Teaching Sequence

25 minutes	Part B: Article Analysis Activities
20 minutes	Part C: Constructing a Hypothesis
5 minutes	Reflection and Extension

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Step 1.

Begin by explaining to students that in this lesson they will be analysing satellite images and interactive graphics about Australia's bushfire recovery. They will be drawing on their knowledge of and vocabulary related to ecosystems and applying these to investigate the impact of bushfires on living and non-living parts of ecosystems.

Step 2.

Distribute the following article from The Conversation; Before and after: 4 new graphics show the recovery from last summer’s bushfire devastation. Students spend some time independently reading the article, taking notes to summarise the article.

Step 3.

Engage students in a brief class discussion to ensure they have grasped the content of the article and are using appropriate scientific language in their summaries.

Explain that they will be focusing on using the interactive graphics to gain an understanding of the ecosystem recovery.

Part B: Article Analysis Activities

Step 1.

Hand out the Student Worksheet.

Independently, using the Student Worksheet, students will first identify one species covered in the article, as well as selecting one abiotic factor from the following:

Soil Quality

Ground Cover

Shade

Wind

Rainfall

Step 2.

Now explain to students that they will be focusing on the interactive under the heading 'Devastation and recovery after the Kangaroo Island bushfires' (see below). Use your projector or smartboard to scroll to this section of the article to provide guidance.

Explain to students that they will be describing how their chosen species population and abiotic factors have changed over the three time periods in the images: before, immediately after (Feb), and 6 months after (Oct) a bushfire event.

This task relies on visual interpretation rather than quantitative measures, so students may need guidance in critically thinking about the difference between images.

Note: Students may be confused about the April image which appears darker, and may be interpreted as ground cover. While most images are taken with the sun directly overhead, this image is taken when the sun is at an angle. As a result, this creates longer shadows from the trees as well as dark patches against the slopes. An interesting discussion point is that this gives a greater sense of height and contour, which the others may lack.

Step 3.

Students will move on to focus on the plot graph halfway down the article (see below). Scroll to this section using the projection or smart board at the front of the class.

This graph plots the height of grass trees immediately after and 6 months after the fires. Using the graph data and the associated article students will investigate why the grass trees are growing so tall so soon after the fires.

Note: This is a novel type of graph that some students might find difficult. The Y-axis (measuring vegetation height) is the most relevant. The X-axis measures ground distance, and is confusing because it is actually a representation of three dimensional space compressed to two dimensions. It is best to imagine this as many 20 metre transects collapsed into one, ignoring the distance between each transect.

Step 4.

For any students needing support consider doing an image search for grass trees and their distinctive flower spike. The graph is a great demonstration of how this native Australian plant has adapted to fire, reproducing shortly after the devastation.

Part C: Constructing a Hypothesis

Step 1.

Encourage students to move onto Part B of their worksheets.

Based on the data of this article and the conclusions they have drawn, students will begin to formulate a potential investigation inspired by this article. With guidance from the Student Worksheet, students will write a basic hypothesis using a formula and propose the dependent and independent variables they might measure.

Step 2.

After allowing 10 minutes, invite students to form groups to share and discuss the article and their proposed investigations. They could use the following questions in their discussion:

Reflecting on the article, how might the research methods be improved?
What could you measure differently? How?
How else could you continue to use satellite images like these?
What other species could you monitor?
What other abiotic factors could you investigate?

Step 3.

Following their discussions, encourage them to return to their hypothesis to refine or clarify any points.

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to answer the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

How helpful do you think studies like the one presented in the article are to our understanding of the impacts of bushfire? Explain your answer.
Have your thoughts or opinions about the article changed throughout the course of this lesson? Explain your answer.
What has this lesson made you think about?
What do you want to know more about?

Extension

Fire can lead to ecosystem damage. They can greatly impact biodiversity, lead to degradation and desertification of the land.

The UN Development Goals have very important targets to stop the loss of biodiversity. From this article, we learned that monitoring the health of our ecosystems after fires is incredibly important. There are also many ways in which to monitor ecosystem health - aerial photography is a particularly visual way of doing so.

Think about how you could monitor an ecosystem you care about. It could be local to you or somewhere else on the planet. Think of a way you could use photography, or programs like Google Maps / Google Earth, to learn more about how environments change over time.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Beyond the Bushfires - Bird's Eye View of Bushfire Recovery

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