03_National Curriculum Outdoors_D6 by Anna Portch

The National Curriculum Outdoors • Schemes of Work for Outdoor Education • Key Stage 1 • Key Stage 2

a joint project

Schemes of Work for Outdoor Education in Primary Schools: Incorporating Outdoor Education into the National Curriculum Background The London Wildlife Trust (LWT) supports environmental education in London through outreach education, published materials, environmental education packs, and training for educators. In a recent strategic review of its education programme LWT identified a need to invest in its formal education and schools programme, in particular to support education professionals in using the ‘outdoor classroom’ to deliver the National Curriculum and education for sustainable development. The Trust has thus taken its years of experience and accumulated knowledge, and produced these Schemes of Work for Outdoor Education. The Trust aims to have a published methodology that supports schools, teachers and environmental educators; in educating ‘about London’s environment, through the London environment’. Our schemes of work predominately support the Science curriculum, but also include links to Geography and highlight links that can be made across the curriculum. These schemes of work are based on the experience of environmental education facilitators in terms of what can be delivered in school grounds, local nature reserves and the outdoors environment. They are also based on the need to provide for field trips or outdoor teaching sessions that are not only fun, but meet the requirements of the National Curriculum, Key Stage 1 and 2. These include: • Preparatory work; what do the children currently know and understand? • Fieldwork or outdoor learning that is structured and covers the needs of the Attainment Target, Programme of Study and the level students are working at or towards. • Suggestions for follow up work and assessment of how the children’s understanding of the subject has changed post field trip or outdoor teaching session. • Suggestions for cross-curricular links with other areas of the science curriculum. • These schemes of work will encourage and support teachers and environmental educators in delivering fieldwork and outdoor learning that attain prescribed learning objectives.

The Benefits of Learning Outside the Classroom It has long been recognised that teaching outside can have a number of benefits; not just in terms of the formal curriculum but also the informal. You will recognise that there are many benefits to taking classes or group outside: • Experience of real situations and real things. • Opportunity, through the new outdoor setting, for a different dynamic and for individuals to behave in previously unseen ways. • Teamwork. • Communication between groups and adults. • Problem-solving in a different environment.

• Development of personal and social skills in a different suite of circumstances. • Encouragement to listen to other’s opinions and experiences. • Appreciation by children of themselves and others. • Experience of operating as a collective and as individuals whilst undertaking different tasks. • Care of others and the environment. • Appreciation of risk and hazard. • Exploration of skills. Teaching outside the classroom, you will have a real opportunity to observe the class and the individual, within it in a new setting. Children who behave in a certain way in class may often behave differently outside. Children will be placed in a situation where they can appreciate new skills, either their own or their fellow students and where there is a chance to communicate with adult helpers and facilitators.

Basis for the Schemes of Work This document is based on a London Wildlife Trust overview of the National Curriculum, QCA support materials and other environmental education resources (listed in references). The resulting schemes of work have been designed for work with schools to explore ways of adapting and developing outdoor education within school grounds and/or in London’s parks and nature reserves. The schemes will support and guide you in developing the outdoor curriculum by: • Using outdoor education to enhance science teaching where most appropriate. • Basing activities and lesson plans on working in the school grounds and within green spaces local to schools. • Promoting development of links with local green spaces and their managers. • Embedding English and Mathematics across the curriculum • Taking elements of the National Curriculum that lend themselves to be fully explored by bringing classes to work in the school grounds and in the local environment. • Suggesting where links between different schemes can be made. • Suggesting links with other subjects across the National Curriculum The schemes allow you to use as much or as little as is practicable. You could choose to use the whole scheme or individual units. The section on ‘Using These Schemes of Work’ and ‘Sequencing the Units’ can help you decide how you want to use the schemes. The schemes are divided into units these are based on the topic approach - most familiar to environmental educators and to teachers working through the programmes of study for the Science curriculum. The units suggest learning outcomes, class activities and class assessment activities that can be incorporated into the Science curriculum. The ‘attainment target’ and ‘programmes of study’ are listed under the unit heading. Cross-curricular links are made in the table ‘Where the Unit Fits In’.

Using these Schemes of Work The schemes of work are titled under unit headings with their National Curriculum links listed beneath them. The following table is an example of how a unit is laid out:

Unit 1 Heading NC: Attainment Target, PoS references

Science KS

ABOUT THE UNIT The background to the unit and its aims and objectives.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Cross-curricular and unit links.

VOCABULARY The use of language and the introduction of new words. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

List of what children should learn.

Suggestions for activities in school and outside.

Children Should Learn

Children

Assessment of progress.

The above table exemplifies the structure of the units making up these schemes of work. It highlights where the unit fits into development of learning and understanding of the class of that particular subject, and how it links with the National Curriculum and cross-curricular links. There is an emphasis on language and the use of language at the beginning to help develop confidence in terminology. It will also help develop links with the English curriculum. There is a clear progression from what children should learn to their assessment post fieldwork or outdoor teaching session. The units provide suggestions for work; they can be taken as a whole, but equally can be used in part. The aim of these schemes is to support learning and provide ideas and activities to fit into current teaching practice within schools.

Sequencing the Units The units can be used as stand alone topics for themed study or can be used sequentially to support the whole school curriculum. The units are organised in terms of accrued knowledge as children progress through the attainments targets in the National Curriculum. Therefore the units at the beginning of each Key Stage are for students of lower year groups and the units then track through to the needs of higher years towards the end of each section for Key Stage 1 and 2. However the units also allow you the chance to dip into a theme or topic and perhaps derive some activity or monitoring guidelines that will help you to complete your own individual approach to a scheme of work.

