Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes – Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
10 minutes – Part B: Introduce The Driving Question
30 minutes – Part C: Hold An Entry Event
10 minutes – Reflection

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Preparation:

Create a gallery of images, quotes and text for students to explore. You can use the Ocean Connection Images and Gallery Materials, or you can use your own. Group your exhibits by theme (e.g. food or waste) and give each exhibit a number.

Step 1.

Begin this lesson by inviting students to complete a Think-Feel-Wonder activity around the term, ‘The Ocean’. Invite the students to reflect on oceans using the following questions, and to record their responses with either words or drawings/doodles (questions also available on the Student Worksheet):

What do I THINK about the ocean?
What do I FEEL about the ocean?
What do I WONDER about the ocean? What questions do you have?

Students can be encouraged to share some of their ideas with the class. Use this process to highlight the different ways we think and feel about oceans and list some of these on the board.

Step 2.

You could also spend some time discussing students responses using the following questions:

What are the similarities and differences in the ways students think and feel about the ocean?
Are some thoughts and feelings more common than others? Why do you think this is?

Part B: Introduce the Driving Question

Step 1.

Write the following question on the board and invite students to read and reflect on this question:

How are you connected to the ocean?

Take a few minutes to discuss with students why this might be a different question to those posed in the Think-Feel-Wonder activity. Suggest to students that being connected to the ocean can mean a range of things, including the ways we need the ocean and the ways we impact the ocean.

Ask all students to write the question down in their workbooks and explain to students that in this lesson (and following lessons/unit if you are completing additional lessons) that you will be exploring this question in detail.

Part C: Hold An Entry Event

Step 1.

Explain to students that they will now imagine they are in a gallery viewing a range of objects that relate to the question, ‘How are you connected to the ocean?’.

The first thing they will see in this gallery is the following clip. Explain to students that this clip comes from Take 3 For The Sea, an organisation that works to protect our oceans. As they watch this clip, invite students to pay attention to all the ways that the people in the clip talk about their connection to the ocean:

https://vimeo.com/451386255/9181e799fa

Once complete, invite students to share any thoughts or reflections they have about this clip by recording their answers to the following questions. This could be done through a class discussion or by students working in pairs to answer these questions (questions also available on the Student Worksheet):

What did you see or hear in this clip that you found interesting or important?
What were some of the ways that people in this clip talked about being connected to the ocean?
- With this question, take time to explore in particular the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives that were discussed in the video.

Step 2.

Now explain to students that they will explore a gallery of images and texts that relate to our connection to the ocean. At each exhibit students need to take a moment to think about how they think this exhibit relates to our connection to the ocean and record this in their workbooks along with the exhibit number their ideas relate to. Students can work individually or in pairs to complete this task.

Step 3.

Once students have had some time to explore all the exhibits, draw the class together in a discussion circle close to your gallery and invite them to share some of their ideas.

Consider the following questions in your discussion:

How do the exhibits in this gallery help you understand the ways that you are connected to the ocean?
Are there any exhibits where the connection to the ocean is not clear to you? (Note: If required you can use the notes on the materials document to clarify any uncertainties students have.)

Lead students to the idea that there are two ways we are connected to the ocean:

We are connected to the ocean by the things we need it for or take from it, such as food, transport, clean air, weather, climate, recreation and enjoyment.
We are connected to the ocean through the ways that we impact it, such as through waste or pollution, or overfishing.

Step 4.

Finally, invite students to think up six questions they would like answered about our connection to the ocean:

Three questions should be about how we need or take things from the ocean
Three questions should be about the ways we impact the ocean.

These questions could relate to the exhibits in the gallery or to new thoughts or ideas they have about the ocean.

Options:

A. Where you are planning on completing further lessons in this unit, it would be useful to keep a list of these questions to refer to in later lessons.
B. If you are not planning on completing further lessons in this unit, you could use these questions to guide further inquiry in the classroom. Students could conduct research in order to answer their questions and create a presentation that communicates their question and answers.

Reflection

Students can now return to the Think-Feel-Wonder activity they completed at the start of the lesson and answer the following (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What do you now Think, Feel and Wonder about our connection to the ocean?

Take Action for the Global Goals

If you'd like to explore further the United Nations Global Goals, consider watching this video with your students:

What are the Global Goals all about?

The World's Largest Lesson (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBxN9E5f7pc)

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Take 3 - How Are You Connected To The Ocean?

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