Love Food? Love Bees! - Sustainable Agriculture

Australian curriculum content descriptions: 

Year 9 Geography:

• The capacity of the world’s environments to sustainably feed the projected future global population (ACHGK064).
• Challenges to food production, including land and water degradation, shortage of fresh water, competing land uses, and climate change, for Australia and other areas of the world (ACHGK063).

Year 10 Geography:

• Human-induced environmental changes that challenge sustainability (ACHGK070).
• Environmental world views of people and their implications for environmental management (ACHGK071).
• The application of systems thinking to understand the causes and likely consequences of the environmental change being investigated (ACHGK073).

Syllabus outcomes: GE5-2, GE5-3, GE5-4, GE5-5

General capabilities:  Literacy, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Capability, Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability 

Relevant parts of Year 9 achievement standards: Students analyse interconnections between people, places and environments and explain how these interconnections influence people, and change places and environments. Students synthesise data and information to draw reasoned conclusions.

Relevant parts of Year 10 achievement standards: Students identify, analyse and explain significant interconnections between people, places and environments and explain changes that result from these interconnections and their consequences. They predict changes in the characteristics of places and environments over time, across space and at different scales and explain the predicted consequences of change. They evaluate alternative views on a geographical challenge and alternative strategies to address this challenge using environmental, economic, political and social criteria and draw a reasoned conclusion.

Unit of work: Love Food? Love Bees! – Food Security and Sustainability – Year 9 & 10

Time required: 100 mins.

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – teacher needs to organise students’ work to be posted to the wider community.

• Student Worksheets – one copy per student
• Sustainable Agriculture Factsheet – one copy per student
• Enough internet-enabled devices to facilitate group work
• A stopwatch, timer app or access to an online timer
• Permission to post students’ work on a school social media account or another medium that your school uses to share information with the community such as a school blog or newsletter. If this is not possible, a display area in a part of the school frequented by members of the community, such as an administration office, is a great option to display work.

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

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Critical thinking
• Digital literacy
• Empathy

This lesson has been created in partnership with ACT for Bees. ACT for Bees is a not-for-profit organisation taking action to preserve these essential pollinators, ensuring a food-secure future.