Suggested Lesson Plans Lesson plans follow each unit and as stated are suggested lesson plans only. They are there to introduce you to tried and tested activities which support the subject of the unit. The activities are taken from the references listed at the end of this scheme of work. Over time you will be exposed to a wealth of materials which will support you in confidently developing lesson plans which are unique to your own teaching style and the way that your students learn. The LWT education team want to encourage professional development through this scheme of work and will be revising and adding to the lesson plans through the swapping of experiences between schools and environmental educational professionals who will use this pack. The lesson plan structure is based on the Cornell method of activity planning. Joseph Cornell, through his book ‘Sharing Nature with Children’ (see references), this has five tenets of outdoor teaching: 1. Share not only knowledge, but also descriptions and feelings of things. 2. Listen and observe the class. 3. Focus attention without delay, involving everyone. 4. Look and experience first, talk later. 5. Enthusiasm of expression. The activities in the lesson plans aim to deliver all five of the tenets, but also Cornell’s methodology of organising activities to promote learning through the raising of certain emotional states. The lesson plans are normally from three to five activities. The first activity aims to promote a sense of excitement or wonder. The next activity focuses attention and then creates a sharing of experience through practical surveying or observational study. The next activity aims to close the lesson through an activity which brings together what has been learnt in a fun and very exhausting way. The final activity brings the children together in a way that is exhilarating and will help them hold the memory of their trip as they leave the school grounds or park. The activities in the lesson plans are based on Wildlife Trust activities across the country and from many other environmental education organisations in the UK. There is a particular emphasis on the urban and built environment, public parks and local nature reserves in cities. London is a unique environment, with its own special compliment of flora and fauna. While many education packs are focused on access to the countryside, these lesson plans specifically aim to celebrate London’s wild side. To this end the lesson plans are suited to school grounds, but highlight the use of local green spaces and encourage schools to develop links with green spaces within walking distance of the school. Most green space managers welcome school visits, especially with teachers ready to work on their own initiative. It is a chance for children to experience a part of their local space they may have not felt was their own to explore. Through these schemes of work we aim to enthuse all towards ownership of their environment.

Key Stage 1 Schemes of Work for Outdoor Education Unit 1: Growing Plants Unit 2: Sorting and Using Materials Unit 3: Plants and Animals in the Local Environment Unit 4: Variation Unit 5: Around Our School – The Local Area

a joint project

Unit 1 Growing Plants NC: Sc2 1a, 1c, 3a, 3b, 3c, 4b, 5b, 5c

Science KS1

ABOUT THE UNIT This subject introduces children to the idea of plants as living things, which grow, and change. Children should become aware of similarities and differences between plants. Outdoor investigative work focuses on looking at plants growing and living with other plants. Children also have opportunities to link their knowledge of how plants grow to their understanding of science and to ways in which growing plants should be treated with sensitivity.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN This is the introductory unit for plants. Children need: • To know that animals (including humans) are alive and grow. Links with Units 3 and 4.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Words and phrases for making comparisons e.g. tall/taller/tallest, like, similar to, different from. • Words relating to plants e.g. branch, ﬂower, root, stem, seeds, seedlings, plants, leaf, weed. • Words and phrases relating to living and non-living things e.g. living, non-living, alive, not alive, dead, healthy.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

That there are different plants in the environment.

Using the school grounds or an accessible park or reserve, take the children where they can see wild plants growing. Stress that the plants should not be picked or pulled up. To help the class recognise that different plants occur in different places, map the places where plants grow on a large plan of the site. Ask them for their ideas about why plants grow where they do with the children, draw some of the plants showing what they are like and where they grow and naming their main parts. Ask children to suggest why it is important not to pull up growing plants. Back in the classroom ask children to stick labels or pictures of plants where they were found, e.g. on the path, in the pond, in the ﬁeld.

Name some plants found around the school or in the environment e.g. daisy, dandelion and name groups of plants e.g. trees, grass, pondweed, moss.

Children Should Learn

To treat growing plants with care. To make observations of where plants grow. That plants have leaves, stems and ﬂowers.

Children

Describe orally or by drawing or in simple writing, what the plants are like, e.g. trees are tall and have thick branches, dandelions have yellow ﬂowers and green leaves and where they can grow e.g. there is grass growing in the path cracks.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

How plants grow.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

If there is an opportunity to use a school garden or a local garden or To make observations of the allotment, it is a valuable chance to plants. look at growing plants for food. Ask To use drawings to record children to suggest why we grow their observations and to plants. Show children some planted communicate what happened. seedlings e.g. pea, broad bean, mung That plants have leaves, stems bean, or they can plant quick-growing seeds e.g. sunﬂower, marrow. Ask and ﬂowers. children to suggest how they will To treat growing plants change as they grow. Help children with care. to look after and to observe the seedlings at regular intervals, e.g. two to three days over the next week and to record, as drawings, how they have changed. As children observe the seedlings, consolidate knowledge of names of the parts of the plant. Plant tree seeds and look at young trees and how trees grow.

Recognise and say that the plant has grown e.g. it is taller, it has more leaves, its stem is fatter.

Show children plants or pictures of plants e.g. apple trees, tomato plants, sweetcorn, cabbages and ask them why it is important for humans to grow plants. On a ﬁeld trip look at plants that can be used for food by humans, birds and other animals. Stress that nothing should be eaten from the wild unless there is an adult with them.

State that humans eat some plants.

That plants provide food for humans.

Communicate observations in drawings and descriptions of these e.g. it had two leaves, now it has many. Look at the longevity of trees, look at the difference between annuals, perennials and woody plants.

Understand that food chains begin with plants.

Explain how plants form the basis of the food chain, look at how plants have been nibbled by small invertebrates. That plants have roots. To observe and compare the roots of different plants.

Show children a potted plant that has grown too large for its pot and take it out to repot it. Show children its roots and ask them why they think it needs re-potting. Ask children to compare the roots with those of some seedlings, helping them to observe characteristics, e.g. colours, thickness, and length. On a field trip to a park or reserve look at tree roots and their role in helping the tree stand up. If there is a chance to visit a pond or riverside, look at water plants which are shallow rooting marsh plants compared with floating plants with floating roots.

Identify the roots of a plant. Make comparisons, identifying differences and some similarities e.g. they are both white.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

To make careful observations of the plants and to record these in a simple chart or table provided for them.

