UNIT PLANNER EDST 201 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT 1

Names: Madalyn Mckirdy, Charlotte Wearne, Caitlyn Hankinson & Laura

Agalianos
Science
overarching idea:

Year Level:

Sessions:

Date:

Prep

24/ 03/ 2015

Scale & Measurement

Overall aims of the unit are

for students to:

Begin to become familiar

with concepts behind
scale and measurement
such as displacement,
volume, capacity.
Participate in different
types of guided
investigations/
experiments.
Analyse findings through
discussion and evaluate
by comparing
observations with
predictions
Communicate and
represent their findings
over the unit both orally
and in drawings.
Further abilities to
investigate, predict, ask
questions, wonder and
describe changes in
familiar objects and
events.
To enable students to
explore and compare a
variety of cultural
scientific views based
around water as a
significant natural
resource.

Teaching approach assigned and short description:

Indigenous knowledge
This science Inquiry unit we have constructed adopts
an Indigenous Knowledge teaching approach. Jagadish
(2012) suggests that the most effective way to
incorporate indigenous knowledge successfully in
science is not to segregate the teaching of western and
indigenous views of science. By teaching both views
simultaneously this can contribute positively In the
construction of meaningful learning experiences that
help all students develop a deeper understanding and
make rich connections in their learning of a variety of
topics.
This unit is strongly based around water, why we need
it, its cycle and presence in our natural world alongside
closely examining various measurement and scale
concepts. Therefore in our sessions we have included
both Indigenous perspectives alongside Western
scientific approaches to discuss these various scientific
concepts. In doing so we aim to cater and direct
meaningful and culturally relevant learning to all
students. We hope to acknowledge the Indigenous
knowledge and sacred dreamtime stories passed on
through the traditional owners of the land whilst guiding
children to also view the current western scientific
ideas of how our natural world works.

Key equipment /
resources:
SESSION 1
Tiddalik the FrogBook
Youtube clip- Water
cycle
Rain gauge (sample)
Water bottles
Marker
Rocks
Paper clips
Scissors

Key Australian Science

curriculum Standard
Daily and seasonal
changes in our
environment, including
the weather, affect
everyday life
(ACSSU004)
Respond to questions
about familiar objects
and events
(ACSIS014)
Explore and make
observations by using

SESSION 2
Measuring cups
Water
Food colouring
Plastic containers
Pebbles of varying
size
Sponges
Wire Rack
Variety of objects
around classroom
(Heavy and light/
large surface areas
and small)

the senses
(ACSIS011)
Share observations
and ideas (ACSIS012)
Engage in discussions
about observations
and use methods such
as drawing to
represent ideas
(ACSIS233)

(ACARA, 2012)

SESSION 3
Book - Rain by Manya
Stojic
Rain Gauge x 2
(school and
alternative)
Markers

SESSION 1
LEARNING OUTCOME:
Throughout this small unit students will be provided with multiple opportunities to develop
their understandings about
various measurement and scale concepts. The Inquiry unit will be based around the
concept of water and its cycle in our natural environment. Students will be exposed to and
experience a variety of experiments and hands-on experiences to develop skills of:
questioning, predicting, planning, conducting, evaluating and communicating.
This first session students will recall and further develop their understanding of water,
where it comes from and why it is important to us. Students will be encouraged to look at
both the Western scientific view of the water cycle and the Indigenous Aboriginal
dreamtime story of how the water came to the land. Students will use this information to
discuss how we can measure rainfall through the use of a rain gauge. Students will
construct their own rain gauges and make predictions about the measurement of rainfall
over the next 3 weeks and record their ideas as a class.
TUNING IN:
Introduce & Read Water Story - Tiddalik the Frog.
Tell the children about how the Aboriginal people of Australia were the first people who lived
on this land. For thousands of years they have told stories about the land. These stories
are called dreamtime stories. This dreamtime story is one that children love. It is about a
very greedy, thirsty frog named, Tiddalik.
After the story, pose the question, why is water important for us to have? (relate it to the
story times of drought).
Lead into discussion about what they know about water.
Discussion about water:
Students will participate in a class discussion about what they know about water.
Probing Questions;

