Teaching Sequence

30-60 minutes - Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
30-60 minutes - Part B: Selecting An Idea For Social Action
30-60 minutes - Part C: Project Planning
60+ minutes - Part D: Implementing The Project
10-20 minutes - Part E: Project Completion

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Begin this lesson by inviting students to think about their school -

Option A. If students have completed the previous lesson:

Display the maps that students created and invite them to share what they remember about their map, how it was made and the information it contains.
Now invite students to consider the following questions: What things did you notice on your walk that made you feel good? Or that you really liked? Encourage students to consult their maps when considering and sharing their ideas.
Next invite students to consider the following questions: What things did you notice on your walk that you found troubling, or worrying or upsetting? What didn’t you like? Again, encourage students to consult their maps when considering and sharing their answers and explain to students that these ideas can be referred to as ‘problems’. Record these problems on the board.

Option B. If students have not completed the previous lesson:

Invite students to think of a part of your neighbourhood that most students are familiar with, such as the park or main shopping street. Once you have selected a site, work with students to locate this site on a map (such as Google Maps).
Next work with students to brainstorm the things they think could be improved in this place, focusing in particular on human-made, animal or environmental features such as:
- Human-made – Buildings, paths, play equipment, ovals or playing fields
- Animal – Presence of animals, nests, hollows, food plants for animals
- Environmental – Plants, water (e.g. ponds, creek), rocks or garden beds
Examples of suggestions could include things that are broken (such as play equipment), places where there seems to be lots of litter, low levels of natural vegetation for animals to feed or shelter in, garden beds that don’t have any plants, or places that feel dangerous or make students uneasy. Explain to students that these ideas can be referred to as ‘problems’. Record these problems on the board.

Part B: Selecting An Idea For Social Action

Step 1.

Now explain to students that they will be selecting one of the problems they identified in their neighbourhood and developing a plan for social action to improve this problem. They will be doing this by:

Choosing one problem to focus on
Brainstorming ideas to address this problem
Selecting one idea and designing and planning social action around this idea
Implementing their social action.

Note: The Examples Of Action Factsheet could be used to encourage thinking of community problems and actions that students can take to improve their neighbourhood. You may also like to set aside time to view the Roots and Shoots Australia website exploring recent projects.
Before beginning this process, emphasise to students that all students should take responsibility for collecting evidence and artefacts about the work that they put into the social action project, such as rough drafts, sketches or photos. Explain to students that the most important thing to remember is that the PROCESS of participating in and completing the project is really important - perhaps even more than the final outcome. Students should aim to demonstrate the growth and learning that they experienced, both personally and as a group as a result of facing the challenges inherent in a project of this type.

Step 2.

Refer to the list of problems suggested by students that you recorded and explain that they need to select one of these problems to focus on. This could be done by inviting each student to:

Select the problem that most interests them and come up to the board and add three tally marks next to that problem.
They can then select the next most interesting problem and come up to board and add two tally marks next to that problem.
Finally, they can select their third most interesting problem and come up to board and add one tally mark next to that problem.

The problem that receives the most tally marks is the problem you pursue.

Step 3.

Explain to students that they now need to frame this problem as a ‘design challenge question’. A design challenge question helps us to think, explore and create many different solutions to one problem. For this lesson, the design challenge question will be framed as a ‘How might we…?’ question.

For example, consider the following problem:

There’s a lot of litter in the creek.

To frame this problem as a ‘How might we…?’ question, we could ask ‘How might we stop litter getting into the creek?’

Now break the class into pairs or groups and invite each group to consider the problem you have chosen as a class. Each group should try to come up with a ‘How might we…?’ question in response to the problem.

Allow groups a few minutes to come up with some questions and then ask them to share them with the class. Write these questions on the board. Work as a class to decide on which question you will use, explaining that this question will guide their social action. To select an idea for action you could:

Invite students to vote using a show of hands.
Invite students to select their three favourite questions and to add three tally marks next to their favourite question, two tally marks next to their second favourite, and one tally mark next to their third favourite question.

Step 4.

Once you have decided on a question, it is time to think about the action you could take to address this question. The first stage of the planning process is to start brainstorming ideas about actions students could take. The ‘50 ideas in 5 minutes’ challenge is a useful way to generate a list of ideas that can then be developed and refined.

