Sample Unit Sequences

Caring for the Reef | Sample Unit Sequence | References and Resources |

Tuning In: Sample Activities

During the course of the unit, ask students to collect information from television, radio, newspapers and magazines about the Great Barrier Reef;
Have students find information about the Great Barrier Reef on the Internet or in books, magazines etc;
A - Z of the GBR - Make a list of reef-related terms beginning with a different letter of the alphabet;
Read and discuss picture books, fiction and non-fiction materials with a sea or reef setting;
Watch videos related to the Great Barrier Reef and the ocean;
Visit Web-sites related to the sea and the reef; and
Explore CD-ROMs related to the sea and coral reefs.
Have students discuss their personal Great Barrier Reef or other reef experiences and items of interest in a sharing circle. Use a 'speaking conch' or other shell. Whoever has the shell contributes, while the others listen, ready to ask questions.

Photo Gallery

Students bring photographs of the Great Barrier Reef and its islands, animals and plants to share. In groups talk about features of the Great Barrier Reef such as:

Size;
How it differs and why;
Types of coral found;
Types of animals found;
Types of plants found;
Areas for boating, fishing, visiting, and other recreational activities;
How we enjoy the coast;
Areas they enjoy being in; and
Areas they are not allowed in and reasons for this.

Fun by the Sea

Read the books Fun by the Sea by A. Cooke and Magic Beach by Alison Lester with the students. Discuss the interactions that take place between the children and the coastal environment.

Discuss

Show images of the coast. Initiate class discussion about the interactions taking place and the way the coastal scene makes them feel. How would they feel if they were the only person in the scene, if there were twice as many people there, people with dogs, people with jet skies, lots of litter around, there wasn't as much coral or many fish to catch?

Habitats, Animals, Plants and People

Using the Student Activity Sheet, students should match the habitat with the animal, plant and activities that occur in that habitat.

Student Activity Sheet

Enjoying the Reef

Have students draw pictures of them interacting with a coastal scene. In each drawing they should be wearing different articles of clothing that suit the activity they are participating in eg. snorkelling, fish and chips on the beach, fishing, sandcastle making.

Students may even have photos at home of them participating in these activities. They could be brought into class and stuck on a large poster coastal scene or students could simulate participating in these activities in the schoolyard, digital photos could be taken, printed out then stuck onto the poster.

Make an aquarium in your class.

Students should brainstorm to decide upon different plants and animals they would like in their aquarium.
Ask the students to attempt to identify the needs of the animals and plants by conducting 1, 2, and 4 brainstorming (first the students brainstorm as an individual, then as a pair, then in a group of 4).
Collate answers as a whole class.

What is the Great Barrier Reef?

Collect/download images of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Students share these and talk about features and activities they recognise. Identify things that are found only on the Great Barrier Reef as opposed to other areas.

Ask students:

What do we mean by the Great Barrier Reef?
Why is it important?
What does it support?
What plants and animals live on the Reef?
What is the Reef made of?
What activities might be undertaken while in and on the waters of the Great Barrier Reef? and
What can be seen in the photographs that cannot be found in other familiar places?

Preparing to Find Out: Sample Activities

Questions…Questions…Questions

During the unit, you should encourage the students to ask many questions. Encourage students to use a question grid like that below to help formulate interesting and probing questions.

Question Grid

What is?	Where/when is?	Which is?	Who is?	Why is?	How is?
What did?	Where/when did?	Which did?	Who did?	Why did?	How did?
What can?	Where/when can?	Which can?	Who can?	Why can?	How can?
What would?	Where/when could?	Which could?	Who would?	Why would?	How would?
What will?	Where/when will?	Which will?	Who will?	Why will?	How will?
What might?	Where/when might?	Which might?	Who might?	Why might?	How might?

Expain that questions they ask can be answered in different ways. They could be answered by:

Asking;
Looking/Observing; or
Experiencing.

Use the following technique to enable student's to answer their questions.

Students generate a question using the question grid.
Question placed onto posters titled 'animal questions', 'plant questions' and 'people questions' (see below for example). Animal questions relate to animals, plant questions to plants and people questions to ways people interact with the environment.
Students list where and how they will answer the question.
Students find answer to question by looking/observing, asking or experiencing.
Students record the answer.

Questions	Where and how do we find out the answer?	Answer
What colour is an octopus?	Reef HQ – Look/Observe	An octopus can change its colour
Why does a sea snake have a tail like a paddle?	Large container of water - Experience	Paddle shaped tail pushes the snake through the water
What is the largest shark in the world called?	In a book or ask an expert – Look/Observe or Ask	Whale Shark

Brainstorm

Brainstorm a topic of your choice to establish what students know about environmentally friendly strategies each of the coastal users could use e.g. beach users could take litter home with them, not walk in the dunes, pick up any litter they see etc. Fishers could throw back under and oversize fish, take only what they really need, make sure they don't anchor on the reef etc.

The Sea as a Resource

Read The Fisherman and the Theefyspray by Paul Jennings.
Create discussion about things we take from the sea. Discuss resources such as seafood to eat, seaweed for sushi, oil from underneath the sea, shells for artwork, cuttlefish for birds, fish and other marine animals for aquariums and marine creatures for medicines (coral is being used to replace bones in people's bodies. The coral has the same porosity as human bone).