Show children some wilting, planted seedlings or small plants and ask children to suggest how to revive them. If necessary, prompt by asking them to feel how dry the soil is. Once water is suggested, help them to think how to carry out a test in which some plants are watered and some are not. Remind children of earlier work and ask them what they will observe. Help children to record their observations in a chart or table and to decide what these show.

Present results by writing or drawing in a table or chart prepared for them.

To conclude that plants need water to grow.

Use the results of their experiment to show that plants need water to grow, e.g. by saying the ones we didn’t water died but the others stayed green. Recognise that different types of plants can survive dry conditions and some cannot.

On a ﬁeld trip session look at where plants grow. Compare the types of plants growing in wet marshy ground to those in sandy soil. That green plants need light to grow. To turn ideas about whether green plants need light to grow into a form that can be tested. To observe and compare green plants grown in light and dark places. To conclude that green plants need light in order to grow well.

Introduce the idea of green plants needing light to grow and ask children whether they think this is true or not. Ask them how they could test their ideas and when they do so, discuss whether they will water the plants or not. Ask children to talk about differences between plants e.g. after 3 days, 8 days, 14 days and to suggest what these differences show. On a ﬁeld trip look under trees and bushes to see that there are no green plants, due to the lack of light. Look at ivy and other climbers to understand that they climb to get to the light. If there is an opportunity to go out to a reserve and see how spring ﬂowers are in full growth before trees and other tall plants can shade them out.

Suggest a way of finding out whether green plants need light to grow, e.g. keeping one plant in a box or cupboard and one in the classroom. Identify differences between the plants, e.g. the one in the dark isn’t green and doesn’t look healthy. Draw a conclusion from the results, e.g. the one in the dark didn’t look healthy. I think plants like to be in the light. Plants in the wild grow where there is enough light and how many spring flowering plants flower and die down before trees come into leaf.

UNIT 1: Growing Plants LESSON PLAN A The aims of this session are to introduce children to plants as living things and to gather an understanding of how much each student already knows about plants and human relationships with plants. The activities listed are a good introduction to plants in a known and well-understood outdoor area, before exploring plants further in the local area. Location: School Grounds or Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • Wallet of raindrops • Whistle • Pairs of leaves • Hand lenses • Resource sheet: Leaf Eye Spy (provided below) • Site plan • Clipboard • Pencils • Survey sheet • Tape measure • Plant jigsaw game

Activity A1: The Raindrop Game Resources: • Wallet of raindrops • Whistle In this game you are trying to help children understand that plants need water, and the amount of water they get is dependent on where they grow. • Take the group into a wide-open space and ask them to pretend that they are tiny wind blown seeds. Let them spin and waft around for a bit before giving a sign for them to stop still. • Once still, tell the children that their feet are roots in the ground and they can no longer move freely. You have the bag of raindrops and you are going to be a small shower cloud passing over the plants.

• The plants can try and catch raindrops in their hands as you throw raindrops up in the air over them. (Unfortunately humans aren’t very good at catching with their feet). Then walk randomly around the group throwing raindrops high above them. The children will reach and stretch for the raindrops. • At the end of the shower of rain, ask the children to hold up the raindrops they collected. You will ﬁnd that some plants have lots of raindrops and others have none. This game highlights that a plant has little control over where it eventually grows. That water capture is dependent on position. Those plants with the most raindrops will of course be the plants that grow the most quickly and will overshadow their smaller rivals and capture more water over time.

Activity A2: Leaf Pairs Resources: • Pairs of leaves • Hand lenses This game helps the children focus their attention on a plant organ and something from a plant that they are very familiar with, but perhaps not handled in any way that makes them appreciate the variety of leaves or the intricacy of something so thin. Do stress at the beginning of the game that you have picked only two leaves from the most common plants in the grounds and that normally you would never pick wild ﬂowers. • Ask the children to stand in a circle around you and for them to close their eyes and stand still. Distribute a leaf to every child, making sure that children standing next to each other receive the same leaf. • Ask the children to open their eyes and look at their leaf. Tell them to look at its shape and the patterns on its leaf. Then ask the children to look at the other leaves held by their classmates and stand next to the child that has a leaf like theirs. Once they have found their partner they are then ready to stay with their partner for the next activity. NB this is a great way for getting children into pairs and pairs of your choice, without any fuss. Extension: Use hand lenses and allow the children to look at the leaves with the lenses spotting the tiny pores on the underside of the leaves (stomata). Let the children swap leaves and feel leaves that are smooth and waxy, furry or rough. After looking at leaves let them tear the leaves in half and smell them and see the spongy layer inside.

Activity A3: Spot the Plant Resources: • Resource sheet: Leaf Eye Spy (provided below) • Site plan • Clipboard • Pencils • Survey sheet In preparation for this survey, take some time to pick a leaf to photocopy or take a digital photograph of a plant ﬂower and/or leaf. Insert the pictures into the eye spy sheet overleaf. Try to conduct the survey within a few days of illustrating the survey, as plants have a habit of ﬂourishing one moment and then disappearing the next. • Put the children into pairs and give them a clipboard, pencil and survey sheet. Tell them that they are going to look around the whole school grounds and they are going to use the eye spy sheets to spot the different plants pictured. Ask them to make a note of where they saw each type of plant.

• Team up groups of pairs with an adult helper who can steer the group around the school and keep them focused. Then give the class 45 minutes to record as many sites around the school grounds as they can. • At the end of the activity ask the class if they managed to ﬁnd all of the plants pictured, were there any plants they found which were not on the eye spy sheet? • Back in class use a blown up site plan of the school grounds and place pictures of the plants found on the places where they were found. Talk about which plants were found where and introduce the children to the plants names, their ﬂowers and if time allows tell them some of the stories behind how some plants got their names (See Richard Mabey’s Flora Brittanica).

