schoolyard safari assessment

Australian school science information support for teachers and technicians

Schoolyard safari - Primary Connections

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This online resource supports Year 1 students learning about schoolyard creatures.

The resource details ways of engaging and supporting Year 1 students in their learning about the features, behaviours and habitats of some schoolyard creatures.

The animals covered in this resource are mainly earthworms, snails and ants.

New Australian Curriculum Codes: AC9SFU01 (Foundation), AC9S1U01 (Year 1)

Additional Information

This inquiry-based unit includes 7 lesson plans, teacher background information and student worksheets that support its implementation.

Primary Connections is a program developed by the Australian Academy of Science and is freely available to Australian educators through the National Digital Learning Resources Network via either the Scootle website or your local jurisdictional portal. This process requires registration on one of these sites and you will be asked to log in to access these resources.

Refer to your school science resources to determine if your school has access to the Primary Connections materials. If your school does not have access to the PrimaryConnections resources visit the Australian Academy of Science's Primary Connection website to find out more about the program. http://primaryconnections.org.au/

• Year 1 > Science Understanding > Biological Sciences > Living things have a variety of external features > ACSSU017

EXTERNAL LINK

• Schoolyard safari - Primary Connections (via Scootle)
• Schoolyard safari - Primary Connections website

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Science and technology – living world, built environments

Supports the Primary Connections unit - Schoolyard Safari

Program overview

Students explore their school grounds to investigate living things and their habitats. They use simple tools, such as magnifying glasses and colour chips, to engage their senses in exploring their local environment. They can investigate native and kitchen gardens and/or areas of bush on school grounds. Let us know if your school has worm farms or compost bins and we can incorporate them into the program.

Session details

60-90 minutes. Up to 3 sessions (one class each) per day.

Key syllabus outcomes

• Students describe observable features of living things and their environments ST1-4LW-S

Inquiry questions

• What are the external features of living things?
• How can we improve a local environment to encourage living things to thrive?

External features of living things

• describe the external features of a variety of living things (ACSSU017)
• native and introduced plants and animals
• worms, insects, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals

Living things live in different places

• identify that living things live in different places that suit their needs (ACSSU211)
• recognise that people use science and technology in their daily lives, including when caring for their environment and living things (ACSHE022, ACSHE035)

Learning experiences

Students participate in a range of activities, such as:

• Exploring the school grounds and gardens in camouflage bibs
• Using tools to investigate, such as miniscopes, mirrors, magnifying lenses, binoculars and bird whistles
• Capturing, observing and releasing invertebrates, with the option of observing finds under a digital microscope
• Examining compost invertebrates or worms from a worm farm (from your school grounds or we can bring samples)

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General enquiries.

address 159 Farnell Ave Royal National Park NSW 2232

telephone 02 9542 1951

email [email protected]

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We would like to pay our respects and acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and also pay respect to Elders both past and present.

Copyright for this website is owned by the State of New South Wales through the Department of Education. For more information go to http://www.dec.nsw.gov.au/footer/copyright.

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Schoolyard safari incursion program

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Teacher checklist

Suggested timetable for up to six classes.

Learning activities

Students investigate the variety of invertebrates that live in the gardens on school grounds and will use a range of equipment to find, capture and study these important animals and observe and learn about their external features.

Where do invertebrates live? 

What are the features of invertebrates?

Invertebrate hunt

Students will work in small groups to search for and collect invertebrates from leaf litter, gardens and trees in the school or local area using equipment provided by Field of Mars teachers. 

Invertebrate identification

Collected specimens will then be examined using personal magnifiers and identified using ID charts.  Some of the collected invertebrates may be magnified onto a smart board and features identified with the students. 

Field of Mars EEC staff can photograph any magnified invertebrates and send the images as a link for further examination and study at the request of the classroom teacher.

Syllabus outcomes and content

Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus (2017) 

• observes, questions and collects data to communicate and compare ideas ST1-1WS-S 
• describes observable features of living things and their environments ST1-4LW-S 

Working scientifically

explore and answer questions through participation in guided scientific investigations

compare observations with those of others

make safe choices when using materials and equipment

External features of living things

describe the external features of a variety of living things 

Living things live in different places

identify that living things live in different places that suit their needs

Other syllabus links

Learning experiences will also support but not explicitly teach the following outcomes and content:

Geography K-10 Syllabus (2015) 

• describes features of places and the connections people have with places GE1-1 
• communicates geographical information and uses geographical tools for inquiry GE1-3 

Features of places

• investigate features of places and how they can be cared for, for example:
• description of the natural and human features of places
• consideration of how a place can be cared for

Curriculum note - this incursion is aligned with the language, learning models and experiences of the Primary Connections Stage 1 unit Schoolyard Safari.

