Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes

Part A: Where do you stand? The impact of bees on our world

15 minutes

Part B: What do we wonder about bees?

10 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will..

discover the pivotal role bees play in food production and the health of our ecosystems
build their knowledge of how bees interact with their environment
develop inquiry questions to expand their understanding of new concepts and existing misconceptions about bees, pollination, food and farming.

Success criteria

Students can..

explain the role of bees in food production and their impact on ecosystems
describe how bees interact with plants and their role in pollination
explain the role bees play in food production.

Part A: Where do you stand? The impact of bees on our world

Before starting the activity, create a line on the wall or floor (using string or masking tape) long enough for all students to be able to stand along. At one end of the line, attach a sign saying ‘AGREE’ and at the other end attach a sign saying ‘DISAGREE’. Half way along the line attach a sign saying ‘NOT SURE’.

This activity can be used as a barometer to test students' prior knowledge of the topic of bees and the role they play in pollination, food and farming. It can also be used as an introduction to the core themes addressed in this unit, and could also be a way to provoke students' thoughts and ideas about bees. Ask students to stand up and look at the line. Explain that you will be reading out a list of statements and for each statement they should choose a point along the line on which to stand. You will be discussing each statement as you go and students may want to change their position along the line after each discussion.

Statements	Discussion points
Bees make honey so I can eat it on my crumpets	Bees aren't thinking about your crumpets when they're making delicious honey. They actually make honey to feed the hive. Bees have a second stomach called a 'honey stomach' where they store nectar they gather from flowers to take back to the hive. They turn it into honey by a process of regurgitation and evaporation: they store it as a food source in wax honeycombs inside the hive. Note: Not all bee species make honey.
There is only one species of bee that lives in Australia	The best known bee in Australia is the commercial honey bee. It was introduced to Australia from Europe in about 1822 to produce honey for our pioneers. However, there are over 1600 other bee species of all shapes and sizes - just visit our gardens and wildflowers. These are our own Australian native bees which have evolved with our wildflowers over millions of years.
Bees will sting you if you go near them or if they come near you	Bees are gentle creatures. They rarely sting unless provoked. They are a different species to wasps, who might harass you and try to take a bite of your ham sandwich. Bees generally mind their own business, and are focused on gathering pollen and nectar. There are also many species of stingless bees that are native to Australia.
All bees live in a hive	Nearly all of Australia’s 1600 or more native bee species are solitary. Solitary bees do not have queens, workers and drones. Instead in most species, just one female bee mates and then builds an individual nest for her eggs, just like a bird does. Social bees live with other bees in hives. The hives have a queen bee plus hundreds (or even thousands) of female worker bees and some male drone bees in each nest.
Fruit and vegetables only need good soil, water and sunshine to be healthy and grow	Bees contribute to the productivity of many fruit, vegetable and seed crops by pollinating the plants so that crop yield and quality is improved. In fact, conservative figures show that bees pollinate at least one mouthful in every three that we eat. Pollination services have been estimated to contribute between $620 to $730 million to the value of Australian fruit and vegetable production each year.
Cattle would be fine if bees became extinct	The pasture and hay that beef farmers feed their cattle rely on pollination by bees for seed, so the diet of cows and bulls would be affected dramatically if bees ceased to exist.
Bees have helped to make my t-shirt.	T-shirts are usually made from cotton, which grows in crops. Cotton is highly dependent on the pollination that bees provide. Without bees, 80% of the cotton crop would not develop, and your t-shirt might not exist!
Bees helped to produce what I had for breakfast today	It depends on what you had for breakfast. If you had anything with fruit in it, including juice, then yes, bees pollinated the fruit so that it could reach your breakfast table. Did you have any milk this morning? It's likely that the cow's feed required bees for pollination. Did your parents drink a coffee this morning? They can thank bees for that too! The pollination that bees provide for plants affects at least one in every three mouthfuls of food we eat!!
Bees and plants have a mutually beneficial relationship	When living things rely on each other they are said to have a symbiotic relationship. Bees and flowering plants have a mutually beneficial relationship whereby the bees assist with pollination and fertilisation of the plant and in return collect nectar and pollen not only for themselves but also to feed their young. Both flowers and bees have co-evolved special adaptations to make this relationship work. Plants have evolved flowers, pollen and nectar to attract pollinators to assist with fertilisation. Bees have evolved special hairs that are arranged to form pollen ‘baskets’ on their hind-legs and the underside of their abdomen. They can gather and carry large volumes of pollen and visit many flowers before returning to their hive.