When you think of water, what words come to your mind? (drinking, shower/bath,
swimming, storms, ocean, blue, clear, rivers, lakes, streams, puddles, tap, surf, raindrop,
cloudy, wet).
Where does water come from?
Why do we need it?
What about rain? Where does it come from?
Introduce rain video - This is a different video where some scientists tell us their version
of where the water in our world comes from.
- Watch video. Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19dwAd1c_U0
Recap - What did the video tell us about water and rain?
WHOLE CLASS ACTIVITY:
Introduce Rain Gauge Activity
The students will be told that there are different ways to measure how much rain
has fallen and collect data on rainfall.
Q: Why might we need to do this? What about when we check the weather? Do you think
the rain would change in different seasons?
The Students will be told that they are going to measure as a class, the rain that
falls over the next few weeks.
Students will be placed into groups and guided to construct some rain gauges.
(Show a completed rain gauge so the students can see what it is supposed to look
like).
Each pre-service teacher will take a small group and walk them through the
construction process. Refer to appendix 1.
Each student will then make predictions about how much water they think will be
collected over the next three weeks.
The students predictions will be placed on a 2D poster of a Rain Gauge (reflective
of the real size of the gauge, where a line will be used to represent where they
predict the rain will fill up to, and will be recorded with their name). Refer to
Appendix 1.
CLOSURE:

The whole class will be brought back to the floor where a discussion will be
conducted. It will mainly be about where the gauges should be placed in order to
catch the rain. eg. outside and not undercover. Tell the children that if there is any
rain, it will fall into the top of the gauge and collect at the bottom.
The students will be notified that each week we come to visit, one of the teachers
will mark a line on the bottle of where the rain has fallen to and on our final lesson
we will come back to our rain gauge.
Go out and place the rain gauge at the discussed place. This way students can feel
free to look throughout the weeks at the collected rainfall.

SESSION 2
LEARNING OUTCOME:
Students will begin to explore some of the scientific properties of water. They will verbally
describe the changes in measurement that occurs during each activity. They will predict,
investigate and evaluate their predictions and discuss their understandings with their
peers.
TUNING IN:

Ask the students if they remember what they did last time with us. (They will
probably say, about the rain gauge or the frog story etc.) Direct the conversation
towards water.
Explain that we are going to look at water again today and that we have some
activities set up.
Break the class up into the three groups.

WHOLE CLASS TASK:

ACTIVITY GROUPS: 3 ACTIVITY ROTATION
ACTIVITY 1: COMPARING WATER VOLUME ACTIVITY.

Fill plastic containers with exactly 2 cups of water in each (each container is
various size and shape)
Allow the children to add food coloring to each one (different colour for each
container).
Ask the children to say which container they think holds the most and least water.
Children can all make predictions of which container will hold the most or least
amount of liquid.
You might have guessed that their predictions would be the thin glass as it is filled
to the top.
The group members take turns pouring the water from each different container into
the 5 of the same size measuring cups. Children will observe and discover that
each container held exactly the same amount.
Explain that this has to do with the Volume . Volume is the the amount of space
that a substance or object occupies.
Together the group discuss how a liquid takes the shape of its container. Two
containers can hold the same amount of liquid but it looks different depending on
how wide or tall the container is.

ACTIVITY 2: SPONGE ACTIVITY.

Have ready a medium sized sponge that has been cut into three different sizes.
(Half, one third and one sixth)
Place the three sponges on a wire rack that is resting over a empty container.
Ensure that the container is large enough that once water starts to leak from the
sponges that no mess is created.
Ask the children which sponge they think will hold the most water and encourage
them to explain why.
Get each child to make a prediction. (The students may all point to the biggest of
the tree spongers and explain because it is the biggest and that is okay)
Measure and get the children to pour one quarter of a cup of water on each sponge
and observe what happens. (The smallest sponge may start to leak but it is
expected that the larger will retain the water)
As a group discuss what will happen if we add more water to the sponges that
have not started to leak yet.
Repeat the measurement and pouring of water until all three sponges have leaked.
Explain to the children that this is how it rains. The clouds fill up with water and
when they are too full they leak which is the rain.

