Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

5 minutes

Introduction

15 minutes

Part A: Finding solutions: How can we help bees?

15 minutes

Part B: Sharing what we find

10 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions:

Students will...

will understand the importance of bees in sustaining ecosystems and identify ways to protect them.
develop research skills by conducting an online search and summarising information about bee-friendly actions.

Success criteria:

Students can...

conduct a well-planned online search to gather relevant information about how to be bee friendly
summarise and share bee-friendly solutions, suggesting actions individuals can take to help protect bees.

Introduction

Anchor the tasks of this lesson by reinforcing the threats faced by bees as explored in the previous lesson. You could refer to and recall the information on the bee wall display, and/or ask students to recall the information they discovered and shared with each other in previous lessons about bees, their role as pollinators, the threats to bees and the impacts of those threats on food production.

Part A: Finding solutions: How can we help bees?

This activity focuses on developing students' skills in using the internet to research and find targeted, meaningful information around a specific question or challenge.

Step 1

Inform students that they will be using the internet to find ways to address the question:

How can everyday people be 'bee friendly'?

Write the question on the top of the whiteboard or in another noticeable place and leave it there for the duration of the lesson to provide a visual reminder to students of the aim for the lesson. Inform students that they will be finding and sharing some actions people can take to be bee friendly.

Step 2

Ask students to form groups of 3-4 and sit together around a table or in a small circle. Distribute a copy of the Web Research Planning Tool to each group. Ask two students from each group to write the research question at the top of each page, then prompt groups to spend some time writing their thoughts and plans in the space on the page around each question:

What are some terms (words) that we could search?
What are some questions that we could search?

While students are making notes on the questions above, you could circulate around the groups to observe their progress. If required you could prompt students to consider the following before they begin their search:

What are some different ways to say 'bee friendly'?
What do we already know about bee-friendly approaches/actions?
What are some things that we would like to know about the research question? Can we break the question into smaller questions?
Do we want to find out about approaches to helping bees that are used in other countries or just in Australia?
Can we keep our search more general, and then apply what we find to our local area at a later stage?
How will we decide on which websites to read?
How will we record the information we find in order to be able to refer to it later?

Once students have refined what they will search for, encourage them to carry out their search. Students will need at least one web-enabled device per group. One between two or one device each would be even better. Remind students to use the keep it REAL rule when searching the internet.

Encourage students to summarise (not copy and paste) the information they find, including:

Details of bee friendly approaches they read about
The benefits of the bee friendly approach
The names of the organisations whose websites they read

Students could summarise what they read using the Bee friendly Action Description Template.

If students are having difficulty finding relevant information, you could point them in the direction of these websites:

Groups could use a shared document such as Google docs, OneNote, Evernote or any other collaborative note-sharing program/app that your class usually uses to take notes.

Step 3

Invite groups to come together as a class to share what they found in their initial search. You could record what students report on the whiteboard as a Word Splash (wherein each student's contribution is written at random intervals on the board). Students will be able to see and remember what is being discussed. Students could then record their favourite bee-friendly discoveries/strategies on the Student Worksheet (this will help students to form groups in the next part of the lesson).

Some strategies/approaches that your students may find are:

plant bee-friendly gardens
leave an area of the backyard unmowed to allow for flowers and clover to grow
leave habitat for native bees (leaf litter, build a bee hotel)
make and distribute seed bombs
keep bees in your backyard
use no pesticides - use natural pest solutions
leave rocks/pebbles in bird baths or other bodies of water to prevent drowning
support organic, sustainable growers as much as possible (buy fresh & local)
buy local honey
suggest that local councils etc, adopt bee-friendly gardening practices in public areas, including signage with information about bees
encourage farmers to grow bee-friendly flower meadows amongst their crops

Step 4

Once students have shared the information they have found during their web search, ask them to go back to their search plans to assess their approach to finding information online. They could identify their successes as well as the things they would change by circling each of the search terms they used with one of three different coloured textas. Groups could use blue for 'successful', yellow for 'sort of successful' and orange for 'needs review'. Ask students to discuss in their groups:

What made a good search term? Why?

If you have time, ask groups to share their thoughts with another group to see if there are ideas they did not consider.

Part B: Sharing what we find

Step 1

Ask students to form groups based on the bee-friendly approach they noted as their favourite. If too many students have chosen one approach, ask them to form groups based on their second preference, or their third and so on until the class is split into relatively even-numbered groups. Mixed ability groups of 3-5 would be best in order to ensure that there is enough work for each group member. Ensure that each group has chosen a bee-friendly approach to showcase.

Step 2

Using the information gathered by the class in the previous step, groups work together to summarise information and instructions around a bee-friendly strategy and create an information display to add to the bee wall display. Groups can use the Bee-friendly Action Description Template to guide them in what they should include in their display. They could designate tasks amongst the group members and use the question on each segment to guide them in summarising the information.

Alternatively, students could use an interactive presentation tool to inform people about the bee-friendly approach they researched. They could create a short film/podcast/adobe spark presentation, etc. Groups should decide on what information should be included in the presentation, and work with the teacher to create a criteria for success based on their intended approach.

After students have completed the information display, ask groups to nominate a spokesperson to share the details of the information they have summarised with the class. Encourage the class to ask any clarifying questions of the group, who should work together to respond based on what they learned during the activity.

Step 3

Invite students to nominate their favourite bee-friendly strategies and complete the two questions on the Students Worksheet. They are asked:

What are your favourite bee-friendly strategies?
Which do you think you could implement at school/home?

Reflection

1. Ask students to engage in the Three-W’s thinking exercise. This will help students to reflect on the content they’ve learnt, why it is important and how they will use or activate their knowledge. The reflection can be completed on the Student Worksheet. Students are asked:

What did I learn today?
So What? (Why is this information relevant, important or useful?)
Now What? (What is our next step? What are we going to do with the facts we’ve learnt?)

This is a great opportunity for formative assessment. Are students more confident with the content covered in the lesson?

2. If students started the ‘Hive of Reflection’ activity in the ‘Beeing Curious’ lesson, distribute another exit slip to each students and ask them to respond to the prompt. As you progress through each lesson in the Love Food? Love Bees! unit, students can continue to reflect on their learning by add new cells to the honeycomb of the Hive of Reflection wall display.

Differentiated learning

Extension:

Students who are proficient readers could be tasked with summarising information that is presented online in a more challenging way - they could be challenged to read through larger chunks of information and summarise it for their groups.

Provisional Learning Support:

Students may benefit from more scaffolding in each of the activities. You could work with students to create a list of information that they should look for during the research activity, allocate a specific website for students to read and perhaps even pair students up with a more confident reader. For Part B of the lesson, students may benefit from more structure when summarising information about the bee-friendly action they are focused on. This could be as simple as collaborating with the student to decide on a list of key pieces of information that they should look for when they read through the online information.

Beeing Helpful

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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

Related Professional Learning

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