Teaching Sequence

20 minutes – Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
40+ minutes – Part B: Planning And Conducting Your Interview (plus time for conducting your interview)
10 minutes – Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge:

Step 1.

Begin by inviting students to participate in a THINK PAIR SHARE activity around the following question (question and recording table available on the Student Worksheet):

What are some of the jobs that a farmer has to do in a day?

Think Pair Share
Think pair share is a collaborative learning strategy in which students work together to solve a problem or answer a question.
Think - students independently think about an issue or question and record their thoughts.
Pair - students work in pairs to discuss their ideas and record new thoughts
Share - students share their thoughts with the whole group or with other pairs to reach consensus.

Once complete, engage students in a class discussion around their ideas. Through the discussion explain to students that for most farmers, each day is a little bit different. While there might be some jobs that they have to do every day (like milking the cows or feeding their animals), other jobs will depend on the season or time of year (like harvesting crops or mustering cattle), and others will vary according to what needs doing (like repairing fences or checking machinery).

Step 2.

Share the following clip with students, explaining that it shows a variety of farm and agriculture-related activities. As they watch, invite students to record anything they think is interesting or important.

Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsbyt6BvOLQ)

Once complete, engage students in a discussion around the clip. Consider the following points in your discussion:

What did you see in this clip? What was it about?
What was interesting or important to you?
What did you learn about being a farmer from this clip?
What questions do you now have? What would you like to know more about?

You could record students' thoughts and use some of these ideas to guide further discussion and inquiry.

Step 3.

Now, explain to students that being a farmer is not the only type of job you can do in agriculture. A farmer may be able to manage the day to day activities around the farm, but there are other people involved in getting food on your plate. Invite students to work in small groups or as a class to create a mind map on the following question:

What are some of the other jobs in farming and agriculture?

If students are work in groups they could create their mind maps in their workbooks or by using the Mind Map Jobs Sheet. If working as a class you could create your mind map on the board or use an online mind-mapping tool like mindmeister or bubbl.us.

As students create their mind maps, consider posing some of the following prompts to guide students in populating their map:

Who might need to help a farmer understand the best plants grow or the best way to grow plants?
Suggested answer: A plant scientist (horticulturalist). A plant scientist can help a farmer decide what plants would be best suited to the area where the farm is based, and how to look after the plants so that they are strong and healthy and productive.
Who might need to help a farmer look after their animals and take care of them when they get sick?
Suggested answer: a veterinarian can help when animals are sick or injured.
Who might need to help a sheep farmer shear all their sheep?
Suggested answer: a shearer can work on a farm just during shearing seasons.
Who might need to help a cattle farmer round up all their cattle at mustering time?
Suggested answer: a musterer. On large stations in the outback, a musterer will often work in a helicopter to round up cattle.
Who might help to turn food produced on a farm to the food we buy in the supermarket?
Suggested answer: a butcher can help cut up animals and turn them into smaller portions, a baker can turn flour into bread and cakes, a person working in a butter or cheese factory can turn milk into butter and cheese. Some foods can go almost straight from the farm to plate, such as fruit and vegetables, however, these will need to be cleaned, packaged and transported by people and machines.

To help students picture specific jobs during this step, consider selecting a single agricultural industry to focus on. Invite students to think about how the food and/or fibre that this industry produces is grown or raised, and who the people are that would play a part in that process.

Once complete, invite students to share and discuss their mind maps. Consider the following points in your discussion:

Which of these jobs are you already familiar with and how?
Which jobs sound most interesting to you and why?
Which jobs would you like to know more about?
What technology farmers use todayand are there any you also use?

Part B: Planning And Conducting Your Interview

Step 1.

Now explain to students that they are going to find out more about one of the jobs from the previous brainstorm by conducting an interview. If you are visiting the Show to conduct an interview, explain this to the class. You may even like to show students the Show schedule or overview clips of the Show. Work with students to identify which people from the agriculture industry will be at the Show and who they would like to try to interview. Alternatively, if you have organised an interviewee, share with the class who this person is and their job.

To plan the interview, students will need to work as a class and decide what they want to find out from the person they will be interviewing, and then develop some questions that help them to find out what they want to know.