Geography K-10 Syllabus © NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2015

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General enquiries

address Field of Mars Reserve Pittwater Road East Ryde NSW 2112

telephone 02 9816 1298

email [email protected]

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We’d like to acknowledge the Wallumedegal Peoples of the Darug Nation, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we stand and pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Copyright for this website is owned by the State of New South Wales through the Department of Education. For more information go to http://www.dec.nsw.gov.au/footer/copyright.

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Resources for Grades K-2 Activity – Trees as Habitats

From their leafy branches to their tangled roots, trees provide habitat for a host of plants and animals. Students will inventory the plants and animals that live in, on, and around trees and discover how plants and animals depend on trees in many ways.

For the complete activity and more like this, purchase the Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide or the  Together for Birds  activity collection at Shop.PLT.org  and/or attend a  professional development training in your state .

Below are some supporting resources for this activity.

STUDENT PAGES

Download the copyright-free student pages that are included with this activity:

Tree Observation Bingo (PDF)

What's the Connection? (PDF)

Bird Observation Bingo - customized for Together for Birds (PDF)

Spanish Student Page(s):

Bingo de observación de árboles (PDF)

¿Cuál es la conexión? (PDF)

STEM STRATEGIES

Engage students in real-world applications of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education.

Try these STEM Connections for this PLT activity:

• Best of STEM Strategies

RECOMMENDED READING

Expand your students’ learning and imaginations. Help students meet their reading goals, while building upon concepts learned in this activity, with the following children’s book recommendations:

• The Memory Tree
• My Forest is Green
• Bee My Friend
• Forest World
• Deep in the Woods
• A Day in a Forested Wetland
• Small Wonders: Jean-Henri Fabre & His World of Insects
• Tall Tall Tree
• Wild Ones, Observing City Critters
• Over and Under the Snow

FAMILY ACTIVITY

Try a simple variation of this activity to engage children in the outdoors at home. Download this fun and easy-to-do family activity .

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

The following tools and resources may be used to enhance the activity.

SFI and American Bird Conservancy joined forces to create a free booklet— Bird Friendly Forests: Opportunities for Private Forest Landowners in the Southern United States —that showcases ways landowners can manage their forests for bird habitat.

Watch the Trees as Habitats video demonstration (10 minutes), developed in partnership with Alaska PLT and PBS Kid’s Molly of Denali for a day in the Boreal Forest. 

This full-length 26:17-minute video is an episode of the series America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell , hosted by Rolling Stones keyboard player and Georgia family tree farmer, Chuck Leavell. Following are approximate time stamps and possible connections to specific PLT activities:

• 2:00-7:07 – Overview of Wisconsin Forests. Chuck meets with a forester, and they talk about their personal connection to forests and how working forests can serve a variety of purposes, from wood products to recreation. Use with “If You Were the Boss” and “Our Federal Forests.”
• 7:20-11:42 – Chuck meets with young folks in the Job Corps, and we hear about the history of the Conservation Corps and about how many people find meaningful work in forests. Use with “My Green Future.”
• 12:00-18:40 – Chuck meets with a tree farmer who is interested in maximizing habitat for ruffed grouse. We also meet a lumber “jill” who participates in competitive timber sports and works with the tree farmer to cut a tree for grouse habitat. Use as a supplement to “Trees as Habitats” and “My Green Future.”
• 18:56-23:00 – Chuck meets with Marshall Pecore on the Menominee Indian Reservation, which has 200,000 acres of sustainably managed forests. Pecore describes how the Menominee believe that in terms of forest management, the forest is first before profit. For example, they cut the worst trees in the forest first, not the best trees, and look at forest management from a 7 th generation perspective. Use with “If You Were the Boss” or “Our Federal Forests.”

How is a forest like a city? This 4-minute video, A City in a Forest from PBS Plum Landing, explores a child’s perspective of a forest and what they see living and growing on trees—from the top of the canopy to their roots in the ground, to dead trees lying on the forest floor. Aligned to several Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) standards, use this video to teach your students about ecosystems and engage them in conversations about their own community and urban forests. This video is one of many resources offered by PBS Kids through Plum Landing , a multi-platform, indoor-outdoor, science exploration adventure for kids.

