Session 8 - Belmont City College Year 9 HASS - Geography

1. You will each be given a plant name - fern, oak, grass, cycad, gingko, pine, moss

2. Find you plant group and choose a table to sit at

3. How can you use the materials on the desk to represent human interaction with the environment?

4. Explain what you have presented

1. Remain in your groups

2. How do you think humans alter individual biomes in their production of food and/or fibre production?

3. Create eight quick drawings to represent one impact per biome - temperate deciduous forest, temperate grassland, coniferous forest, tundra, tropical forest, savannah grassland, mediterranean, desert ? You have 5 minutes

4. How would you order these human impacts? Which biome do you think is most impacted through to which is least - in groups

5. Put your images/drawings in order to represent this

OPTIONAL

1. Combine with another group and incorporate their drawings in order of impact

2. Explain your reasoning

Each group has a challenge

1. Use a post it note throughout the session to provide a specific example of how your group implements each of the creative habits

2. One habit per post it. Refrain from copying examples directly from the poster. 

Successes

• Students are looking through the window before each class trying to work out what we are going to be doing. 

• They get straight into their groups regardless who they are grouped with

• Discussion today was much quieter overall but with equal collaboration from each person

• When given extended time, they worked out that it was better to each draw two images

• Giving a time limit for each component of the activity is resulting in higher participation and more active collaboration within groups

• Great sharing of explanations and reasonings for decisions

• They were surprised that doing something unconventional such as cutting the paper wasn’t against the rules

‘I liked the shock of ‘am I allowed?’...Teacher

Challenges

• We forgot the ‘without words’ when getting into groups

• Students still attempted to only have one or two in their group do all of the drawings

• The amount of knowledge they have about each of the biomes is limited and without depth (superficial) however they are only in their second week of the subject so it also provides Fiona (Teacher) with a starting point for what she needs to cover and a comparison for their knowledge at the end of the term

• A couple students are still averse to working outside of their friendship groups

They are curious each week what we are going to be doing, particularly for the warm up where they are getting to arrange different objects

‘Guys, it’s not about who is doing it, it’s about getting it all done’... student

Even when they worked in larger groups of between 8 and 12, they still did so with really positive collaboration and conversation and checking with others for opinions