Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes	Part A. Activating prior knowledge
45 minutes	Part B. Ocean guardians
45 minutes	Part C. What work will you do?
15 minutes	Reflection

Part A. Activating Prior Knowledge

Engage students in a class brainstorm activity by writing the phrase ‘Environmental Knowledge’ on the board and inviting students to suggest examples of what environmental knowledge might look like in the context of jobs and careers involving the ocean.

For example:

Shipping companies being aware of issues like water pollution
Fisheries understanding the environmental and economic benefits of sustainable fishing or the environmental impacts of unsustainable fishing practices
Coastal engineers need to consider things like the environmental impacts of development on the areas being developed or how erosion might impact a development

Add students' suggestions to the brainstorm and discuss suggestions using the following prompts:

What makes you say that?
What else does this make you think about?

Lead students to the understanding that there are many jobs that require a level of environmental knowledge, and in fact, it could be argued that all jobs require a level of environmental awareness! Whether it be
recycling in the office, switching off the lights and computers at the end of the day or developing ways to save water.

Explain to students that, in this lesson, they will be looking at some of the ways environmental knowledge might be important to those working with, on and in the oceans.

Part B. Ocean Guardians

Step 1.

Explain to students that in Blue The Film there are a number of guardians who speak out for the oceans. These guardians have a range of backgrounds but all work to preserve aspects of the ocean, and all need to incorporate environmental knowledge into their work.

Sort students into groups by naming each student a 'one', 'two' or 'three'. Invite students to form groups of three (each group should be made up of a 'one', a 'two’ and a ‘three’). Assign each group with one of the following guardians of the ocean:

Madison Stewart
Jennifer Lavers
Lucas Handley

Each group is required to:

Watch the relevant video (available below and on the Student Worksheet)
Undertake research to find out more about the role of their guardian
Answer the questions below (also available on the Student Worksheet)

Who is Madison Stewart? - (https://vimeo.com/1056608696/f87d86ca45)
Who is Jennifer Lavers? - (https://vimeo.com/1056609385/c234845474)
Who is Lucas Handley? - (https://vimeo.com/211780567)

Questions for groups to discuss:

What type of role does this guardian have?
What types of activities might this guardian do in their role?
What environmental knowledge would this guardian have?
How would having environmental knowledge help this guardian in their role?

When answering these questions, students should include quotes from the guardians and references from their research, remembering the Search strategies for Googling.

Students can discuss the answers to their questions in groups. However, each student is responsible for recording their own answers in their own words

Step 2.

Once students have had enough time to research and discuss their answers about their guardian, invite them to form new groups to share their learning. You could coordinate student movement by asking '1's' to move anti-clockwise to sit with a different group and all '3's' to move clockwise to sit with a different group ('2's' stay put). Invite students to take turns recounting their group's discussion with their new group. Ensure that the new concepts are learned in a self-guided manner by encouraging students to take their own notes about the other case studies and to ask clarifying questions about the guardians and ideas being shared.

Once complete, invite students to participate in a class discussion to share their thoughts about the guardians and their roles. Consider the following points in your discussion:

How do the guardians use environment knowledge in their jobs?
How are the guardians also helping our environment?
Why are all these roles important in helping our environment?
What did you find interesting or inspiring about the guardians and the work that they do?
What role do you think passion plays in the work that the guardians do?
What would you like to know more about?
Which of these jobs would you like and why?
Which wouldn’t you like and why?

Part C. What Work will You do?

Step 1.

Now invite students to think about what work they would like to do with our oceans.

Students need to work independently to identify and research a role that appeals to them. The role can be something that is already available, or students can imagine and invent a role that might be required in the future. Encourage students to think creatively!

Each student needs to create an infographic that describes the following (also available on the Student Worksheet):

The name of their role
What the role is and how it relates to the ocean
What environmental knowledge would be required as part of this role
What sorts of skills or experience would be necessary in order to work in this role
Why they have chosen this role (i.e. what appeals to them about this role)

Each student should create an infographic (e.g. Piktochart) sharing their answers to these questions.

Step 2.

Invite each student to present their infographic to the class. Encourage other students to ask questions and use the following rubric to assess the infographics: Infographic Assessment Rubric.

Step 3.

Invite students to participate in a brief class discussion around the roles presented by the class. Consider the following questions:

Now that you’ve heard all the roles from the class, would you change the role you described/imagined? How?
Do you think all roles in the future should require at least some environmental knowledge? Why or why not?
If you are interested in pursuing a role NOT based on the ocean, what would it be and what environmental knowledge might you need?

Step 4.

Explain to students that although there are many wonderful jobs around helping the ocean that may be available to them in the future, we all have a job to do right now: no matter where we live, we are impacting the ocean, so no matter where we live we can help the ocean. We can all be guardians of the ocean.

Invite students to work in pairs or as a class to brainstorm as many things that they can personally do to help the ocean right now. You could invite students to record their thoughts in their workbooks or you could ask students to write their ideas on the board.

Once complete, discuss students' suggestions and consider the following questions:

Are these things we can all do?
What do we need to do these things?
Can we get other people involved in helping us? How?
What would be the easiest to do and why?
What would be the hardest? Why?
Which ideas do you think are most important?

Reflection

Working independently, invite students to complete the following Reflection Questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Thinking about what you looked at in this lesson, share one thing that you learned about the role of environmental knowledge in a job.
What are two ways that you now think about the use of environmental knowledge in work differently?
Do you think environmental knowledge should be a requirement of all jobs? Explain your position using examples.

Take It Further

Invite students to apply their learning in a real-world context by participating in the Social Action lesson of this unit

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching

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

Blue - Who is Looking Out for Our Oceans?

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students can...

Success criteria:

Students will...

Lesson Guides and Printables

Lesson Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

UN Sustainable Development Goals

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Related Professional Learning

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