Activity A4: Growing Plants Resources: • A whistle • Tape measure There are all kinds of plants. With the class, look at the smallest green plants – the mosses – to the largest – the trees. Tell the children all plants grow from some kind of seed and some plants just grow and set seed in a year and some live for hundreds of years. In this game the children get to experience that space is important for a seed to grow and that competition from other seedlings will badly affect the seedlings growth. • In spring look at a patch of earth and count how many seedlings are growing there. Then organise the class as if they are playing the Raindrop Game again. This time don’t let the children waft as seeds for very long – ﬁve seconds will do. • Ask the children to curl up like little seeds and then to grow, by stretching up to the sun. Once you have a group of tall seedlings, ask them to gently sway their outstretched arms around them. If they touch another plant, then both those plants have to curl up and die. How many seedlings are left standing? Extension: If there are any mature trees in the school grounds take a tape measure out with you and talk to the children about how trees grow, that they get taller and thicker. Compare that to how children grow. The children may know that a tree’s age can be found by counting rings in a trees trunk, but there is a way of ﬁnding a tree’s age without cutting the tree down. Roughly a tree grows in circumference by 2 centimetres a year. Therefore by measuring the circumference of a tree’s trunk and dividing the measurement you will have an estimate of how old the tree is. Make a chart of which tree is the oldest and youngest in the school grounds.

Activity A5: Wildﬂower Relay Race Resources: • Plant Jigsaw Game This game allows the class to let off some steam before returning to class and to consolidate what they have seen and learnt so far in a fun way. Prepare ﬁve sets of plant jigsaws using coloured card and laminate the pieces, so they can be used time and again. The jigsaw plant is kept simple, as at this stage it is enough for children to know the simplest organisation of the plant.

Preparation of Jigsaw: 1. Five sets of five petals of different colours and if possible make the petal shapes different for each flower e.g. heart shaped, oval, triangular etc 2. Five yellow circles to act as the flower centre 3. Five green stems 4. Ten green leaves, two leaves for each flower 5. Five sets of roots Playing the game: • Show the class how one jigsaw flower is arranged with five petals of the same shape and colour and with two leaves. Say that there are five different flowers that need to be put together in the same way. • Divide the class into five teams and explain that it is a relay race, that one person runs, picks up a piece of plant jigsaw (obviously not just any petal), runs back and tags the next person in line to run. The winning team is the first with a complete flower jigsaw with five petals all the same colour and shape and all the parts in the right order. • To help the teams along and stop squabbling give each team a petal and stress that they need four more the same as that. • Put the muddled up jigsaws in a pile a few metres away from the group give a count down and say ‘Go!’ From then on, they’re on their own! This game is best played in a large open space, where the teams can be spread out and banged heads can be avoided.

Resource Sheet: Unit 1, Activity A3

Leaf Eye Spy Plant leaf

a joint project

Name of plant

Tick if you ﬁnd it

Where did you ﬁnd it?

Lesson Plan B This lesson builds on the work in the classroom and from the activities in the school grounds. It is important to see plants growing in as natural an environment as possible in the city. Children are growing up in a setting, where wild plants are seen as out of place and as weeds in most of their experience outside and often inside school. Location: Local Nature Reserve or Public Park Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • Leaves • Resource sheet: Plant Hoopla (provided below) • PE Hoops • Resource sheet: Flower Power (provided below) • Pencils • Clipboards • Laminated cards • Small white cards • Double sided tape • Whistle • Hand lenses • Clipboards • Pencils • Tape measure

Activity B1: Prickly/Tickly, Nice and Nasty Resources: • A leaf for each child This is a good way for children to familiarise themselves with the natural environment and the rules about what can and cannot be touched, as well as respecting plant life. • To begin show children nettles, thistles, holly and brambles and explain how nettles sting and the other plants have painful prickles. Tell the children that these plants have defences against animals eating and picking them. Tell the children to leave these plants alone and let them grow in peace. Also show that even though these plants have defences, small animals like caterpillars depend on them for food and shelter; the prickles and stings affords the caterpillar a well-defended home from animals which would like to eat a juicy caterpillar. • Tell the children they are going to play Prickly/Tickly. They are going to be picking one leaf from the area around them and then they are going to gently tickle their friends inner forearm with the leaf. However they must keep their leaves secret and not show any one what their leaf looks like. • Show the children how they are going to be tickled, by rolling up the sleeves of one arm and placing their arm behind their back with forearms facing out. Their friends are going to take their leaf and pass it up and down their arm and ask if it is a prickle or tickle.

• Children go from one classmate to another taking turns to tickle and to be tickled. After each prickle/ tickle the children can see the leaf that was used and see if it feels the same using their hands. • At the end get the leaves together and ask which ones were the tickliest and which were the prickliest. Is everyone agreed? What do tickly leaves have in common? What do prickly leaves have in common? • Now take the leaves and pass them out amongst the children. Explain they are going to play a kind of scratch and sniff to smell if different types of leaves have nice or nasty smells. • Ask children to tear or scratch their leaf and then smell it. Is it nice or nasty? Ask other classmates to smell it and smell other leaves. Elder has a particularly pungent odour and some people like it and others hate it. If possible throw in some water mint, wood sage, wild garlic and dandelion (which have a sticky sap). Expansion: Note that plants with pungent odours normally contain natural pesticides which make them unpalatable to animals. Tough and furry leaves are also adaptations to deter herbivores. Please note the term prickly is in terms of leaf resistance and relative hardness, not that it has prickles.

Activity B2: Plant Hoopla Resources: • Resource sheet: Plant Hoopla (provided below) • P.E. hoops This activity shows that plants grow in certain areas and counts how many different types of plant can be seen within a given area marked by the hoop. Places to try: • Under trees in dense shade • Long grass • Lawn • Marshy areas • Dry areas • Pavements and paths This is a numbers activity where children begin to recognise different plant species, but the emphasis is on habitat and growing conditions affecting the number and types of plants that can be found.