Encourage children to “adopt” a nearby tree. It could be a tree in their backyard, in a city park, on a street in their neighborhood, or at school. Ask students to keep a journal about their tree they have “adopted” to study. Share or adapt this  Adopt a Tree Journal , suitable for grades 1-4, with your students. This 28-page guide, developed by Minnesota PLT with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, provides students a template to record and analyze information they collect over time. Use it to help children  really  get to know about that special tree in their lives over the course of a school year, or a semester. Pages include:

• ART: Drawing a tree from different perspectives.
• SCIENCE: Making scientific observations about a tree’s leaves, twigs, and fruits. Looking for animal clues around a tree.
• MATH: Measuring perimeter (circumference) around a tree trunk.
• MATH: Measuring crown spread and learning about averages.
• ELA: Applying different poetic forms writing about their tree.

Animals at Risk from Climate Change  is an educational poster developed by the Global Education Project. The poster presents a succinct overview of the fundamental impacts of greenhouse gases and features 25 animals currently at risk because of climate change. Through illustrations, symbols and brief explanatory text, learn about the biological traits and environmental conditions that cause a species to be susceptible to climate change. This 24″ x 30″ poster is available in folded, flat, and laminated formats.

The free Disneynature Explore application for iPads and iPhones combines an augmented reality experience with animal behavior gameplay to encourage young students (grades PreK-3) and their families to get outside and connect with nature. In the app, 3D images of animals appear in the camera’s viewer, providing students with “wild adventures” in their own backyard. For example, students can see their surroundings through a butterfly’s eyes, follow tracks with a bear to find its cub, and crack a nut like a chimpanzee.

Use Florida PLT’s Paper Plate Habitat  template as the basis for learners to create their own microhabitats.

In 2016, the National Park Service (NPS) celebrated a milestone birthday, 100 years! In celebration of its centennial, NPS created the Centennial Junior Ranger Activity Book . Explore the history of the National Park Service and complete fun activities with this printable book. While this book is geared for 4th-grade students, all are welcome to enjoy it.

In this short video from PBS Plum Landing, see how students work with a local arborist to plant a tree in their community. Underneath the video, you’ll find some simple conversation starting questions and additional resources to inspire your students.

What is a snag? How do dead and dying trees benefit the ecosystem? Learn how dead trees can actually provide more habitats for wildlife than when they are alive with Snags—The Wildlife Tree , published by Washington state Department of Fish & Wildlife. The article highlights species that use snag trees to survive, what kinds of trees make the best snags, and how to create a snag tree for wildlife. For more species fact sheets and ways to attract wildlife to your yard, check out this Living with Wildlife series .

Leafsnap is a free app that uses visual recognition software to help identify tree species from leaf photographs you take in the field. Leafsnap currently focuses on tree species found in the Northeastern United States and Canada, but expansion is underway to include all U.S. regions.

The  Schoolyard Habitat Project Guide  from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service gives step-by-step recommendations for creating a wildlife habitat at site, based on on-the-ground experience from successful projects.

The BirdSleuth Guidebook from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers step-by-step instructions to enable families, school groups, and others to get outdoors and connect with nature. Use this booklet in conjunction with PLT lessons, for example, go on a habitat scavenger hunt (Trees as Habitats), create a sound map (Sounds Around), and identify backyard species (Schoolyard Safari and Name That Tree). The BirdSleuth program helps K-12 students participate in citizen science bird projects by guiding them through several tasks, such as using online resources to find your state bird, looking for birds that fit into different groups, practicing bird counting and entering data online, extracting data from eBird about local birds, and taking action to improve bird habitat in your area.

Coloringnature.org offers more than 500 realistically illustrated  coloring pages that can be downloaded and printed for use in PreK-8 classrooms. Choose from categories such as amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds, insects, animal homes, biomes and habitats, and trees. Consider pairing the pages with PLT activities as diagrams, models, or assessment tools.

This Smithsonian Institution website provides students (and teachers!) access to views of conditions and events on earth that are nearly impossible to document from the Earth’s surface. The site proves interactive; explaining how satellite imagery is gathered and used to better understand the world around us.

Introduce yourself to one of North America’s most common groups of songbirds, the Juncos. Readily observed in backyards, city parks, and forests alike, these little gray birds—sometimes called “Snowbirds”—can be easily overlooked. But for scientists who study animal behavior, ecology, and evolutionary biology, the Junco is a rockstar. Use these video shorts from The Junco Project and a pair of binoculars to get outside and make some Junco friends!