ACTIVITY 3 : WATER DISPLACEMENT.

Students will make observations about the rising and falling of water level by placing
different sized objects inside a container half filled with water.

Fill two containers halfway with water.

Have the children describe the objects in front of them, encourage words such as
heavier, lighter, bigger and smaller
Have one child place one light object in the water of one the containers and
another place a heavy object in the other.. whats happened? encourage the
students to notice that the water level has risen, encourage the use of
measurement adjectives to describe this change.
Have the students hypothesise what would happen if the object was taken out of
the container. Have another child remove the objects. Discuss whether or not their
predictions were true or not.
Question the students about how they could bring the water line all the way to the
top of the container. Would they need lots of smaller/lighter objects or a few
larger/heavier objects.
Have one group of students use only light items and the other using heavy items
when they both reach the top, take the items out and count how many it took to fill
the water line to the top.
Question the students if they think that the number of small/light items would weigh
about the same or have the same size as the heavier objects and why.

CLOSURE:

Have a whole class discussion about what was observed in each activity.
Ask if the students have checked their rain gauges and if theres been any water in
them. Discuss why or why not.
SESSION 3

Learning outcomes:
Students will continue to explore the idea of water, where it can be found and what it is
used for. They will collaboratively look back at predictions they made and compare how
the data has/hasnt mimicked their predictions from previous lessons. The students will
discuss and compare with their peers the learning that has occurred throughout our mini
unit.

TUNING IN:
Ask the students what they remember from the last session. Direct the
conversation back to water and the Indigenous Dreamtime story of Tiddalik, lead
into the story by explaining that there are stories all over the world about water.
Read Rain, by Manya Stojic
WHOLE CLASS TASK:
Collect the rain gauge from outside the classroom.
Have the children observe how much water has accumulated in the gauge.
Bring out the prediction poster. Mark on the poster where the water level actually
was. Have a discussion about whose prediction was the closest to the actual result.
Discuss anything that surprised or shocked the students.
Teachers observe any verbal comparisons that the students make.
Bringing the whole class together again, teacher shows her rain gauge from home,
with an obvious difference in the water level. Have the class discuss some possible
reasons for the difference Location etc.
Rain Game See Appendix 2
CLOSURE:

THINK PAIR SHARE

Bringing the whole class back together, ask the students to silently think about their
favourite thing that they have done with us and why. After a few minutes, ask the
students to share their thoughts with the person next to them. Teachers ensure that
the conversations dont go off topic. After a minute or two, open up the room for
anyone who would like to share theirs or their partners favourite thing about the
unit.

Appendix 1:
Rain Gauge

ORAL PRESENTATION - SCRIPT/ OUTLINE

CHARLOTTE Filming session 2
Overall aims of the unit are for students to:

Become familiar with basic concepts behind scale and measurement.

Explore the relationship between displaced water and volume of object.
Question and predict - so students can respond and pose questions and make
predictions about familiar objects.
Participate in different types of guided investigations/ experiments .
Analyse findings through discussion and evaluate by comparing observations with
predictions.
Communicate and represent their findings over the unit both orally and in drawings.
Further abilities to investigate, ask questions, wonder and describe changes in
objects and events.
Develop knowledge about water.
Provide resources that demonstrate different beliefs about how our world works.

Inquiry-based Approach
We decided to follow an inquiry-based approach to inform our lesson plan. The inquiry
approach holds great potential to increase intellectual engagement and foster deep
understanding through the development of a hands-on, minds-on and research-based method
towards teaching and learning. Inquiry appreciates the complex, interconnected nature of
knowledge construction, striving to provide opportunities for both teachers and students to
collaboratively build, test and reflect on their learning. We believe the inquired-based
approach is best suited to our lesson plan as it offers the development of mind that can last a
lifetime, guiding learning and creative thinking.