Activity B3: Flower Power Resources: • Resource sheet: Flower Power (provided below) • Pencils • Clipboards This activity is best in spring or summer. The activity is a simple survey where children are encouraged to recognise that there are a great variety of flowers with different flower shapes and different colours. The survey sheet uses pictures of flower shapes and colour for children to spot flowers. The names of plants are not important at this stage, but if children want to know names tell them and also take notes of what flowers are around for activities back in the classroom.

Activity B4: Seed Scavenger Hunt Resources: • 3 PE hoops • Laminated cards saying - Wind dancer - Animal passenger - Self-propelled This activity is best in autumn, but summer allows for an examination of plant life at all stages. Explain to the children that they need to ﬁnd seeds in the immediate area. Place the three hoops on the ground and place one of the three cards in each. Call the class back and help the children sort the seeds into each hoop. Look for the following seeds: • Parachutes

• Dandelion

• Wings

• Maple

• Stick to fur

• Burdock

• Hard seeds carried in an animals gut

• Crab apple

• Nut buried by squirrels

• Acorn

• Small enough to be carried by an ant

• Gorse

• Explosion mechanisms

• Bird’s foot trefoil

• Pepper pot

• Poppy head

Activity B5: Paint Pallets Resources: • Small white cards • Double sided tape This activity allows the children to focus on colours of plants and parts of plants. It brings the session to an end where the children can share their findings. Before the session prepare enough squares of white card with double sided tape on each for every child. If there is time it is fun to cut the card in a paint pallet shape. • Give children a white card/paint pallet and tell them they are to look for as many scraps of plant colour as they can find. Tell them they are not picking whole plants, but the odd petal or tiny piece of leaf is fine. Then they can stick their scraps to the pallets. • Once the children understand where they are searching and how, ask them to remove the backing off the double-sided tape on their card (carefully putting the backing in their pocket or in a near by rubbish bin).

Resource Sheet: Unit 1, Activity B2

Plant Hoopla Place

Under trees

Long grass

Lawn

Boggy ground

Dry ground

Pavement

Path

a joint project

Number of different plants in hoop

Resource Sheet: Unit 1, Activity B3

Umbrella

Lipped

Tube

Flower Power Shape

White Yellow Orange Red Pink Purple Blue Green

Daisy

Pea

Four Petal

Spike

Five Petal

a joint project

Unit 2 Sorting and Using Materials NC Sc3 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 2b

Science KS1

ABOUT THE UNIT Through this unit children learn about the characteristics and uses of a range of common materials and vocabulary for describing and comparing materials. Using outdoor ﬁeldwork, this subject can investigate the use of natural and synthetic materials in the environment. It also introduces children to the ideas of what materials are biodegradable, and relates to litter and waste materials.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Children need: • To know about the ﬁve senses. • To know vocabulary associated with the senses. • Links with Art, Design and Technology.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Names of materials e.g. metal, plastic, wood, paper, glass, clay, rock, fabric, sand. • Words used to describe materials e.g. hard, soft, rough, smooth, shiny, dull, magnetic, transparent, bendy, waterproof, strong. • Words and phrases for making comparisons e.g. the same as, different from, harder, smoother. • Words which may have different meanings in a non-science context e.g. group, material. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

That every material has many properties which can be recognised using our senses and described using appropriate vocabulary.

Ask children to handle a variety of objects and collections of objects e.g. spoons, keys, wooden objects, papers, fabrics and ask them to describe them e.g. hard, soft, shiny, dull, bendy. Introduce words children are not familiar with. Record e.g. by writing descriptions around a picture of the object.

Children Should Learn

To record observations of materials.

Take the class into the school grounds or an a ﬁeld trip ask the group to ﬁnd objects which feel like descriptive words, e.g. hard, prickly, shiny, etc.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

Use words e.g. hard, shiny, rough to describe materials and objects.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

To ask questions and to explore materials and objects using appropriate senses, making observations and communicating these.

Ask children to suggest other senses they could use to ﬁnd out what objects are like. Use feely bags or a blindfold game to encourage children to use senses of touch, hearing and smell to describe or identify materials.

Ask suitable questions about objects.

Ask children who are not blindfolded to ask questions e.g. Is it hard, smooth, rough? Does it make a noise? On a ﬁeld trip or around the school grounds spot how many different kinds of materials are used and what objects they make. What properties of the materials make them suited for use in What is a natural material and the objects they make? what is synthetic. Classify synthetic form and natural materials. That objects are made from materials, and different, everyday objects can be made from the same materials.

Describe materials in terms of senses e.g. this feels smooth, this rattles when I shake it, I know this is wood because of the way it feels.

Describe the object they chose e.g. I chose this wooden egg, it’s smooth, hard and won’t break. Group together objects made of the same material and name the material.

UNIT 2: Sorting and Using Materials LESSON PLAN In this unit children will be introduced to thinking about materials and their properties, how they are used and where different materials are used. Studying materials outside of the classroom, gives a chance for children to look at materials in the environment. Children can see how natural and non-natural materials appear outside and how materials weather and degrade. Location: School Grounds or Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • 15 Blindfolds • 20 Objects made of natural and non-natural materials • 1 Large box with a lid • 15 Egg boxes • Clipboard • Pencils

Activity 1: Guess the object Resources: • 15 Blindfolds • 20 Objects made of natural and non-natural materials • 1 Large box with a lid This game introduces the children to the idea that materials have a tactile quality and sometimes a particular smell. • Organise the class into pairs and ask them to stand with their partner in a circle around you. • Have the objects in a box with a lid, in the centre with you and explain to the children that each pair will be given an object and that one of them will be blindfolded. The blindfolded child will have described how the object feels and the smell of it. They can even take a guess as to what the object is, but their partner cannot say if they are right. • Once they have felt and smelt their object their partner places the object back in the box, in the centre of the circle and goes back to their partner.

• Once all objects are back in the box the signal is given to take the blindfolds off and the children from each pair try and pick out their object from the box. • After every one has had a go, swap over the blindfolds and have another go. You can use another box with different objects in it.

