Beyond the Bushfires - Horse Hooves

Australian Curriculum content descriptions: 

Year 6 English:

• Understand that strategies for interaction become more complex and demanding as levels of formality and social distance increase (ACELA1516)
• Understand the uses of objective and subjective language and bias (ACELA1517)
• Investigate how vocabulary choices, including evaluative language can express shades of meaning, feeling and opinion (ACELA1525)
• Analyse and evaluate similarities and differences in texts on similar topics, themes or plots (ACELT1614)
• Identify and explain how choices in language, for example modality, emphasis, repetition and metaphor, influence personal response to different texts (ACELT1615)
• Participate in and contribute to discussions, clarifying and interrogating ideas, developing and supporting arguments, sharing and evaluating information, experiences and opinions (ACELY1709)
• Analyse how text structures and language features work together to meet the purpose of a text (ACELY1711)
• Analyse strategies authors use to influence readers (ACELY1801)
• Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, choosing and experimenting with text structures, language features, images and digital resources appropriate to purpose and audience (ACELY1714)

Year 6 Science:

• The growth and survival of living things are affected by physical conditions of their environment (ACSSU094)
• Scientific knowledge is used to solve problems and inform personal and community decisions (ACSHE100)

Syllabus outcomes: ST3-11LW, ST3-7PW, EN3-1A, EN3-5B, EN3-6B, EN3-7C, EN3-3A, EN3-2A

General capabilities: Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability

Relevant parts of Year 6 English achievement standards: Students understand how the use of text structures can achieve particular effects. They analyse and explain how language features, images and vocabulary are used by different authors to represent ideas, characters and events. They show how specific details can be used to support a point of view. Students create detailed texts elaborating on key ideas for a range of purposes and audiences.
Relevant parts of Year 6 Science achievement standards: Students describe and predict the effect of environmental changes on individual living things. Students explain how scientific knowledge helps us to solve problems and inform decisions and identify historical and cultural contributions.

This lesson is part of the wider unit of work: Beyond the Bushfires – Primary

Time required: 55 mins

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – facilitate a discussion and guide students thinking across complex and varied viewpoints

• Article – The Conversation – Fire almost wiped out rare species in the Australian Alps. Feral horses are finishing the job
• Article – The Conversation – Why do brumbies evoke such passion? It’s all down to the high country’s cultural myth-makers 
• Device capable of presenting a video to the class
• Lined paper or writing notebook
• Pen/Pencil
• Whiteboard

This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:

• Communication
• Community engagement
• Creativity
• Critical thinking
• Cultural understanding
• Empathy
• Ethical understanding
• Global citizenship
• Problem solving

In partnership with The Conversation, the Beyond the Bushfires series brings the words of scientists who are actively involved in research and science communication into classrooms throughout Australia. Students will explore evidence-based research embedded in the context of real-world practice.

Additional thanks to the Ian Potter Foundation, John T Reid Charitable Trusts and The Myer Foundation, for generously supporting the development of these lessons.