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Ecological Footprint Unit

Sustainability is a cross curricula focus of VELS and the Australian Curriculum and can provide an effective context for achieving a number of diverse student outcomes. The unit __’NAME OF UNIT’__ encourages students to explore the impact that human resource usage has on the environment in both a global and local context. The philosophy behind the unit is that students need to engage in meaningful and authentic experiences with content, and contextualise global problems within their local school community. Through an open ended investigation, students are given responsibility over their learning and are encouraged to propose innovative, practical and informed solutions to resource management within the school. It is believed that the use of ICT will help enrich the unit and provide a dynamic medium for students to visualise their thinking, make connections with the wider world, create and communicate.
 * Introduction**

This unit is separated into three distinct phases:
 * 1) Building the field: Students engage with content and learn about the impact of human resource usage in a global context.
 * 2) School based investigation: Students form social action groups and apply their knowledge of global sustainability issues to investigate a local issue within the school community.
 * 3) Video proposal: Students create a video presentation that showcases their knowledge of resource management issues and proposes a practical solution to issues within the school.

Students: - Develop attitudes of care and concern for the environment and recognise themselves as responsible global and local citizens - Extend their interpersonal skills by working in collaborative groups to investigate perceived waste issues within the school and propose practical solutions - Develop an understanding of the impact of irresponsible resource usage - Use ICT to visualise their thinking and communicate their learning in a variety of contexts
 * Learning Objectives**


 * Cross Curricula Dimensions**

TALK ABOUT VELS AND AUST CURR LINKS

VELS The Arts Level 4 standard

At Level 4, students independently and collaboratively experiment with and apply a range of skills, techniques and processes using a range of media, materials, equipment and technologies to plan, develop, refine, make and present arts works. They investigate a range of sources to generate ideas and manipulate arts elements, principles and/or conventions in a range of arts disciplines and forms as they explore the potential of ideas. In their arts works, they communicate ideas and understandings about themselves and others, incorporating influences from their own and other cultures and times. They evaluate the effectiveness of their arts works and make changes to realise intended aims. They consider purpose and suitability when they plan and prepare arts works for presentation to a variety of audiences.


 * Breakdown of Unit**


 * Engage || The first lesson to engage students into the topic of sustainability and the environment, we are going to get students to brainstorm as small groups about environmental issues and solutions. Each group will then share with the class what they have brainstormed about topic. This will give us an idea about the students’ knowledge starting point and any misconceptions to address over the next few lessons. After the brainstorm session, the students will be asked to go online to the Zerofootprint™ Youth Calculator to determine their own carbon footprint and get some ideas on how to reduce it. This will be to invest the students’ interest in understanding and researching this topic. ||
 * Explore || The next lesson will be looking at the issues with water usage in Australia. This lesson starts off with a think, pair, share about what are the issues revolving around water in Australia. The students will be provided with basic information regarding water shortage, quality and what has been implemented to overcome the issues. We will then split the students into groups of 3 as part of a jigsaw group technique. Each student within a group will have to research one of the three topics mentioned above to share with the rest of the group at the end of the class. In order to ensure consistency of information as well as substance, a small tutorial before the task starts will be provided about determining reputable resources.

Fossil fuels and carbon emissions is the topic that will be introduced next. We will start the lesson off with the two images, one of the night view of the world and the Breathing Earth animation. These photos are used to spark discussion about the uses of fossil fuels and how that impacts the environment. After the discussion, we can link what the students have learnt about their own carbon footprint and each component that was used to calculate it with the bigger picture in their school area, country and even a global perspective. Students will be shown ‘How much CO2 is created by…’ visualised data to note how different countries produce different CO2 levels per person.

Waste and recycling is a topic to get the students in the mindset of creating solutions to problems we face about the environment. We would get the students to describe how they get rid of wastes at home, outside and in school in order for them to identify, describe and justify good and bad behaviour that could impact the environment. One, or both, TED Talks can be shown to the students, depending on the level of knowledge, student and class ability, and time constraints. The talks are ‘Tough truths about plastic pollutions’ by Dianna Cohen and ‘Alex Steffen sees a sustainable future’ by Alex Steffen. The students will then be asked what they could do to help the environment and we will suggest a ‘No trash’ week. The ‘No trash’ week is a pledge the students will willingly take to stop bringing disposable items to school during the school week. This will provide students with a relative point to determine if their plans will be too difficult for the school, students and staff to meet for their summative project.

Students form small social action groups and investigate a perceived waste management issue within the school. This will strengthen connections with knowledge developed during the initial stage of the unit. - Students collect data by surveying peers, daily observations and interviewing staff to establish the habits and needs of the school. This data is to be graphed using Google documents. - Students communicate via Skype with either a business of school which has strong sustainability programs in place to inform their school audit. This may be from a rural community with drought issues. - During this investigation students are to keep a group blog (Wikispaces Projects) on which they will journal their progress and make ongoing reflections. This blog also creates a medium through which the teacher can communicate ideas and feedback to groups. - Each group will be allocated a week in which to contribute a short report to the school website about an issue they have identified/been learning about.