Activity 2: Unnature/Nature Trail Resources: • 20 Objects made of natural and non-natural materials. This game is played to help children focus on how non-natural materials can be seen (or not seen) in the natural environment. • Choose a 15 to 20-metre section of footpath beside a hedge or area of long grass. Place along it 10 to 15 non-natural objects. Some of them should stand out brightly; others should blend in with their surroundings. Try and be imaginative, mirrors can give great effects and elastic bands can look for very natural. • The children walk over the section of trail one at a time, with intervals between them, trying to spot (but not pick up) as many as they can. They must walk without talking and without pointing. When they reach the end of the trail they can tell a grown up what they saw. Then tell them how many objects were on the trail. • Discuss how non-natural objects can be overlooked in the natural world; discuss how this can relate to how we often do not see litter or broken objects outside. • Get the children to think about what colours, textures and shapes are natural and what are not natural.

Activity 3: Half a dozen words Resources: • 15 Egg boxes This activity helps children put descriptive words to objects. Let the children work in pairs so they can discuss their ﬁnds and their work together. The same six descriptive words need to written in each egg box or for younger children pieces of fabric and textured card can be placed in the base of each egg holder of the box. The object of the game is for children to place something that matches the descriptive word or the textured material in each section of the egg box.

Unit 3 Plants and Animals in the Local Environment NC Sc2 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2e, 2f, 2g, 3a, 3b, 3c, 4b, 5a, 5b, 5c

Science KS1

ABOUT THE UNIT Through this unit children learn about plants and animals in their immediate environment and how differences between places very close to each other result in a different range of plants and animals being found. They learn that like humans, plants and other animals reproduce. Work in this unit also offers opportunities to relate understanding of science to the local environment, to consider how to treat living things and the environment with care and sensitivity and to recognise hazards and to take action to control the risks from these hazards.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Builds on unit 1 ‘Growing plants’ Children need: • To know the names of the parts of ﬂowering plants. • To understand that plants and animals are living. • Links with unit 4 Variation, and Geography NC 5a, 5b, 7a and 7b.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Words and phrases relating to life processes e.g. produce new plants, produce young, reproduce. • Names for animals e.g. worm, snail, ﬂy, robin. • Names for plants e.g. daisy, dandelion, oak tree. • Words which have a different meaning in other contexts e.g. shoot, fruit, earth, table. • Expressions to describe location e.g. within, under, next to. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children Should Learn

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

Introduce unit by asking children what they understand by the word ‘animal’ and ‘plant’ and extend to talking about where they would expect to find animals and plants locally. Walk round the school or visit the local park to identify where plants are growing and where there are animals e.g. turn over stones and lift plant pots To treat animals and the to find woodlice, look under damp environment with care and bushes or by damp walls for snails, dig sensitivity. up soil to find earthworms or observe a bird feeding area in the playground, To recognise hazards in go pond dipping. Help children to make working with soil. a brief record of what they find using a To observe and make a record table prepared for them. Talk with them of animals and plants found. about what animals and plants were found and where they were found. To present results in a table. That there are different kinds of plants and animals in the immediate environment.

Identify a number of plants e.g. dandelion, daisy, buttercup, daffodil, oak tree, holly tree, cherry tree and animals e.g. worm, snail, robin, sparrow, caterpillar, ﬂy. State where some of these were found e.g. the daisies were in the grass, the snails were under the bucket by the wall. Produce a record showing clearly the living things they saw and where they were found.

31 RIGHT

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Choose two contrasting areas e.g. the playground, a playing field, an unpaved area under a tree, a school garden, a To make predictions about pond, a grassy area, a woodland. Ask the animals and plants found children to predict and then find out in different local habitats and what animals and plants they can find to investigate these. in each and help them to describe, To use drawings to present using drawing and writing, differences results and make comparisons between the two areas. Ask them saying whether their to speculate on reasons for the predictions were supported. differences and whether they found the That flowering plants produce animals and plants they expected. seeds. Review children’s understanding of where new plants come from. Show children a series of pictures of plants in flower and with fruits e.g. apple trees, dandelions, horse chestnut trees and explain that the fruits which contain the seeds are produced from the flower. Introduce the term ‘reproduce’. Present children with a collection of seeds and fruits of different shapes and colours. Challenge children to find the seeds in some plants.

Identify differences between two habitats and living things found there e.g. by drawing and interpreting a picture saying whether they found what they expected.

That seeds produce new plants.

State that seeds grow into plants.

That there are differences between local habitats.

That animals reproduce and change as they grow older.

Ask children to suggest what is needed for seeds to begin to grow. If necessary, prompt them to think about where they found plants growing in the local environment. Use ﬁrst-hand observation e.g. of frogspawn to illustrate to children that animals in their local environment e.g. birds, frogs, snails, butterﬂies produce young which grow into adults. Ask children to write about, and illustrate, changes in one animal. Draw together work in this unit by discussing the habitats with the children and asking them to produce an information sheet, for their parents, about these habitats and the animals and plants that are found there.

Suggest reasons for differences e.g. it’s too dry under the tree, there isn’t any soil in the playground but spiders live between the bricks. State that seeds come from the ﬂower of a plant. Recognise the huge variety of seeds from which plants grow.

Recognise that animals in their local environment produce young. Describe how one animal changes as it grows e.g. tadpole to frog or baby bird to adult.

