Swift Parrot Curriculum Resource for Years 3-5 · Balancing Act. 4-5 Adaptable for Level 3 The Wing...

Swift Parrot Curriculum Resource

for Years 3-5 Produced by:

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© 2010 Birds Australia Swift Parrot Curriculum Resource

Contents Contents ..............................................................................................................................2

Activity Summary .................................................................................................................3

1. View and Review an Animation ...................................................................................4

Teachers’ Notes ..........................................................................................................4

Student Activity One: View an Animation ....................................................................4

Student Activity Two: Review the Animation ...............................................................5

Student Activity Three: Create your own storyboard ...................................................7

2. Finding Out More.........................................................................................................8

Teachers’ Notes ..........................................................................................................8

Student Activity One: Doing your Research ..............................................................10

Student Activity Two: Create a Presentation .............................................................12

3. Changing Times ........................................................................................................13

Teachers’ Notes ........................................................................................................13

Student Activity One: Creating an Artistic Timeline of the Landscape.......................13

Student Activity Two: Creating a Presentation ..........................................................15

Part Three: Analysing your Timeline .........................................................................15

4. Why laws? By-laws. A Balancing Act. ......................................................................16

Teachers’ Notes ........................................................................................................16

Student Activity One: Create a Role Play..................................................................16

Student Activity Two: Analysing the Arguments ........................................................16

5. Spreading the Word.......................................................................................................18

Teachers’ Notes ........................................................................................................18

Student Activity One: Create Your Own Communication Product .............................18


Activity Summary Activities Year Levels Supporting Materials and Resources

1. View and Review an Animation

3-5 The Wing Thing website

Swift Parrot Animation

Stop Animation Video

Comic Strip Challenge

Review Grid

Storyboard template

ACMI Storyboard Generator

2. Finding Out More

3-5 The Wing Thing website

Image, video, interactive and text links

Finding Out More Research Grid

Birds Australia website

Birds in Backyards website

BIRD (Biodiversity Information, Research and Data) website

Bird Wikipedia

Museum Victoria Ornithology Collection

3. Changing Times 3-5 The Wing Thing website

Artistic Timeline Template

Changing Times Sample Presentation

4. Why laws? By-laws. A Balancing Act.

4-5

Adaptable for Level 3

The Wing Thing website

Information about issues impacting on the Swift Parrot

Argument Analysis Template

Birds Australia website

5. Spreading the Word 3-5 The Wing Thing website

Issues requiring human behaviour changes

Sample signs handout


1. View and Review an Animation

Teachers’ Notes Levels: 3-5

The Wing Thing website provides animations representing the plight of the Swift Parrot.

Students are likely to need to view the animation several times to fully appreciate the behaviours being shown by the birds in response to the various threats, and to appreciate the animations for their artistic interpretations.

You may wish to complete the Finding Out More activity before undertaking Student Activity Three: Create your own storyboard.

Student Activity One: View an Animation Having just viewed the animation, summarise what you learnt and what you want to know more about.

What did you learn?

“I learnt that …

What do you want to know more about?

“I have questions about …

Share what you learnt and your questions with your group or class.


Student Activity Two: Review the Animation An animation is available exploring the behaviours of the Swift Parrot.

Using the following headings as a guide:

In one colour, summarise the plots of the stories told in the animations

In a different colour, write about your feelings while watching the animations

Review Grid for Swift Parrot Animation

Flight to Danger

Look Out

Full House


How did the animation work?

How did the animator show drama and movement?

How did the animator represent the birds and other characters?

How would you have represented the birds or other characters? What would you do differently?


Student Activity Three: Create your own storyboard Storyboarding is an important part of making an animation or even a documentary.

Draw a storyboard for your own animation depicting a behaviour that is important for the survival of the Swift Parrot, or another local iconic bird of your choice.

Can you turn your storyboard into an animation? If not, you can colour in your storyboard to turn it into a comic strip. Make changes if you need to so the story is clear and easy to understand.

You might like to look at some of the Useful Links on the Wing Thing website.

Useful Links

There are some helpful animation and comic strip tips on the Wing Thing website as well as a storyboard template for you to use.

The Wing Thing website

http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/the-wing-thing-woodland-birds/

Story board to print out from education resources tab on Wing Thing site

ACMI Storyboard Generator http://generator.acmi.net.au/storyboard

ACMI: Filmmaking Across the Curriculum

A Beginner’s Guide

http://www.acmi.net.au/learn_production_resources.htm


2. Finding Out More

Teachers’ Notes Levels 3-5

Any use of the internet for research throws up a range of problems for young and old. The temptation to copy and paste without interpreting the information is a major issue.

This information literacy template, while simple in design, is a powerful tool for focusing on interpretation rather than identifying relevant information i.e. just searching. It also allows you to value explicitly the importance of multiple sources and good citing practice.