LAURA
As the students that we are working with are all of a very young age it was the intention to
keep the three lessons within our mini unit as hands on and simple as possible. We begin our
mini unit by encouraging the students to contribute to a brainstorm of their prior knowledge.
Throughout the duration of the three lessons the students are provided with many
opportunities for discussion and to think about why things may be happening. In the last
session we support the students to share the new ideas that they have constructed from the
experiences we have provided them throughout the unit. This links into the use of
constructivist theory (Koch, 2010, p. 10).

The constructivist approach to science generally relates to giving students the materials for
learning but ultimately it is their role to ensure that the learning is taking place (with guidance
from the educator of course). With younger children we believe that the constructivist
approach will prove beneficial, especially when used alongside the inquiry - based approach
as previously mentioned.
The two work together by sparking an idea with the children and allowing them the
opportunity to explore this theme in their own way.
We have incorporated the overarching scientific topic of scale and measurement through our
activities by looking at:
Volume
Measuring the amount of water that we use
In the Rain gauge
Water Displacement.
A scale needs to be developed for this to ensure accurate measurement is taking place.

MADDY Filming Session 3

This science Inquiry unit we have constructed was informed by our groups current research of
Indigenous Knowledge. After exploring various literature on Indigenous knowledge as a
teaching approach have strived to adopt a strong connection to Indigenous beliefs and
become more informed and skilled at implementing dynamic teaching approaches within the
science curriculum.
Indigenous knowledge can be defined as local knowledge in both geographical and cultural
contexts passed through many generations. Indigenous Australians have their own beliefs
and spiritual connection to the environment, in which theyve had for thousands of
years.Indigenous people have a deep connection with the land and this is closely links their
beliefs and understanding of our natural world.
Indigenous knowledge often opposes or differs to western scientific beliefs and studies
indicate that teachers disregard Indigenous knowledge and struggle to connect to Indigenous
students worldviews. Indigenous paradigms that not based around scientific methods and
principles. Indigenous beliefs are based around sacred stories of Gods, spirits and the natural
environment. Therefore, Western cultures scientific ideas and methods that are strongly
based upon evidence may be completely irrelevant to an Indigenous person.
Therefore there is a call to cater for all students and cultural backgrounds and beliefs within
the classroom particularly those of the traditional custodians of the land we live in . Research
indicates that the most effective way to do so is not to segregate the teaching of western and
indigenous views of science but teach them simultaneously so that they contribute positively
In the construction of meaningful learning experiences that help all students develop a deeper
understanding and make rich connections in their learning of a variety of topics.
This unit is strongly based around water, why we need it, its cycle and presence in our natural
world alongside closely examining various measurement and scale concepts. Therefore in our
sessions we have included both Indigenous perspectives alongside Western scientific
approaches to discuss these various scientific concepts. In doing so we aim to cater and
direct meaningful and culturally relevant learning to all students. We hope to acknowledge the
Indigenous knowledge and sacred dreamtime stories passed on through the traditional
owners of the land whilst guiding children to also view the current western scientific ideas of
how our natural world works.

REFERENCES :
Appanna, S. D. (2011). Embedding indigenous perspectives in teaching school
science. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 40, 18-22.
doi:10.1375/ajie.40.18
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (ACARA) (2012). The
Australian Curriculum in Victoria. Retrieved from: http://ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/
Morris, B. (2010). Indigenous Knowledge. The Society of Malawi Journal, 63(1),
1-9.http://www.jstor.org/stable/29783605
Koch, J. (2010). Science Stories: Science Methods for Elementary and Middle
School Teachers. Boston: Houghton Miffler Co.
Regmi, Jagadish. (2012). Indigenous Knowledge and Science in a Globalized
Age. Cultural Studies of Science Education, (2), 479-484.
SillItoe, Paul (2000) Let them eat cake: Indigenous Knowledge, Science and the
'Poorest of the Poor'

HooplaKids. (2014, March 25). Where does water come from? [Video file].
Retrieved
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19dwAd1c_U0