students will begin seated on the mat with the IWB up with a TWLH chart open with the heading CYBER SAFETY AND USING SOCIAL MEDIA WITH INFORMATION SYSTEMS CORRECTLY

As a class complete the Think I know section of the TWLH chart adding the student’s thoughts and ideas on being safe with social media and information systems.

  1. Explain the task to students about completing a survey. Brainstorm possible questions to ask during the survey.
  1. As a class a decision of the best 4 questions should be chosen from the list for them all to ask to make a fair test
  1. Students will be guided through adding their data into the table ready for lunchtime when the survey will take place.
  1. Students discuss their information with their peers then the rest of the class
  1. Students will then add to the TWLH chart by adding what they want to learn about cyber safety after today’s findings
  1. Students are encouraged to go home and complete the provided task.
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Create a Product Containing Electrical Circuits

Visual lesson plan.
The task is an enriching open-ended activity that promotes creativity and student engagement.

Download the Powerpoint presentation: Task 3 – Electrical Circuits

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Famous Landmarks

Download full Word version with images: Famous Landmarks

Theme

The theme for this unit of Year Seven work is Famous Landmarks. Students will look at where they are around the world and how they came to be.

Technologies curriculum

It links to the curriculum through the Design Technologies Knowledge and Understanding sub strand. Students will be looking primarily at historical landmarks and how each can be linked to food, farming and production strategies of the different societies being studied. Students will be looking at the dynamic nature of society, how the way things are done is always changing.

Focus Questions

  • How has society changed in terms of food?
  • The farming/production of food
  • How food can be related to places and how it is different around the world
  • How has society changed in terms of materials used for building and everyday living?
  • What is the difference in the tools we used for production?

Materials

Students are going to need lots of materials for this unit of work. For this lesson in particular students will need to provide their own food/ingredients for their snack menu. The teacher will provide paper plates to be used in presentation. Students will also specify what they are making to allow the teacher to provide any materials that would be needed for food production.

Cross Curricular Links

Math – students are looking at 3D objects. They can use land marks to draw these. This can also be linked to technical drawing

English – students can write narratives using landmarks or even link it to poetry writing and other areas of writing. Students can complete viewing sessions looking at documentaries on different landmarks also.

History – students can link technologies as they complete lessons four and five (comparing and contrasting then and now)

Geography – students can use landmarks to look at maps and talk about the way civilisation is built around certain areas and features.

Science – students could look at how structures are built and how gravity plays a part in producing structures or odd shape (e.g. arches)

Arts – students can design and create their own structures.

Step by Step Lesson

Students have been told to create 3 snacks they can sell at a food stall outside of either the Sydney Opera house, Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty. This is example of a group outside Sydney Opera House. Students have been told to make sure 2 are healthy while the other they can choose.

  1. Students will have completed a plan from the last lesson.
  1. Students are to go and collect their ingredients
  1. Students can make each of their snacks independently. Remind them to take photos and decorate their plates for presentation.

Decorating

  1. Each group will present their 3 snacks to the class and tell the class why they used these 3 snacks
  • Students will also explain what makes their healthy snacks healthy
  1. Have students move around the room and select 3 different snacks to take out to recess with them
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Designing a container for an ice block

Download the full Word version: Designing a container for an ice block

This activity is part of a 5 lesson block where students are learning about the properties and materials used when designing food and its packaging.

Its alignment with the Australian Technologies Curriculum is Year 5-6 Design and Technologies knowledge and understanding and can link to the content descriptors:

  • 6.2 Identify and explain properties and characteristics of a range of technologies, materials, systems tools and equipment and evaluate the impact of their use locally, regionally and globally
  • 6.5 Investigate how food preparation techniques can be selected and used to design and produce nutritious food

Links to other Learning Areas:

Science, English and Mathematics.

Cross-Curriculum Opportunities:

Critical and Creative thinking and numeracy.

This activity can be adjusted to suit the class and lesson but for my activity the students will be divided into groups and each group will have different materials and specifications to build their container. This way I am able to get the results needed for the next lessons. Other ways to incorporate this into a lesson would be to have the student’s research materials and get them to design and test their products.

Focus Questions

  • What materials will keep the ice block frozen for longer?
  • What design features will make the ice block last longer?
  • What size will the container be?
  • What is my hypothesis and why?
  • Is this a fair test?

Materials

Group 1:

·      Card board

·      Tape

·      Cotton wool balls

·      Glad wrap

 
Group 2:

·      Plastic Chinese container

·      Hot Glue gun

·      Tissue

·      Plastic freezer bag

 
Group 3:

·      Styrofoam

·      Craft glue

·      Newspaper

·      Alfoil

 

Step-by-steps

Step 1:

Each group will be given their materials (which will be enough for 3 containers for each group) and building guidelines. For my activity, the groups will be given sizing restrictions.