You could debrief this activity by congratulating students for demonstrating support for their classmates, contributing to the class discussion, taking risks in providing responses in front of their classmates and listening to their classmates' viewpoints and opinions.

You could take your class outside for this ‘Stand on the Line’ activity. What better way to learn about bees than in their natural environment? Use your school garden or Indigenous garden as an outdoor space. If you intend to go outside, please read and implement the suggestions in the Bee Safe! Factsheet before heading out.

Part B: What do we wonder about bees?

Step 1

As a class, watch this short film that features a range of time-lapse images of bees collecting nectar and pollen from flowers (also found on the Student Worksheet). Play the clip from the beginning to 2:10 min without stopping or discussing anything. Allow students to simply enjoy the beautiful images and aesthetics of nature. If time permits, you could play the rest of the clip, which contains images of flower structures, which will be covered in future lessons.

The Beauty of Pollinators - source: (https://www.oprah.com/video_embed.html?article_id=49586)

Step 2

Use a 'See, Think, Wonder' visible thinking tool to help students visualise what they understand and want to find out about the clip. You could divide a piece of butcher's paper into three columns labelled 'SEE', 'THINK' and 'WONDER', then give students three sticky notes each and ask them to record one thing they saw in the clip, one thing they think after watching the clip, and one thing they wonder after watching the clip. Alternatively, students could complete this task independently on the Student Worksheet.

Step 3

Ask students to turn to the person next to them and briefly share their reflections. They should describe what they have written. Once students have shared what they see, think and wonder, ask them to expand on their observations and puzzlements if they can, and if students completed the activity on sticky-notes, stick them in each column on the paper. Then, guide a short class discussion about students' thoughts - ask a couple of students to share their thoughts. This activity will give students a basis from which to complete the reflection activity (below).

Reflection

This Hive of Reflection exit slip can be used to help students understand new concepts, reflect on information learned, and express their thoughts about new information. The approach requires students to respond to a prompt and incorporates writing into different content areas. The exit slip can also act as an informal assessment that will allow you to adapt and differentiate your planning and instruction by allowing you to adapt to students' interests and inquiries. This strategy is extremely useful in the classroom because it takes just a few moments to do, and will give you an informal measure of student's understanding of new concepts.

The Hive of Reflection exit slips are hexagon-shaped, just like the wax cells that form the honeycomb created by worker bees in a beehive. Bees use the cells to store honey and pollen, and the cells also house bee eggs and larvae. Throughout the unit, students will add their hexagon-shaped exit slips to a space on the wall so that their cells will create a “Hive of Reflection”.

Step 1

A few minutes before the end of each session, distribute one exit slip to students and ask them to respond to the prompt. You could differentiate the reflection activity by choosing which exit slip prompt goes to each student.

Step 2

Before students leave the room, invite them to add their exit slips to an allocated space on the wall to add a new cell to the honeycomb of the Hive of Reflection.

Then, review students’ exit slips in order to make any changes to the structure of future lessons so that the needs of your students are met.
At the start of the next lesson, consider taking some time to view the wall where the cells from the "Hive of Reflection" have been stuck to recap on student comments, ideas, and opinions. This will give students confidence that their voice matters and creates a public space wherein students can see and appreciate their personal entries.

Student’s exit slips could be collated and used as a part of an assessment portfolio for each student to document their growth over the Love Food? Love Bees! unit.

It is important to set up an inclusive, safe and respectful environment when students are visually displaying their personal learning.

Differentiated Learning

Extension: Students could research their own or a peers' 'wonderment'. They could engage in an online search to find information, and create a small fact sheet that details the information they have found. If they choose to research a classmate's question, students could seek out the 'owner' of the wonderment, and inform them about what they found.

Provisional Learning Support: Provide prompts for students in the 'See, Think, Wonder' visible thinking tool. Encourage them to think about how bees interact with the flowers they land on, how their bodies/physiology interacts with their environment, what their environment looks like, what they are doing in the clips, why they might be doing it. Ask students to verbalise their thoughts before they note them down on sticky-notes or on the Student Worksheet.

Beeing Curious

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Summary

Learning intentions

Students will..

Success criteria

Students can..

Lesson guides and printables

Lesson Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Additional Info

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