The public radio program Encounters: Radio Experiences in the North explores the natural history of Alaska and the Far North. An accompanying website offers K-12 teachers links to the episodes as well as resources, such as slideshows, videos, and sound clips, introducing the animals and habitats of the regions: beavers, bears, caribou, humpback whales, boreal forests, moose, and others.

This US Fish & Wildlife Service initiative helps teachers and students create wildlife habitats at their schools. Their Schoolyard Habitat Project Guide  offers teaching and learning opportunities in many discipline areas and provides opportunities for long-term data collection. Additionally, schools and organizations serving K-12 students may apply for grants of up to $8,000.

A free app that can be downloaded onto any Apple device  (try iBird Lite for Android). Use WildLab Bird to learn the basics of bird identification. This application uses audio, photographs, maps, and the process of elimination to help identify over 200 bird species. Sightings can also be entered into a national bird watching database for comparison. 

Look to Forests by Cathryn Sill to introduce early learners to forest habitats and the organisms found there. Each page presents one sentence describing a particular forest habitat: boreal forest, tropical rain forest, cloud forest, temperate rain forest, deciduous forest, or tropical dry forest. Each description is accompanied by a realistic illustration. The afterward also contains more information about each habitat, which might be helpful for educators. This book supports Next Generation Science Standard 2-LS4-1 (ISBN: 9781561457342, Grades preK-3).

The Wildlife Conservation Society and Rainforest Alliance have created a free, new app designed for students 7-12.  Habitat  challenges students to care for virtual endangered animals while they earn points by completing real-life missions, like recycling or visiting a park zoo. 

A PBS KIDS environmental science project, PBS PLUM LANDING offers educators fun and engaging resources to get kids outside and connected to nature. Encourage kids to explore their local water systems, find out what happens to life in the desert, and investigate nature’s sounds and smells. Download PLUM LANDING’s free summer camp resources, including interactive games and videos. Furthermore, all of PLUM’s lesson plans are Next Generation Science (NGSS) standards aligned and easy for educators to plug and play throughout their summer programming.

Blue Raster and Bear Trust International’s interactive world map shows students and educators in grades 9-12 where eight different species of wild bears live. The map includes photos and facts on American and Asiatic black bears, brown bears, giant pandas, polar bears, sloth bears, and sun bears.

Recommended Summer Reading for Forest Lovers

As the days stay sunny for longer, summer can be the perfect time for kids and adults to relax under their favorite tree and catch up on their reading lists. Explore some of our favorite all-ages books about forests and trees to connect with the natural world!

Hands-on Activities & Advice for New Environmental Educators

Explore PLT resources to help you teach students about the environment, whether you’re new to teaching or looking for new environmental education resources to explore! PLT provides easy-to-teach, hands-on activities suitable for various settings, and a range of resources to support and mentor new educators.

Celebrating Bat Week 2023

By Jennifer Byerly

Bat Week is Oct. 24-Oct. 31! Use this national event (timed with Halloween) to teach kids about the important role bats play as insect eaters, pollinators, and seed spreaders. To celebrate, we’ve gathered some free downloadable activities, arts and crafts, writing prompts, and other projects for all ages to learn about bat conservation.

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Science Lesson Plans - The Rainforest, The Schoolyard Safari

Description

Science Lesson Plans contains the following classroom lesson plans created to be used in Science classes:

Lesson Plan: The Rainforest

Subject: Science

Description: The students will study about the five different layers of the rainforest, and the animals in each layer. The students will use the computer and complete a report on a specific rainforest animal of their choice. To extend the project, the students will then design and construct a model, showing the five layers of the rainforest canopy.

This lesson plan includes: Description, Materials, Teacher Preparation, Student Preparation, Activities/Procedure, Assessment/Evaluation, Rainforest Model Student Assessment, Rainforest Animal Report, Rainforest Layers Model Rubric, What is a Rain Forest?

Lesson Plan: The Schoolyard Safari

Subject: Science/Math

Description: This is a science discovery lesson on vertebrates and invertebrates with integrated and follow-up lessons. This lesson focuses on “monsters and mini-beasts” or spiders and insects and other invertebrate animals.

This lesson plan includes: Description, Objectives, Introduction to Activities, Materials, Teacher Preparation, Student Preparation, Activities/Procedures, Follow-Up Activities, Assessment/Evaluation, Anecdotal Record Sheet for Schoolyard Safari and Colloquium, The Schoolyard Safari, Schoolyard Safari Observation Chart, Schoolyard Safari Poster Rubric.

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