Project Background
Year 7 Classes at Lyndale Secondary College will monitor the health of the Heatherton Road Wetlands by conducting water quality testing, a Waterbug census and a Frog census. This program has been developed in conjunction with Melbourne Water.
Essential Question
Sustainability and the Environment are topics often discussed by the community, but how do Scientists monitor the health of the Ecosystems around us and how do they know if a wetland is affected by human impacts?
In this project, students will explore the following Essential Questions:
Essential Question
Sustainability and the Environment are topics often discussed by the community, but how do Scientists monitor the health of the Ecosystems around us and how do they know if a wetland is affected by human impacts?
In this project, students will explore the following Essential Questions:
- What does it mean to be a healthy Ecosystem?
- What can make an Ecosystem unhealthy?
- What are the best ways to monitor the health of an Ecosystem?
- How do Scientists plan an investigation of the health of an Ecosystem?
- How can we collect and use evidence (data) to support our explanations?
- How do we know our data is accurate?
- How do Scientists communicate their findings?
Time length of Project
This project will take 10 weeks in total each year, allowing time for students to build the skills and knowledge they require to collect the data and communicate their findings.
Victorian Curriculum Links
At Lyndale Secondary College, our Learning Architecture has been informed by
We have been fortunate to work with a curriculum consultant, Esther Weichert, who has developed this model of Learning Architecture after 7 years of research.
As part of our Learning Architecture, we construct a curriculum map that interrogates the Victorian Curriculum Standards for the Broad Curriculum content and Big Ideas. We identify the key skills in the standard and the key knowledge at the Level and then identify the deep understandings students need to have to engage with the at Level skills and knowledge. This is allows for a pre-assessment of the student and their readiness for learning. With knowledge of their ZPD (Vygotsky), we can offer students developmentally appropriate assessment tasks and learning opportunities to demonstrate growth at the Level they are able to reach in the given time period.
From the Curriculum Map, we develop a Common Assessment Task for the age appropriate level of achievement, in this case Level 7, as well as modified assessment tasks for students identified as two or more levels below. An additional extension task is given to students identified as above the level and capable of completing the Common Assessment Task prior to the Learning Sequence. The Common Assessment Task has three levels of complexity Application, Analysis and Evaluation/Creation, which allows us to assign students with an C, B or A grade for reporting against the standard. Students who have demonstrated some but not all of the skills in the application task are assigned a D or "working towards the standard". Students who do not complete any of the application task are awarded an E, although this should occur rarely, as modified tasks should be given to students two or more levels below the age appropriate level. This approach to assessment was well supported in the ACER paper by Geoff Masters "Towards a growth mindset", 2013 and Patrick Griffin's paper "Assessment is for Teaching", Independence, 2009.
The Learning Sequence is then developed to allow for sufficient building of skills to have all students grow and meet the standards, in the time given to the unit. A ten week learning sequence is supported by John Hattie, "Experience has shown that 10-12 week cycles of evaluation are optimal." (Hattie, "What Works Best in Education: The Politics of Collaborative Expertise", 2015)
Attached below is the Curriculum Map for this unit showing connections to the Science and Mathematics Standards. It is acknowledged that students will also be engaged in digital technologies tasks, however these skills will not be assessed in the summative assessment task and therefore are not included in the formal analysis of the standards. This unit could be considered a SteM unit.
- Wiggins and McTighe's "Understanding by Design" and "Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Understanding", 2013,
- Dylan Wilam, "Embedded Formative Assessment",
- Caroline Tomlinson's philosophy of differentiation, in particular the book she has co-authored with McTighe "Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design" , Pearson Education, 2006
- Peter Goss and Jordana Hunter's "Targetted Teaching",
- John Hattie's meta analysis of effect sizes of interventions, and
- Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.
We have been fortunate to work with a curriculum consultant, Esther Weichert, who has developed this model of Learning Architecture after 7 years of research.
As part of our Learning Architecture, we construct a curriculum map that interrogates the Victorian Curriculum Standards for the Broad Curriculum content and Big Ideas. We identify the key skills in the standard and the key knowledge at the Level and then identify the deep understandings students need to have to engage with the at Level skills and knowledge. This is allows for a pre-assessment of the student and their readiness for learning. With knowledge of their ZPD (Vygotsky), we can offer students developmentally appropriate assessment tasks and learning opportunities to demonstrate growth at the Level they are able to reach in the given time period.
From the Curriculum Map, we develop a Common Assessment Task for the age appropriate level of achievement, in this case Level 7, as well as modified assessment tasks for students identified as two or more levels below. An additional extension task is given to students identified as above the level and capable of completing the Common Assessment Task prior to the Learning Sequence. The Common Assessment Task has three levels of complexity Application, Analysis and Evaluation/Creation, which allows us to assign students with an C, B or A grade for reporting against the standard. Students who have demonstrated some but not all of the skills in the application task are assigned a D or "working towards the standard". Students who do not complete any of the application task are awarded an E, although this should occur rarely, as modified tasks should be given to students two or more levels below the age appropriate level. This approach to assessment was well supported in the ACER paper by Geoff Masters "Towards a growth mindset", 2013 and Patrick Griffin's paper "Assessment is for Teaching", Independence, 2009.
The Learning Sequence is then developed to allow for sufficient building of skills to have all students grow and meet the standards, in the time given to the unit. A ten week learning sequence is supported by John Hattie, "Experience has shown that 10-12 week cycles of evaluation are optimal." (Hattie, "What Works Best in Education: The Politics of Collaborative Expertise", 2015)
Attached below is the Curriculum Map for this unit showing connections to the Science and Mathematics Standards. It is acknowledged that students will also be engaged in digital technologies tasks, however these skills will not be assessed in the summative assessment task and therefore are not included in the formal analysis of the standards. This unit could be considered a SteM unit.
lsc_curriculum_map_science_level_7_human_impacts_on_ecosystems_18_5_2017.pdf | |
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