Okehampton Bay Fish Farm
Grade 4 learning sequence
Overview
Okehampton Bay on Tasmania’s East Coast is known for its salmon farming and for providing work opportunities to locals.
Approximately 800 000 fish will be farmed at the site meaning that a lot of fish will poo into the water. 920 000 kg of poo is expected to be excreted by the fish annually (Let’s Grow Tasmania’s Future, n.d).
Figure 1. Okehampton Bay Fish Farm (Gramenz, 2017).
Why learn this?
Your child will be given the opportunity to learn about this environmental issue as it:
- enables a rich understanding of the human impact on the environment to be developed
- enables exploration of sustainable patterns of living
- students can observe human interactions with the environment through examining waste management (ACARA, sustainability, 2016).
What will they learn?
Geography Strand
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The importance of environments, including natural vegetation, to animals and people (ACHASSK088).
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The use and management of natural resources and waste, and the different views on how to do this sustainably (ACHASSK090).
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Inquiry and Skills Strand
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Reflect on learning to propose actions in response to an issue or challenge and consider possible effects of proposed actions (ACHASSI081).
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Draw simple conclusions based on analysis of information and data (ACHASSI079).
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Examine information to identify different points of view and distinguish facts from opinions (ACHASSI077).
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Lesson 1:
Students will have the opportunity to research fish farming in the area and critically evaluate why that location was chosen, the positives and negatives of fish farming and why it is an environmental concern.
Lesson 2:
Your student will create a table of the benefits and concerns discussed in the previous lesson. This will be used as a scaffold for lesson 3.
Lesson 3:
Your child will get to choose whether they;
a) write a letter to Tassal, the cooperation responsible for the development of the fish farm, stating their concerns about the damage it might to do the environment.
or
b) write a letter to Let's Grow Tasmania's Future stating the benefits of the fish farm on the economy and why they think it should go ahead
or
c) write a letter to Matthew Groom, Tasmania's Minister for Environment, Parks and Heritage (Tasmanian Government, n.d) about their concerns of the farm. They can suggest an alternate site or promote the development of smaller farms.
These activities have been designed to deepen your child's understanding of the environment and opportunities will be provided for students to express believes and take action These are aspects of worthwhile pedagogy (Reynolds, 2014).
How can I support my child?
Research shows that parents who actively participate in their child's learning have a positive impact on their child's development. Parental involvement contributes towards completion of work and positive attitudes about school (Olsen & Fuller, 2010).
You can support your child by discussing different points of view on this topic and attending our lessons.
Reference List
Australian
Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2016). Foundation to year 10
Curriculum: cross
curriculum priority areas: sustainability. Retrieved from
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting
Authority. (2016). Foundation to
Year 10 curriculum: humanities and
social sciences. Retrieved from
Gramenz, E. (2017). ABC news:
Tassal Okehampton Bay fish farm plan gets green
light. Retrieved
from http://libguides.unitec.ac.nz/apareferencing/images-tables-figures
Let’s Grow Tasmania’s Future.
(n.d). Tell Tassel to dump their plans for
Olsen, G., & Fuller, M-L.
(2010). The benefits of parent
involvement: what
research has to say. Retrieved from
Reynolds, R. (2014). Inquiry
pedagogy. In Teaching
humanities and social
Again, a good topic on which to base this education for sustainability learning … in terms of cutting out some words (so you can add some others), I don’t think the paragraph under the first picture (“It is easier to …” etc) really summarises “the problem” or “the issue”, it’s really just more background info on Tassal and our appetite for farmed fish products. You could also make the content descriptor a GIF or embedded image so that it doesn’t count in the word limit.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to be cautious about presenting a binary when considering issues like this – i.e. “for or against” something, as your Lesson 2 (and even the letter activity) does. Maybe they could focus more on “how fish farming could be made more environmentally sustainable” for example.
Have you checked out the Sustainability cross-curriculum priority section of the Aust Curriculum. It would be a good idea to tie some of this into your justification for EfS learning. Writing a letter is ok, but I wonder how else you could make the learning that comes out of the Okehampton Bay investigation be linked to some “real, relevant and local” environmental actions that the students could actually participate in more directly? Just a thought.
Ian
Rebecca, I really enjoy your writing style and think it communicates well to parents. As a parent, I would enjoy reading this blogs to keep up to date on what my students is doing in the classroom.
DeleteI feel like this is a very relevant local topic. I think further justification and evidence about why this topic is critical to learn about would support this case well.
I really enjoy seeing students take a key role in their learning, and think have ownership over what they present and how they will present it is really important to keep students engaged and on task. I wonder whether there is an opportunity here to extend the letter writing task to an inquiry-based project that students have more ownership in?
In terms of parental involvement, do you think there are opportunities for parents to support this learning, or become involved? Time is obviously a key issue for families, but I feel there can be so many opportunties for teachers to make it as easy as possible for parents to become engaged in their child's learning - a classroom blog, for instance, is one very creative way!
The fact amount of fish poo is interesting! I wouldn't have even thought about this being an environmental concern so I think I better get researching and find out more!
Well done for picking such a great topic!
ReplyDeleteHello Bec,
Wow! What an interesting topic! I would have never thought of this and therefore I found it to be a very informative blog.
Recently, I have been introduced to the learning resource of a web quest. This is a powerpoint presentation delivered to students that involve a ‘problem’ that they must investigate and find out information. This investigation is different however, as it doesn’t let students just go out and use any websites because, as you would know, there are many inaccurate webpages. Instead it lists webpages that the students must look at and get information from. This ensures that all information collected is relevant and correct. I think this might be something to look into for this lesson plan as it could be very beneficial. It also allows students to feel involves and engaged in what could be a dry topic. This could lead to so many different investigations, whether they were ones that you have outlined or it could be strategies to become sustainable? Congratulations on again another interesting topic, Taylor Assmann