The number of ideas to be generated could be adjusted according to student age and ability, for example younger students could work to generate 20 ideas in 5 minutes.

Work through the following steps:

Break the class into groups of five or six students.
Students will work in their groups to come up with as many different and varied solutions as possible in five minutes.
The ideas can be as abstract and off-the-wall as students like, but they should also add some practical and realistic ideas too.
The aim is to have as many as possible, with a view to being able to choose one that can be developed, refined and put into action.

The group brainstorm could be run like this:

Give each group a piece of butcher’s paper and each person a marker pen.
Before starting the countdown, ask students to write the guiding question on the top of their piece of paper.
Students should stand around the tables rather than sit in their chairs as this encourages more creative thinking.
They should:
- Write everything down as fast as possible on the butcher’s paper.
- Work fast: they only have 5 minutes and they need 50 ideas.
Do not discuss the ideas at this stage ... just get them recorded.
Give time markers as they progress - “Three minutes left! Two minutes! One minute left!”. You could project a countdown of 5 minutes using this website.
Share a rough figure of how many ideas have been generated across the whole class - remind students how productive they can be in 5 minutes.

Step 5.

Once groups have completed the brainstorm challenge, ask each group to spend the rest of the brainstorming time viewing and discussing their list of ideas. Invite each student to nominate their favourite ideas by drawing a smiley face next to the idea that they like best.

You can then invite each student to share a very brief outline of their favourite idea with the class, and record these ideas on the board.

Older students could continue to work in their groups from this point, selecting an idea their group wants to pursue through social action, and staying in their groups to plan and implement their idea.

Step 6.

Explain to students that they now need to select one idea to bring to life. It is important that students select an idea that is feasible and realistic to complete within the time frame. One way to do this is using the S.M.A.R.T project criteria:

How to Set S.M.A.R.T Goals (https://youtu.be/wGbmAH4mBPA)

A downloadable PDF version of the S.M.A.R.T criteria is available here: SMART Criteria.

Guide students through the S.M.A.R.T criteria assessment process, using the S.M.A.R.T project criteria to select one idea that they will complete (where students are working in groups, you might need to visit each individual group to offer help). Explain to students that S.M.A.R.T project criteria can help focus on what you what to achieve, how you will achieve it, how long it will take and how you will measure your group’s success.

Examples of S.M.A.R.T ideas include:

Create a poster campaign to share with the community.
Create a video about the problem to share with the community.
Invite a representative from your local council or a relevant community group to come and talk to students about the problem they identified.

Step 7.

Explain to students that if any of the ideas don’t stand up to the S.M.A.R.T criteria they should be discarded. If they have more than one idea that stands up to the S.M.A.R.T criteria then they should decide fairly on which one to choose. If none of the ideas stand up to the S.M.A.R.T criteria then you will need to adjust or adapt existing ideas to meet the criteria.

Part C: Project Planning

Using the idea developed and refined in Part B, you should now complete the Project Planning Guide.

If students area working in groups, each group needs to fill in their own Project Planning Tool.

Some tips for supporting groups through the project planning phase:

Part D: Implementing The Project

After students have completed the planning process, allow time to action your project. This could be done in one day or over a number of weeks. The Project Checklist can be used to help you run your project.

Consider the following tips when supporting students through the action phase of their projects:

Part E: Project Completion

Option A. Once you have completed your social action project, consider using the Assessment and Reflection lesson to analyse, reflect upon and celebrate your project.

Option B. Alternatively, you could invite students to work as a class or in groups to think about and respond to the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Was our project a success? Why or why not?
What parts of the project were the most successful and why?
What parts of the project were the least successful and why?
How would we improve these parts?
How would we improve the project overall?
What challenges did we face and how did we overcome them?
What are we going to do next? What will our next social action project be?

An important part of real-world learning such as in this project, is the opportunity for students to present their learning in a public arena. This could mean hosting people from the local community at an exhibition where the process and final products of students’ projects are displayed as posters. It could mean creating a newsletter about students’ projects and distributing it to parents and community members. Another option could be producing and screening a two-minute film that documents students’ projects. The main objective is that work (including the process) is presented publicly, thus making it authentic and real.

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?

Roots & Shoots - Take Action

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