Invite students to form a discussion circle around the board. Work with the class to think about some of the things they would like to find out about the person they are interviewing and their job. This might include things like:

What their job involves and what sorts of tasks they do each day
Where they work
What the best part of their job is
What the hardest part of their job is
How the job is connected to agriculture

Invite students to suggest and record their ideas on sticky notes and add them to the board. Once all students have had the chance to add their suggestions to the board, you can then work with students to begin grouping these ideas into themes. These themes can be used to guide the creation of your interview questions. Themes might include: daily tasks/job description, best and most challenging bits, satisfaction/enjoyability, connections to other jobs/farming/agriculture.

Differentiation for Year 4: Students consider the influence of the environment on their interviewee's job, for example:

How does this person interact with the environment?
Does the job require any actions to protect and care for our environment?
In what way is the land and the environment important to people in this profession?

Step 2.

Once you have decided on the aspects and themes relating to the person you are interviewing, you can begin creating some interview questions. The first thing to encourage students to think about when creating their questions is whether they will have open-ended or closed questions. The following text can be altered to define closed and open-ended questions for the class:

Closed questions: A closed question is one that you can answer with a very brief answer like a 'yes' or a 'no' or a number. While this can be useful, you don't tend to find out much about how the person you are interviewing feels or thinks about what you are asking. Examples of closed questions are: Do you like your job? Did you ever meet a cow you didn't like? How many bees have you got? Where do you work?
Open-ended questions: Open-ended questions can't be answered with a 'yes' or 'no'. They encourage the person you are asking the question of to share their thoughts and ideas within their answer. Examples of open-ended questions include: What are the best bits about your job? Which are your favourite animals on your farm and why? Who are some of the other people you work with, in your job and what do they do?

Explain to the class that it is recommended that they use open-ended questions when they conduct their interview so that they can find out as much as possible about the person they are interviewing.

Step 3.

Break the class into pairs and give each pair one of the themes you identified. Now invite each pair to think of one open-ended question in relation to the theme they have been given.

Once complete, invite pairs to team up with another pair to test their questions. Each pair should ask the other pair their question to see whether it is it an open-ended or closed question.

Working in their groups of four, encourage students to work together to amend their questions so that they have created all open-ended questions. Also invite students to consider how their question could be adjusted (words changed or added, or the structure of the sentence rearranged) to make it clearer or easier to understand.

Step 4.

Once complete, invite all groups to read their final questions to the class while the teacher transcribes their questions. You can then work as a class to identify which questions can be used in the final interview. You may have questions that are very similar – these could be amalgamated or some could be discarded.

The class will also need to check that they have enough questions to cover all the themes they thought up earlier in the lesson. If the class is missing questions for any of these themes, work with students to create some more.

In addition, you should also work with students to check that all questions are open-ended. If they are not, is this intentional (e.g. are you asking how long someone has worked in this role, or what their job description is)? If it is not intentional then you should amend the question.

Step 5.

You are now ready to conduct your interview. Some tips for planning and conducting your interview include:

Consider providing your guest with a list of the questions you intend to ask, and invite your guest to bring any props (such as images or uniforms) that will help answer questions.
Introduce your guest to your students, and explain why you are doing the interview.
Encourage students to take turns to ask questions.
Consider filming or recording your interview (obtain permission from your interviewee and parents before filming.)

Step 6.

Conduct your interview.

Step 7.

Following your interview, invite students to work independently to answer the following questions (or engage students in a discussion around these questions):

What was the most interesting thing you learnt from this interview?
How has this interview helped you understand this job?
Is this a job you would like to do? Why or why not?

Extension: The information you collect through your interview could be used in the following ways:

As the basis for further inquiry (what questions does the interview leave you with? What points raised in the interview do you want to explore further?)
As the narrative of an animation about the role. Students could create a 'day in the life' clip around the information they gathered in their interview.
Create a drawing, poster, short story or report to highlight key points and learning from the interview.

Step 8.

Finally, work with students to write and send thank you letters to your guest.

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to answer the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What new farming and agriculture vocabulary did you learn in this lesson?
What things did you learn in this lesson that were connected to what you already knew about farming and agriculture?
What things that you looked at in this lesson extended your thinking?

Take It To The Show

Invite students to record any jobs that they believe relate to farming and agriculture, such as farmers, judges, food producers, animal handlers, etc. Students should make a note of these jobs and describe why they think this job relates to farming and agriculture.

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?

The Show - What Do Jobs In Agriculture Look Like?

Go to

Summary

Learning intentions:

Students will...

Success criteria:

Students can...

Lesson guides and printables

Lesson Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

Additional Info

In this lesson