Blueback: How healthy is the ocean? Year 5 HASS

Teacher Content Information

Note: This lesson can be taught over two lessons as indicated by the range in segment times. Teachers use their discretion about how much of the material they want to deliver to students.

This is lesson 3 (and 4) of 13 in the Blueback: Sustainability and the ocean unit. The preceding lesson is Blueback: What is ocean literacy?. The following lesson is Blueback: What is commercial fishing?

Teachers should watch Blueback (2022) so they are familiar with the narrative, characters and content.

Access Blueback here. (athome.roadshow.com.au/blueback), and on Clickview.

Teachers should familiarises themselves with how to use Canva - this will be helpful in terms of map creating activity. Basic tutorials can be found here: https://www.canva.com/designschool/tutorials/getting-started/

The content of this lesson will allow teachers to explain that protecting and conserving large areas of the ocean is necessary to regulate the climate, maintain essential biodiversity and support the very air we breathe.

Teachers would benefit from familiarising themselves with various marine conservation projects that are happening throughout Australia - this can be done by reviewing the links embedded in this lesson prior to delivery.

Learning intentions

Students will:

explore a range of challenges the ocean surrounding Australia is currently facing.

Success criteria

Students can:

identify and describe some of the challenges facing the ocean surrounding Australia
brainstorm possible solutions to some of these challenges.

Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 - 20 minutes - Tune in: What are the challenges?
25 - 50 minutes - Find out: Investigation!
20 - 40 minutes - Take action: Mapping the challenges

Tune in: What are the challenges?

Without prior learning on this subject, it may be difficult for students to name some challenges. Watching clips from Blueback may help to prompt ideas.

Step 1.

Watch clips from the film:

Blueback - Abby and Dora travel out to Macka's boat (vimeo.com/794748349)

Blueback - Abby and Dora climb aboard reef stripping boat (vimeo.com/794748170)

Ask students:

What do you think is meant by the term ‘overfishing’?
What do you think is meant by the term ‘stripping the reef?’

Step 2.

As a class, discuss:

What are some of the other challenges faced by the ocean surrounding Australia?

They might not have much knowledge or even be able to guess, but that’s what we’re here to discover.

Find out: Investigation

Use your discretion to organise students to work independently or in groups. Students will need to work using their devices and have access to the internet.

Step 1.

Independently, groups investigate one of the challenges listed below in more depth.

This information, together with research links for students, is available on the Student Worksheet.

The challenges are:

Protection of turtle hatching sites
Declining whale shark population
Death of the mangroves
Problems with the salmon industry
Offshore oil and gas drilling
Coral bleaching

For each of these challenges, students must answer the following questions:

What is the problem?
What is the cause of the problem?
How is it impacting ocean life?
How is it impacting humans?
How can we help? Who is already helping?

Take action: Mapping the challenges

Step 1.

Students use a graphic key to plot the location of these challenges on a map of Australia. Students are provided with a map (see Required Resources). Students should provide a written explanation of the key at the side of the map. Here’s an example of a finished map.

An annotated map of Austsralia with sea creature symbols surrounding it.

Step 2.

Invite students to share one interesting fact they’ve learned with the class.

Step 3.

Check in with students. Today’s lesson may trigger some concern or upset young students. Inform students that the unit is going to move into exploring a wide range of good news stories, full of projects and initiatives that are combating and providing solutions to the problems explored in these lessons.

Differentiated Learning

We trust that teachers are the best equipped to know how to cater to the diversity in their classes. At Cool Australia, we incorporate a variety of differentiation strategies into each lesson. Firstly, each lesson in this unit appeals to an array of different learning preferences. Learning activities can be completed in a number of different ways - if a student feels more comfortable speaking rather than writing, there are opportunities to accommodate this. In lessons that feature group work or learning stations, we trust that teachers will use their discretion in knowing how to best organise their students in accordance to positive working relationships and ability. Graphic organisers and scaffolds are often included so students can ‘visually think’ and keep a record of their work. While our lessons are designed to be 55 - 60 minutes in length, we trust that teachers will manipulate lesson and segment times according to the needs of their students.

Blueback - How Healthy is the Ocean?

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students will...

Success criteria:

Students can...

Lesson Guides and Printables

Lesson Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

Additional Info

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