UNIT 3: Plants and Animals in the Local Environment LESSON PLAN This unit examines the range of plants and animals in the children’s local environment and what a habitat is. Location: Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • Six balls of wool (red, yellow, green, black, brown & blue) • Scissors • Six jars • Cardboard frames • Resource sheet: The Habitat (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils • Resource sheets: Animal Eye Spy ID Sheets (provided below) • Bug jars • White sheets or white umbrellas • Sweep net • Pond net • White trays • Large cardboard or plastic boxes • A collection of pictures or plastic mini-beasts from the eye spy sheets • Colour pictures from magazines or photographs of the habitats studied

Activity 1: Camouflage Worms Resources • Six balls of wool (red, yellow, green, black, brown & blue) • Scissors • Six jars or clear plastic pots Before going on a bug hunt it is important to help children understand that most of the small beasties will be hiding from them. A camouflage game will highlight why most animals are dingy browns and blacks, as they escape notice from hungry birds. • Preparation is the art of this game. Take six balls of coloured wool and cut from each ball twenty equal length short pieces. • Take your “worms” and spread them over a small piece of grassland. • Bring the group out to the place where the worms have been left and explain how the colourful worms have escaped and they need to be collected back in. • Explain where the group needs to look. Ask them to keep hold of any worms that are picked up. • Give the group five minutes to search the ground and call them back. • Get the group to place their finds in clear plastic pots, a separate pot for each colour. Take the six pots and hold them aloft so every one can see how full they are. It should be seen that the bright red and yellow worms have been found easily and the black and brown ones were hard to find. If time allows let the group see if they can find the missing worms. Some of the group may ask about brightly coloured insects. Bees and wasps have bright black and yellow stripes which show they sting. Ladybirds are bright red and taste disgusting. So any young bird is soon going to learn to avoid brightly coloured food. However some animals cheat such as the hover flies. These little copycats have black and yellow stripes, but have no sting.

Activity 2: Habitat Sketches Resources: • Cardboard frames • Resource sheet: The Habitat (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils It is desirable that children make a mental note of the whole habitat before embarking on any detailed study. The children can use the cardboard frames to frame a view of the habitat; they then sketch their impression of the view into the sketch box provided on the habitat sheet. They need to show if there are different layers of vegetation, e.g. trees, bushes, long grass. They can also show if there are logs, paths, water, rocks etc. After their sketch is complete they can then tick off the habitat features on the sheet. This exercise is best if two or more habitats can be sketched and studied in the same way, for example the school grounds playground, a local park and a pond or woodland. This activity does not need artistic ﬂair, but encourages children to think of using simple sketches as a pictorial record. For very young children use a bottomless cardboard box, place it sideways and use it as a ‘habitat TV’. Gather the class around to look at it and describe the habitat they can see. Ask questions for example: What is the tallest tree? Where are there ﬂowers? Etc.

Activity 3: Animal Eye Spy Resources: • Resource sheets: Animal Eye Spy ID Sheets (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils • Bug jars • White plastic spoons • White sheets or white umbrellas • Sweep net • Pond net* • White trays* (* Pond dipping equipment) Most children will be familiar at playing eye spy and enjoy matching things to pictures. To introduce the concept of variety in the small animal world, it is best to make it as much of a game as possible. Use the animal eye spy sheet in this lesson plan or one that is similar. The class are best working in pairs and developing teamwork skills of sharing the duties of carrying the clipboard and any equipment. The session is of most interest and value if an area can be chosen that incorporates a number of habitats, for example areas of long grass, logs in woodland and a pond. If it is impossible in one day, try and follow up one visit outside with another as quickly as possible, to prevent children forgetting the first experience. Set the children the challenge of trying to match the animals they find to the pictures on their sheets. Explain the animals pictured on their sheets are common small animals found in the habitat the class is searching in (there are separate eye spy sheets for log piles, bush beating and pond dipping). Show the children how to look for animals carefully and safely under logs, whilst pond dipping and in bush beating. The finer points of mini-beast hunting are outlined below:

Log Hunt • Find an area of woodland with some small logs, which have rested in one place for some time. Avoid areas of nettles, thistles or brambles. • Show the class how to carefully turn a log over to reveal the ground underneath, look for animals in the soil, leaf litter and on the log. • Carefully show how to transfer a small animal from the log or soil to a bug jar using a white plastic spoon. However for the brave it is always best to use ﬁngers as there is less chance of losing the catch and squashing the animal. Do watch out for centipedes, big spiders and earwigs, which rarely can give a slight nip. • Put the animals in the bug jar straight away and then encourage the children to identify their catch on their eye spy sheet. After ticking off their catch, release the animal close to where it was found. • After looking under a log, always put it back the way it was. Explain it is just like closing the door to a house.

Bush Beating • Spread a white sheet or place an upside down umbrella under a bush, then beat the bush quite vigorously with a bat. Make sure the children do not swing out to enthusiastically with their bats! • Animals on the bush will fall onto the white surface beneath the bush. Once beating has stopped, carefully transfer animals from the white surface into a bug jar for identification. • Once ticked off put animals back into the bush and shake off the sheet or umbrella over the bush. With a proper insect catching sweep net, hours of fun can be achieved in areas of long vegetation growth. Just swoosh the net through long grass or low shrubs and a multitude of insect and spider life can be found. If sweep nets are not available the same kind of effect can be gained in long grass using sturdy pond nets with a very fine mesh. Pond Dipping Great care must be taken near ponds and the risk assessment and health and safety procedures in the Health and Safety section of this pack must be checked before going out. It is always preferable to use a qualified member of staff from the site the group are visiting, if a pond is not available in the school grounds. • Introduce the class, quietly, to the pond side, ask them to stay still on the bank side and for a moment just quietly observe the pond. Ask the children to extend a finger on one hand for each animal they see flying or skimming over the water. Give them time to concentrate and then ask them to hold up their hands and show how many fingers they have up. • Take the children carefully through the rules of how to pond dip. Explain that they are going to work in pairs and each pair will have a pond net and a white tray. • Show the group how to carefully put water in the tray from the waters edge and demonstrate the safe use of pond nets. • The children work in pairs identifying the animals on their eye spy sheet and noting if the animals are skimmers, swimmers or bottom crawlers.