Step 2:

Students will be given 10 mins to brainstorm and design their container and come up with their own hypothesis which will be recorded on paper.

Step 3:

Students will be given 30-45 minutes to build their container. Each group will be making the same design three times to create a fair test.

*Remembering that it’s not about the quality of the design, students will be exploring the different properties of the materials.

Step 4:

Once students have created their containers, the experiment can begin by discussing the dependant and independent variables of the test. This could be given the ice blocks a time limit and measuring how big the ice blocks are after.

After this time limit, students can record their findings and discuss in their groups their results.

The group results can then be complied into a class result and as a class the properties of the materials will be discussed as well as the focus questions. An evaluation of the experiment will be completed where students can choose their own materials for a new container and why they have chosen those materials.

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Designing a Vegetable Garden

Download the full Word Version: Planning a Vegetable Garden

Goal:  

Students will individually and collaboratively engage in the rich task of planning and designing a classroom garden. They will construct a bird’s eye view of a garden bed, building their knowledge of mapping.

Learning Area:

Design and Technologies knowledge and understanding

Learning Experience Focus:

Food and fibre production

Content Descriptor:

2.3 Investigate sustainable systems of care for plants and animals that are grown, raised and processed for food, clothing and shelter for an identified purpose.

Cross-Curriculum Opportunities:

Numeracy, Critical and creative thinking, Personal and social capability, Sustainability.

Resources:

This Year’s Garden by Cynthia Rylant

Posters –        Vegetables that can be planted in Spring

My Vegetable Garden – a bird’s eye view

Examples of seeds we can plant

A3 garden bed map template (See Below) – optional (this doesn’t allow for a variation in the layout of the garden bed. It has been included to allow for time constraints and to assist students that require the template for guidance).

Drawing and writing materials

Vegetables to sample

New vocabulary:

Bird’s eye view: viewing an object from above, as though the observer were a bird.

Introduction: 13mins

To assist the students to begin thinking about the cycle of a garden and the planning of a garden read This Year’s Garden. Discuss with the students what was planted, when the plants were planted (season) and what was required to maintain the garden.

Have the students relate their own experiences – prompt with: who has a vegetable garden at home or knows of someone that does (grandparents)? Why would we grow vegetables in or garden (health, fitness, hobby, aesthetics)? What are your favourite things about having a vegetable garden? Explain that the students will be creating a class vegetable garden which they will plan, design and plant themselves (next lesson).

Discuss the various types of gardens (flower, native, vegetable, herb) and what might be required to make the garden (soil, fertiliser, seeds/plants, water, sun/shade, gardening tools). What do we need to allow for when planting a garden (sun/shade, season, space)?

Introduce the poster “Vegetables that can be planted in Spring”. Discuss with the students which ones they have eaten. Provide a sample of some of the vegetables the students can plant for them to eat.

Body: 40 mins

Introduce the term “bird’s eye view” and ask if the students know what it means. Display the poster “My Vegetable Garden – a bird’s eye view”. Discuss the view, explaining that the students will be illustrating and labelling their ideal vegetable garden from the same view – like a bird looking down from above.

Refer the students back to the discussion regarding requirements

  • What would you like to plant? (examples on the poster “Vegetables that can be planted in Spring”)
  • How many of each plant would you like in your garden?
  • How much space do these plants require?

Provide each student with an A3 garden bed map template. They will need lead pencil, eraser, coloured pens and coloured pencils. Students should refer to the posters to assist with the layout and illustrations.

Allow half an hour for this task. Students should be directed to draw the illustrations in lead pencil before outlining in coloured pen. Labelling and providing a title should be completed before colouring in the illustration. Students that don’t complete the task can continue during “free time”.

Conclusion: 7 mins

Discuss with the students the variations in their garden beds and how they can combine the ideas to make the class garden.

Using the whiteboard create a list of all the vegetables selected from the students’ gardens. Add a mark to the vegetable each time it has been selected by a student. Tally up the marks and highlight the top 5 vegetables chosen. These will make up the class garden. Revisit what will be required to construct the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Alternative uses and opportunities for information systems

View full Word version with images: Alternative uses and opportunities for information systems

Information Systems

Alignment with the Australian Technologies Curriculum:

Content Descriptor:
Technologies
4.2 Investigate how well information systems meet home, classroom and community needs and envisage new applications for existing information systems
4.6 Generate, develop, evaluate, communicate and document design ideas and design decisions
Science
Represent and communicate ideas and findings in a variety of ways such as diagrams, physical representations and simple reports (ACSIS071)

Cross-Curriculum Opportunities:
Literacy, Numeracy, Information and communication technology (ICT) capability, Critical and creative thinking, Personal and social capability, Intercultural understanding, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, Sustainability.