It is flexible enough to use in a number of different ways. The exemplar in this resource gives a sample of each of these ways:

a fully or partially completed template so students focus solely on interpretation

focus question with relevant website addresses to narrow the searching process

focus question without provided website addresses

an opportunity for students to pose and research their own question.

The completed template can be submitted in its own right or as supporting material for the process of creating a presentation. It is likely that if it is not valued by the teacher, i.e. graded or commented upon, then the students will not value it and will resort to copying and pasting. If your students are new to this type of tool, they may need some time and examples to get the hang of using it effectively.

A separate Microsoft Word file has been provided providing both a blank grid for students to work on directly and an example grid, like the one following, to provide guidance of how they should complete their research grid.

Example: Finding Out More Template

This partially completed template will help to demonstrate to students what they are being asked to do.

Question The information you found and where you found it

(include information from at least two different places)

Summary

(rewrite the information you found in your own words)

What group of birds does the Swift Parrot belong to?

Scientific name: Lathamus discolor Family: Psittacidae Order: Psittaciformes

Featured Bird Groups: Parrots

Pasted from <http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/ Lathamus-discolor >

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

<Level 3 Response>

The Swift Parrot is a type of parrot.

<Level 5 Response>

The Swift Parrot’s scientific name is Lathamus discolor belonging to the Family




Summary


Class: Aves

Order: Psittaciformes

Family: Psittacidae

Subfamily: Platycercinae

Tribe: Platycercini

Genus: Lathamus

Species: L. discolor

Pasted from < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_parrot >

Psittacidaie. It is a medium sized parrot also known as the Red-faced or Red-shouldered Parrot.

What does it look like? (Picture)

Pasted from < http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/Lathamus-discolor>

<Describe in your own words>

Where does it live?

What does it eat?

How does it breed?

How do humans affect it?

Your question…

Other resources

For Information Literacy Links from SLAV, see http://www.slav.schools.net.au/links/infolit.htm

For other examples of Research Organisers, see http://www.upweyhs.vic.edu.au/library/IL_Assignments.htm


Student Activity One: Doing your Research After viewing the animation you will have learnt some new information about the Swift Parrot but you probably have lots of questions too.

In this activity, you will use a research grid to guide your own research. There are some questions in the template already but you can also add your own questions. You may wish to research the questions you wanted to find out more about in View and Review when you viewed the animation.

Nowadays you can usually find lots of information quite easily but making sense of it can be a challenge. In this activity you will make sense of your research by looking for information in more than one place and rewriting it in your own words.

There are lots of places you can go to find out more about the bird you are investigating. To help you get started, visit the Useful Links. Use the Finding Out More Research Grid to document and summarise your research.

Useful Links

Explore all the Wing Thing links to find lots of information in the images, videos, animations and bird facts.

http://birdsinbackyards.net

Look for the Bird Finder.

Birds Australia

Swift Parrot - http://www.birdsaustralia.com.au/our-projects/swift-parrot-wbc.html

BIRD (Biodiversity Information, Resources and Data)

Swift Parrot – http://bird.net.au/bird/index.php?title=Swift_Parrot

Bird Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird

Museum Victoria Ornithology Collection http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections-research/our-collections/science-collections/ornithology/

The Gould League – http://www.gould.org.au/shop

Offers a range of resources that can support The Wing Thing activities including:

Australian Guide to Birds, Bargain Bird Book Bag, Australian Threatened and Endangered Species, and more.


Finding Out More Research Grid



Summary


What group of birds does this bird belong to?

What does it look like? (Picture)

Where does it live?

What does it eat?

How does it breed?

How do humans affect it?

Your question …

Your question …


Student Activity Two: Create a Presentation Use your summary and the pictures you have found to create a slide presentation teaching others about the bird you have investigated.

After completing the summary (in your own words), set up your presentation. Copy your text to each slide in your presentation so that each slide answers a different question. Choose pictures to go with each slide of text and your presentation is ready to go. Give your presentation to your class.


3. Changing Times


Finding suitable historic landscape images for this activity does involve a bit of searching.

You could combine this activity with a visit to a gallery in your capital city, e.g. the NGV Ian Potter Gallery in Melbourne, or your local gallery.

Your local library is likely to either have information from, or be able to put you in touch with, any local photography or historical society who may be able to provide valuable visual resources for this activity.

Finding contemporary images is significantly easier using such websites as Flickr (www.flickr.com) -look for ‘Creative commons’ tagged images - or by creating your own. If the bird’s environment is local then this could be a homework or holiday activity, or a chance to explore your local area with a different perspective.

A simple example of how the student presentation might work is provided in The Wing Thing website. See the Changing Times Sample Presentation.

Student Activity One: Creating an Artistic Timeline of the Landscape In this activity we will ask:

How has the landscape changed over time, particularly since European settlement?

How might these landscape changes have affected the bird you are investigating?

There are some landscape images on the Culture of Victoria website but you will have to do some detective work. Try the sites listed in Useful Links to get you started.