Excursion to __ LOCAL LANDFILL AREA?. || -Students will combine the knowledge they have learned in the engage and exploring stage of the unit plan with their creative skills in art to produce a video presentation which reflects their ideas and felling on the topic of resource management. - At the start of the task, students will work with the teacher to create a rubric for assessment so that criteria are made explicit and meaningful to students. As a class students will brainstorm a list of criteria that should be used to assessment the task. The list should include: 1. Planning and Organization skills 2. The Content Knowledge 3. Creativeness of the presentation 4. Use of ICT (video camera, video and music editing software) 5. Team Collaboration skill
 * Explain ||  ||
 * Elaborate || -Students create and present a video presentation that showcases their knowledge of resource management issues and proposes a practical solution to issues within the school.

In groups of three or four, students will begin their task by brainstorming and discussing ideas of how the video will be presented. For example, students could present their content information as a news report or deliver their message across through a song or jingle. Filming of the video and editing of the video will be done in the computer room over 2 periods of time. Music and media teachers will be asked to teach students skills on composition and filming in music and media lessons prior to the assignment. || -Both the teacher and students are to appraise students' video presentation using the rubric assessment sheet made earlier. This will be a good opportunity for peer learning where students share their video presentation with others to see the differences in way of presentation. ||
 * Evaluate || Using rubric assessment sheet, students view peer video presentation then reflect and evaluate peer work.

-Compose a jingle to persuade audience to manage resources wisely. || - Students look at Google Maps image of the Earth an night to visualise electricity usage around the world - Students graph their collected data || - Use of Wikispaces Projects to maintain journal entries and communicate within teams/with teacher - Communicate via Skype with either a business of school which has strong sustainability programs in place. This may be from a rural community with drought issues. - Contribution of report to school website ||
 * 3 Dimensions of ICT**
 * ICT for Creating || ICT for Visualising Thinking || ICT for Communicating ||
 * - Create a Public Service Announcement video that demonstrates knowledge of the relationship between the environment and usage of resources, and proposes a sustainability program within the school


 * Assessment**
 * Ongoing:** Blog entries on Wikispaces are intended to demonstrate developing understandings of issues and also provide accountability for students to contribute within their social action teams. Feedback is crucial to extending student learning, and thus Wikispaces will also be a place in which students can correspond with their teacher about their investigation.
 * Summative:** Video creation will showcase student understanding about sustainability issues and their impact in their local community. Students will work with the teacher to create a rubric for assessment so that criteria are made explicit and meaningful to students. Final presentations will be peer assessed as well as teacher assessed.

As an extension to this unit, registering the school to participate in Kids Teaching Kids week would be a worthwhile way to empower students and value their ideas and contributions. Kids Teaching Kids is a program which encourages students to create presentations and interactive lessons to teach their peers about environmental issues.
 * Adaptations to this Unit**


 * PART 2: Analysis of Requirements and Implementation Strategies **

Certainly, school context plays a major role in the implementation of this unit. For schools with a strong sustainability program already in place students may find it more difficult to critique current practice. However, this does not mean that students cannot propose innovative improvements within the school. Alternatively, students could focus their investigation on perceived sustainability issues at home or within the local community, and adjust their data collection to suit these outcomes. As with most large scale curriculum projects, time and resource management may become a significant issue. Implementation requires a lot of dedicated time and support from teachers to in order for students to develop skills and knowledge prior to directing their investigation, and taking on the level of responsibility intended by this unit. Especially within the secondary school environment, it becomes vital that there is open communication between teachers of overlapping subject areas. This is a rich unit which has valuable outcomes across multiple subject areas, such as Science, SOSE, English, Media and Interpersonal Development. Skills and knowledge developed from this unit are transferable across domains and therefore it may be beneficial to implement the unit in a number of subjects. This will require an open dialogue between colleagues about content and scheduling, but will also help to lessen the burden of time and resources on individual teachers. Furthermore, support is provided in terms of delivery of content and skills. In upper primary it is much more conceivable to see the ways in which the unit could be integrated into the daily schedule and used to enrich literacy, numeracy, science and ICT.

As this unit is highly enriched with ICT, schools need to have the necessary resources and training for its successful implementation. Use of the internet, computers, wikis, video cameras, and editing software are required, yet some schools may lack some of these resources. It is highly desired that technology be placed as much as possible within the hands of the students and therefore resources may need to be allocated in at different times to different groups. Use of these technologies also requires knowledge on the part of the teacher as to how to use them and how to help students learn to use them. If ICT is to become a curriculum imperative within the school it is suggested that staff engage in professional development to give them the confidence to integrate ICT within the classroom. Teaching is a necessarily collaborative profession, and thus teachers should reach out to colleagues, professional bodies, parents and even students to build relevant skills. Students bring significant prior knowledge to class and technologically savvy students can be an asset to the teacher and to their peers.

Ensuring that students feel that their work is valued and meaningful is another concern when implementing this unit. It is integral that the effort students put into their investigations and final assessment is not tokenistic, and that schools view and discuss their proposals as legitimate solutions to sustainability issues within the school.