Materials:

Step-by-step Instructions:
Introduction (15 minutes):

  • Get students into groups of 4
  • Give each group an A2 piece of paper
  • Everyone in their group has a different colour pencil to write with à students are to write their name in their colour on the back of the A2 piece of paper so that the teacher knows which students wrote which ideas (they’re accountable for their learning).
  • The title of the brainstorm is “Alternative uses and opportunities for information systems”.
  • Students are asked to write as many ideas as they can – each idea that they write down they must be able to justify why.

Focus Question:

  • Can anyone give me an example of an alternative use and/or opportunities for an information system?

 

Body:

  • Spend 5 minutes asking students to share their ideas and justifications
  • Focus Questions:
  • What are some examples of alternative uses and opportunities for information systems that you could think of?
  • Why do you think that would be a good alternative use?
  • Explain to students that they are going to be put into pairs for a project. In their pairs, student need to:
  • Come up with their own educational gaming system
  • Plan their educational gaming system using the ‘Rich Picture’ model
  • Students are told that after they have planned what their educational gaming system is they are going to have work out how they would “sell” this product to schools – why should they by your product?
  • Focus questions:
  • What important factors would make schools want to buy your product?
  • How is your product going to be educational but also a game?
  • Is your product going to convenient for schools to use?
  • Pairs are given an A3 piece of paper for their ‘Rich Picture’ planning.
  • The ‘Rich Picture’ model expectations are put onto the IWB for pairs to view as an example from the website http://www.technologystudent.com/designpro/richpic1.htm
  • Their ‘Rich Picture’ plan should include aspects such as:
  • The market – age group
  • Its purpose – how is it educational? How is it a game?
  • The environment – it’s effect, health and safety
  • Existing products – competition, products similar
  • Materials – draw a labelled diagram
  • Cost – how much will it cost for a school to buy
  • Mechanisms – movement, sound, light, cameras, linkages, etc.

Conclusion:

  • Spend a few minutes discussing what education gaming systems students have come up with and why.
  • Focus Question:
  • Why did you decide on that educational gaming system?
  • For homework over the weekend, students are asked to talk to their parents about their educational gaming system – ask them for their opinion, what they like about it, what they could add or change to make it better, etc. If students have any siblings still in school, it would also be great to ask them as well as pairs are going to be “selling” their products to schools for students to use.

 

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Designing a water wise garden

Download the full Word version with images: Designing a water-wise garden

This activity is aimed at year 7 students where they can take control of their learning and discover new ways in which they can develop smarter thinking for the use of their water. Within this activity:

  • literacy aspects are covered through the presentations of their work and the written descriptions of their designs (Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements to promote a point of view or enable a new way of seeing (ACELY1720)
  • using interaction skills when discussing and presenting ideas and information, selecting body language, voice qualities and other elements, (for example music and sound) to add interest and meaning (ACELY1804)).

Introduction

  • Within the classroom this semester students have been learning about water and the importance of it. So for this activity students are to take a sketch of their home garden and modify to make it a more sustainable resource in saving water.
  • Some students live in apartments so their projects need to be either about the school garden and making that more sustainable or they can picture a different garden that they need to modify.
  • For this activity students are to sketch their gardens as homework the night before. They are then to draw a rough copy of how they would modify it. Through this students will need to list what they are going to change and why. What plants they might use. Are they going to change the way water is used within the garden? (i.e. instead of water from the hose, lets hook a hose up to the washing machine.)
  • Because this activity requires students to design a new and improved garden. They are to do this on the computer to help develop their technology skills. Because students will be at different difficulty levels there are three programs that the students can choose from to use. Each one performs the same task essentially but will also extend those students who may be ahead of other students. The three programs used will be:
  • Alternatively if students are really struggling they are allowed to create a 3D drawing
  • Each design needs to have labels clearly identified and an information page attached stating how the garden has be improved and how it works and a list of plants.

Looking and researching water-wise gardens:

  • What does it mean to be water wise?
  • What parts of your garden at home is already water wise?
  • What can you improve and how within your garden at home?
  • What plants are water wise? Why is this?
  • Where are significant things placed within the garden and why?
  • What might help us to be better informed about creating a water wise garden?
  • How are each of our designs going to differ and why?