A Seafood Recipe

Have students locate a recipe that contains an ingredient found on the Great Barrier Reef. Have them write a simple recipe. You could even cook up a recipe in class.

Finding Out

Guest Speaker

Invite a person from a local pet shop, aquarium shop or parent/community member who has experience setting up and looking after aquaria. Ask them to show you and the students how to set up an aquarium.

Focus particularly upon the needs of the animals (e.g. clean water, food, hides etc.) and needs of the students (e.g. easy to see, lots of colour, different size animals, easy cleaning etc.)

As a group make an inventory of your aquarium.

In Our Aquarium	Needs	Living / Non Living	Daily	Weekly	Looks After Itself

Sorting Out

What we know: knowledge circles

Students sit in two concentric circles. Arrange students in pairs,

facing each other. Each pair exchanges information about their visit to Reef HQ to show what they observed, investigated and learned. After a given time each circle moves one place. Repeat the exchange in a new pair. Continue until students have shared information on a number of occasions. Reform as one large circle. Move around the circle, each student contributing one piece of information they learnt from another student.

Who does What?

Read A Fish out of Water by Helen Palmer.
In consultation with the students and referring to the table, establish who will cater for the needs of the living things in your aquarium and your aquarium as a whole.

Role Plays

Role play the following scenarios:

You want to stop on an island in the Great Barrier Reef for a picnic. A family is just leaving a beautiful spot and leaves the area littered with rubbish. What might you do?
You want to use a barbecue on an island during the Christmas holidays, however fires are not permitted from November 1 until April 30. What might you do?
You notice people cutting down and damaging trees and plants on an island. It is an offence to cut down or damage any standing trees or plants. What might you do?
Reef walking is allowed on the Great Barrier Reef but it is expected that reef walkers do not damage or remove coral. You come across someone stepping on coral and living matter and picking up species that are attached to the reef flat. What might you do?
You see someone throwing out his or her bait bag whilst fishing on the Reef. This is against the Fishing Code. What might you do?

Activities on the Reef?

Discuss different activities that could be undertaken on the Great Barrier Reef. Have the students come up with some ideas under these headings:

What is good about these activities?
How could these activities be bad for the environment? and
What rules should people follow when doing these activities.

Reef Activities

Fish Feeding;
Fishing;
Whale Watching;
Snorkelling;
Visiting Islands;
Reef Walking;
Turtle Watching;
Observing Seabirds; and
Boating.

Continuum

Gauge student's feelings and values about the rules they developed by asking them to stand on a continuum. Students who strongly agree should stand at the left of the classroom; students who strongly disagree should stand to the right of the classroom. Students can place themselves anywhere on the continuum based on their feelings. Question students about their placement on the continuum.

Rules

Ask students to respond to the following sentence starter.
If I made the laws on the Great Barrier Reef, I would…

Mind map

Summarise what you know about the reef by using a mind map or sketch.

Collage

Make a collage of the reef using images from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's Web-site or magazines and books.

Going Further: Sample Activities

Fish Game

Objective: Children to construct a fishing game that highlights the legal size and bag limits for certain fish.

Materials

Magnets;
Washers;
Thick fishing line;
1 metre length of dowel for each group;
Card;
Paints;
OHPs;
OHTs;
Pencils; and
Blow up pool (optional).

Procedure

Divide students into groups. Team each group with a parent/teacher aide/teacher;
Ask student to source legal fish size and bag limit information from the Internet at the Department of Primary Industries Web-site (www.dpi.qld.gov.au/fishweb/2881.html#1) or contact the Department of Primary Industries for easy to use fish i.d. and bag limit brochures;
Discuss the information on the brochures;
Allocate a fish to each of the groups. Photocopy fish pictures from brochure onto OHTs;
Blow the fish up from the OHT to create different sized fish - undersized, legal limit size and oversize (if applicable) and trace onto card;
Cut out fish then have students paint using the correct colours and markings;
Place information tags on under side of fish including type of fish, bag limit and legal size;
Attach large washer directly under the mouth of the fish;
Laminate and cut out;
Construct a fishing pole out of dowel and thick fishing line. Attach magnet to end of line;
Present a talk to the class about their chosen fish; and
Conduct fishing time in the classroom. Students catch a fish, read i.d. then measure with tape to determine if legal.

Making Connections: Sample Activities

Self Reflection

Have students fill out the self-reflection student activity worksheet at the end of this document.

Taking Action: Sample Activities

Taking Action Ideas

As a class, decide upon favourite parts of the Great Barrier Reef. Ask students to suggest how we can make sure people care and look after these places.

Students could:

Contribute to a class article for the school newsletter;
Prepare a display of special places and features in the Great Barrier Reef and invite other classes or parents to view it and ask questions;
Speak to other classes about the use and care of Great Barrier Reef areas
Make a poster to advertise the use of Great Barrier Reef areas; and
Create a calendar illustrated with Great Barrier Reef environments and/or plants and animals.

Reef Guardian Schools

Become a Reef Guardian School - Contact the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for details.

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