Explore your local gallery or local history society’s archives; many have produced wonderful photographic histories of the local area. Art books and the internet are also likely to have images of landscapes over time.

Collate them into the template provided.

Can you recognise any landmarks in the pictures or paintings you have found?

Can you take or find a current photograph of this location to complete your timeline?

Useful Links

For some starter images of Australian impressionist landscapes see

http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/ausimpress/education/insights_ssites.html

http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/11874/ngv_kids_trail_firstimpressions.pdf


Example: Artistic timeline template

Date represented

1896

Image

Where I found it

http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/the-elliott-collection/7873/brighton-beach/

About this image

Brighton Beach by Fredrick McCubbin

Artistic Timeline Template

Date represented

Image

Where I found it

About this image


Student Activity Two: Creating a Presentation Collate your pictures into a presentation showing the change over time. You can use a software program or try an online timeline creator such as http://www.xtimeline.com/index.aspx.

Part Three: Analysing your Timeline Having created your artistic timeline, answer these questions:

What changes can you see?

What evidence is there in the pictures of changing human activity and impact?

How do you think these changes have affected the bird’s ability to breed, feed, move and avoid predators?


4. Why laws? By-laws. A Balancing Act.


This activity has several entry points and has been designed to be adapted with local and contemporary content. There are a wide range of teaching strategies that you could use to examine the arguments around an issue. The use of DeBono's thinking hats would be one

For guidance on role plays and some excellent examples see: http://www.sycd.co.uk/can_we_should_we/everywhere/citizenship.htm

Student Activity One: Create a Role Play People use our forests in many different ways. People share these places with the animals and plants that live there, including the Swift Parrot in our forests and urban landscapes.

A role play will give you some ways to think about the importance of considering the environment as well as other factors and viewing the issues from all sides before making a decision.

Think about what regulations or by-laws local councils or government could propose to protect the Swift Parrot or indeed any other bird; for example, an amendment to planning regulations.

Think about how these may impact on how people use their urban or forest environment and what different people may think of these regulations and by-laws.

Identify who might object to or support the proposal. Put yourself in their shoes. What might they say at a Town Hall meeting or to a newspaper journalist?

Using the different perspectives you have identified, conduct a class role play. It could take the form of a town hall meeting. Each person states their case. The audience then asks questions which the person must answer while staying in their role.

You will need students to act as a Chairperson and a Timekeeper. At least two students should represent each of the roles you have identified (e.g. local residents, 4WD club members, gardeners, local council representatives, environmentalists). The remaining students act as members of the community audience and can ask questions of the role players.

Student Activity Two: Analysing the Arguments In this activity, you will use the table provided to pull apart the arguments and make your own judgements about them.

In the table, write each person’s perspective on the proposed laws and their impact on the Swift Parrot in your own words.


Weighing Up the Arguments

In this activity, you will make value judgments about the different arguments.

For each of the arguments, using the Analysing the Arguments table provided, give a score between 1 and 5 with 5 being the most important argument and 1 being the least important argument.

Total up the arguments from each side. Who won?

Compare your summing up with others in the class. Who won?

Person / Group What they said / are likely to say

What do you think their perspective is?

Value judgement (5 is most important, 1 is least important)

Writing your own news article

Using the summary you have created, write your own imaginary news article. Think of a catchy title that will hook in the reader.


5. Spreading the Word


This is a broad-ranging activity that can serve to consolidate the learnings from the previous activities.

Student Activity One: Create Your Own Communication Product In this activity you will:

Consider the impact of the visual arts on environmental issues.

Understand how imagery is used to persuade

There a wide range of ways in which to engage with, make sense of and work towards solutions when considering our impact on the environment.

Communicating the message is important and can be achieved in several different ways. Create your own communication product to engage, inspire or inform others about your bird, and why and how people should help it. Here’s a few we have thought of. What ideas do you have?

An artwork (sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, photo story) celebrating and/or representing the bird to inspire people about the bird. For inspiration, take an excursion to the forest. Draw and take photos of the area and note all the living things present in the area. Did you see your bird? How did that make you feel? Back at school make an artwork based on your documentation. Name the artwork based on your feeling at having seen or not seen the bird.

A story or poem exploring what is so great about this bird and why it is so important that it survives in the wild.

A letter to your local council, newspaper or radio station expressing your opinion on why and how to help this bird survive.

A poster describing what BirdLife Australia is doing to help this bird, encouraging people to get involved and showing them how.

A documentary or story about why trying to help slow climate change is important for the birds and also for us.

Think about how best to share your communication product with your local community or even more widely. Maybe you could run your own art show, display your posters in a public place or actually post your letters. Whatever you do be sure to let BirdLife Australia know about it. Email your responses to [email protected]

Swift Parrot Curriculum Resource for Years 3-5 · Balancing Act. 4-5 Adaptable for Level 3 The Wing...

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