Design and creating

  • Water-wise sent out some brochures and information about water and some simple ways in which the students can be smarter about their use of water.
  • After this students actually had a visitor from a water-wise worker and the students were able to ask as many questions as they liked.
  • Once students had a full understanding about water and it’s many uses the students went home with homework of sketching their gardens.
  • They then needed to develop ideas in how they would develop and improve their gardens.
  • Students drew new sketches of their gardens but with their own specific modifications.
  • They then needed to decide on what plants they wanted to incorporate. Did they want lots of colour in their garden? Does this mean they would use more water? What if they wanted to create a theme for their garden? (Coastal, native, exotic, tropical etc.)
  • This activity was great in seeing students get excited about making a real change in their own family environments. This helps give the students a sense of responsibility and ownership over their work, it really is something that they can connect with.
  • Throughout this process it is interesting to watch students thinking skills and processes as teachers it is important for us to scaffold this learning and help them understand how better they can think critically about the choices they make the next time they do something with water.
  • This experience was really rewarding in that you get to watch and observe students thought process and it is a great life skill for not only students but for people of all ages to conserve water better.
  1. Students have begun work on their designs for their water-wise gardens. Here Google sketch is being used to create a 3D image. Through these experiences students can really get a feel for what the end product might actually look like in real life.
  2. Here www.draw.io is being used. This dependent on the students skills can be trickier or harder. Personally I would recommend using Google sketch over this as it is harder to keep your hand steadier. Through this students can label and give a birds eye view of their garden.
  3. Again here this is another tool used for sketching (www.sketchingtool.com) This is better for students who aren’t comfortable using freehand to create their designs and do not want to make it 3D.
  4.  Because some of these programs make it hard to label students will be able to include it witihin their description of how everything works and what goes where. Once students finished their designs they are to present them to the class and here they are able to clearly identify how they work. What irrigation systems have they decided to use and what impact will it have on further water use.
  5. This is an example that Luke (made up name) has done. Throughout Luke’s presentation of his garden he mentioned that his garden solely runs on rainwater. The irrigation system is hooked up to the rainwater tank and helps provide the water. The washing machine located near the laundry door is hooked up to the demisters that cool the fruit and vegetable plants that don’t need harsh watering. Luke has selected mostly natives within his garden. It looks to be a very bright clean and water saving garden!
  6. Here we can see students working on their plans and written explanations about their garden designs. This student has used all three programs, they have decided that it would be easier to write about their garden with a rough design and then go back to the original design and do more work on it.

This activity allows students to work at their own pace and using tools that are best suited for their learning needs. Student s are given the activity to do but are also given opportunities to extend themselves and work hard at making a real difference within their opinions and ideas that they have about water-saving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Students will ultimately design gardens looking like this and the above pictures. From looking at something that students already know and use, they can discover ways and new opportunities to make it better and more sustainable. Students are then able to create and design new ways of thinking about water saving. The students are all working towards a common goal yet they are all able to express their individual ideas and thought processes. This is a great activity for raising awareness in our future generations and how they can hopefully make and create a better more sustainable future.

 

Throughout this activity students will be challenged to develop their critical thinking skills through questioning their everyday uses of water. Through the scaffolding of discussions students will be able to design their water wise gardens to the best of their abilities.

 

This activity is aimed at year 7 students where they can take control of their learning and discover new ways in which they can develop smarter thinking for the use of their water. Within this activity literacy aspects are covered through the presentations of their work and the written descriptions of their designs (Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements to promote a point of view or enable a new way of seeing (ACELY1720) Use interaction skills when discussing and presenting ideas and information, selecting body language, voice qualities and other elements, (for example music and sound) to add interest and meaning (ACELY1804)).

 

References:

 

Draw. [n.d.]. Retrieved www.draw.io

 

Water wise gardening. [n.d.]. Retrieved

http://www.bcb.uwc.ac.za/inforeep/waterwise.htm

 

Garden design. [2011.]. Retrieved http://www.watercorporation.com.au/save-water/in-the-garden/designing-a-water-efficient-garden-to-suit-your-region

 

Google sketch. [n.d.]. Retrieved www.googlesketch.com (software program)

 

Mediterranean garden Water corporation. [2011.]. Retrieved http://www.watercorporation.com.au/-/media/files/residential/save%20water/saving%20water%20in%20the%20garden/south-west-creating-a-waterwise-mediterranean-garden.pdf

 

Sketch toy. [n.d.]. Retrieved www.sketchtoy.com

 

This is an activity that I have designed for year 7 students about creating a water wise garden. Students are to use a list of three programs (included) to design and incorporate new ways of conserving water.