Week 4 - Blog Post Two

Citizenship Through Geography – Grade 5

This week’s learning was about bushfires and floods in Tasmania and how the students, as citizens in the community can make a difference through the State Emergency Service (SES).  Unfortunately, while Tasmania does escape many large natural disasters that sadly occur throughout the world, our island does still have its share of floods and bushfires. Within recent years, students can remember the floods that impacted Launceston in 2016 and the most recent bushfires in the summer of the same year.

This week’s learning sequence began with a KWL (what I know – what I want to know – what I learnt), writing down and discussing what the students knew about bushfires and floods in Tasmania.

(E-KWL charts, n.d.)

 From this we had a whole class discussion and the students were very enthusiastic, especially to share what they had seen in the 2016 floods. Students brought in photographs their families had taken of the floods and a couple of parents came in to discuss how the flood impacted their business. Thank you to those parents. 

The KWL was put to good use when Mr Smith, a member of SES Tasmania came to visit the class. Mr Smith was able to answer the student’s questions and listen to their stories and ideas, in-turn providing students with some great information on what the SES does in regard to bushfire and flood prevention, reinforcing the message that education and understanding is key (Peek, 2008). Mr Smith also told the students about WOW Day.

(SES, 2018)

Students are excited to get involved and are planning on using the day as a gold coin donation fundraiser to raise money for victims in the recent natural disaster. With about four weeks to plan, the students are creating posters (including online posters) and donation boxes to put around the school and on the school’s social media/website. Parents, the students are hoping that some of the posters they have created will be able to go up within your workplaces/social media so that their fundraising and awareness can extend beyond the school and into the community.

Through this project the students are engaging in community-based citizenship learning and are gaining respected skills and values (Reynolds, 2014; Gilbert, & Hoepper, 2017). Incorporating the online and social media aspect of the task, the students are provided with a new platform to engage and participate within their community on a much broader scale. This is a new way information is being shared and shows how people are collaborating through citizenship. In the activities, the students are learning an appropriate way to engage with the community on a broader scale and in doing so developing skills and expanding their social and community relations (Loader, Vronmen, & Xenos, 2014; Wilks, 2010).

These lessons link to the following descriptors from the Curriculum:

(ACARA, 2016)

References

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2016, December 16). The Australian Curriculum: F-6/7 HASS (Version 8.3), F-6/7, all curriculum elements, all curriculum dimensions. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/download/f10

E-KWL charts [online image]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/theamazingworldofteaching/kwl-charts

Gilbert, R., & Hoepper, B. (2017). Teaching humanities & social sciences: History geography, economics and citizenship in the Australian Curriculum (6^th ed.). South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning. 

Loader, B., Vronmen, A., & Xenos, M. (2014). The networked young citizen: Social media, political participation and civic engagement. Information, Communication & Society, 17(2), 143-150.

Peek, L. (2008). Children and disasters: Understanding vulnerability, developing capacities, and promoting resilience – An introduction. Children Youth and Environments, 18(1), 1-29.

Reynolds, R. (2014). Teaching humanities and social science in primary school. Oxford University Press.

SES. (2018). WOW DAY. Retrieved from http://www.wearorangewednesday.com.au/uploads/fact-sheet-school-.pdf

Wilks, J. (2010). Child-friendly cities: A place from active citizenship in geographical and environmental education. International Research in Geographical and Environmental  Education, 19(1), 25-38.

Week 3 - Blog Post One

Citizenship Through History – Grade 5

Over the last couple of weeks in Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS), students have been learning about why people have come to Australia in the past and present and what our country’s democracy has to do with this. Students enjoyed looking at the different crimes convicts were sent to Tasmania for during the excursion last week to the Campbell Town’s Convict Trail. It was wonderful seeing students who had convicts in their family history find their brick and I’d like to thank the parents who have discussed their family heritage with their children. Students collected data on the types of crimes committed and back in class we discussed what the consequence for such crimes would be today (for example a common crime was food theft).   

(Woodford, 2017)

Switching students learning to the current day, I asked students to brainstorm the reasons why people might migrate to Australia now. With the current reasons, students were placed into groups and created a PowerPoint presentation which they presented to their peers. Today the students began brainstorming ideas for how they are going to present a ‘welcoming’ to new migrants. Some students have chosen a letter or information brochure and others are recording a video. Within this the students are encouraged to welcome and provide information about how our democracy works in Australia, covering topics such as elections, the government, freedom of speech, expression and religious beliefs, etc. The students will complete this as a group directed inquiry which allows for students to take control of their own learning (Killen, 2013). Once completed, the ‘welcomes’ will be passed onto a local Politician within the community.

Parents can help extend this activity by discussing any people that you know in the community, such as friends, family or colleagues who are migrants to Australia. Allow them to see and understand that migrants are within our local community. Discuss what it would be like if your family had to move to another country, what would everyone be feeling and what questions would you want to know about the new country. This information, empathy and ability to see different viewpoints will assist the students in their ‘welcomes’.

Through learning history first, students are able to identify how the events of the past have led to the present (Harrison, 2013; Gilbert, 2011). Connecting the lesson to the present and including Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE) through the ‘welcoming’ project, students are able to learn through the promotion of positive attitudes, actions and behaviours by taking action in their local community (Ying Neoh, 2017). By extending the learning beyond the classroom and into the community, the students are able to identify a purpose within their learning and understand what makes them a citizen. It shows them that they do have the ability to go beyond the ‘normal’ duties of a citizen (voting, taxes, etc.) and can create change and participate in ways which can make a difference within their community (Wood, & Black, 2014).

The curriculum links to our learning this week are:

(Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2016)

References

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2016, December 16). The Australian Curriculum: F-6/7 HASS (Version 8.3), F-6/7, all curriculum elements, all curriculum dimensions. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/download/f10

Gilbert, R. (2011). Can history succeed at school? Problems of knowledge in the Australian history curriculum. Australian Journal of Education, 55(3), 245-258.

Killen, R. (2013). Effective teaching strategies: Lessons from research and practice. South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning Australia.

Harrison, N. (2013). Country teaches: The significance of the local in the Australian history curriculum. Australian Journal of Education, 57(3), 214-224.

Wood, B., & Black, R. (2014). Performing citizenship down under: Educating the active citizen. Journal of Social Science Education, 13(4), 56-65.