Activity 4: Home Sweet Home Resources: • Large cardboard or plastic boxes • A collection of pictures or plastic mini-beasts from the eye spy sheets • Colour pictures from magazines or photographs of the habitats studied In preparing for this game the pictures of the habitats should be stuck to a particular box e.g. a woodland box, a log pile box, a pond box, etc. • Ask the children to form a line in front of the habitat boxes and then give each child three or four pictures or plastic animals. • Once every child has their own collection of mini-beasts, explain that the animals want to go home and the children have to put the animals back in the right habitat. • Give them a moment to think about their animals and the options in front of them, before giving the clear command to ﬁnd the animal homes. • After all the animals have been placed in boxes, gather the class around to look at each box in turn and see if every animal is in the right habitat. If an animal is in the wrong box; just ask the class where they remember seeing an animal like it, and then which box it should be in.

Resource Sheets: Unit 3, Activity 2

The Habitat What is this place called? –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– What type of habitat is it? ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Use the picture frames to ﬁnd a view you like and then draw it in the box.

Tick if the following things are in your picture. Trees

a joint project

Flowers

Logs

Resource Sheets: Unit 3, Activity 3, Animal Eye Spy

Log Hunt Tick the boxes of the creatures that you ﬁnd

□ Snail

□ Slug

□ Insect grub

□ Worm

□ Springtail

□ Fly

□ Earwig

□ Ground beetle

□ Ant

□ Bristletail

□ Caterpillar

□ Ground bug

□ Weevil

□ Rove beetle

□ Beetle larva

□ Harvestman

□ Spider

□ Woodlouse

□ Pill millipede

□ Millipede

□ Centipede

a joint project

Resource Sheets: Unit 3, Activity 3, Animal Eye Spy

Bush Beating/ Sweep Net Tick the boxes of the creatures that you ﬁnd

□ Grasshopper

□ Bush cricket

□ Moth

□ Butterﬂy

□ Caterpillar

□ Leaf bug

□ Ladybird

□ Soldier beetle

□ Leaf beetle

□ Spider

□ Ant

□ Earwig

□ Shield bug

a joint project

Resource Sheets: Unit 3, Activity 3, Animal Eye Spy

Pond Life Tick the boxes of the creatures that you ﬁnd

□ Worm

□ Leech

□ Flatworm

□ Pond snail

□ Pea mussel

□ Non-biting midge larva

□ Biting midge larva

□ Mosquito larva

□ Rat tailed maggot

□ Phantom midge larva □ Midge pupa

□ Crane fly larva

□ Freshwater hog louse

□ Freshwater shrimp

□ Water mite

□ Freshwater spider

□ Mayfly nymph

□ Damselfly nymph

□ Dragonfly nymph

□ Beetle larva

□ Alderfly larva

□ Water scorpion

□ Water stick insect

□ Pond skater

□ Water measurer

□ Greater water boatman

□ Lesser water boatman □ Water beetle

a joint project

Unit 4 Variation

Science KS1

NC Sc2 2a, 2e, 2g, 4g, 5a

ABOUT THE UNIT Through this unit children will become more aware of the huge variety of living things within their local environment and of differences between them. They will learn that although individual living things are different there are similarities, which can help to sort them into groups, and that this is helpful. Work in this unit also offers opportunities for children to relate understanding of science to environmental contexts and to consider how to treat living things with sensitivity.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Builds on Unit 1 ‘Growing plants’ and Unit 3 ‘Plants and animals in the local environment’ Children need: To know vocabulary relating to plants and animals from previous units. Links with geography NC 5a, 5b, 7a and 7b and art NC 5d.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: Words naming features of animals and plants e.g. feathers, fur, shell, branch. Comparative expressions e.g. long, longer, longest, small, smaller, smallest, similar to, different from. Expressions making generalisations e.g. ‘most have...’

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

To observe and recognise some simple characteristics of animals and plants.

Review children’s understanding by presenting them with a collection of pictures and specimens of animals and plants e.g. bee, spider, worm, mealworm, snail, dog, horse, bird, snake, crocodile, butterﬂy, whale, grass, ivy, holly, cherry tree, daffodil, oak tree, human and ask them to group them into animals and plants. Illicit simple ideas about the groupings e.g. the plants have green parts, the animals all move.

Children Should Learn

That the group of living things called animals includes humans. To treat animals with care.

Build on the classroom experience by taking the class outside for a minibeast hunt, pond dip, woodland canopy survey, etc.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

Decide whether a familiar living thing is an animal or plant and give a simple reason for the decision e.g. it has got leaves, it can move. Give a simple reason why humans are part of the animal group e.g. we walk, we grow. Recognise that animals need to be handled with care.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

That humans are more like each other than they are like other animals.

Show children a variety of animals on a ﬁeld visit. Present children with a collection of pictures of humans and other animals and ask them to consider questions e.g.

To make careful observations to identify similarities.

• In what ways are all the animals like each other? • Which are humans? • How do we know? • In what ways are all the humans like each other? Ask children to suggest two answers to each question.

That plants in the local environment are similar to each other in some ways and different in others. To make observations and comparisons of local plants. That living things in the locality can be grouped according to observable similarities and differences. To present results in a block graph.

Present children with a collection of plants found locally, including some that have had the soil washed from their roots. Clarify the distinction between part of a plant and a whole plant e.g. a daisy flower and a daisy plant and revise the parts (plant, leaf, stem, root and flower). Show, using pictures or by going outside, that many trees have flowers. Ask children to choose two different plants and make drawings of them, labelling parts e.g. stem, leaf, root, flower, branch and describe how these differ. From a survey of animals from a mini-beast hunt or a pond dip found in the local environment, ask them to find different ways of sorting them e.g. legs/no legs, fly/walk/slither. Talk with children about their groupings and help them to make block graphs showing their findings.

Identify ways in which the animals are like each other e.g. they’ve all got heads, they’ve all got eyes, they all move. Identify ways in which the humans are all like each other e.g. we all have two eyes, two legs. Identify ways in which humans are different from many other animals e.g. we walk on two legs/upright, we don’t have fur, we have hair.

Identify parts common to plants and point out differences e.g. shape of leaf, colour of ﬂower, thickness or woodiness of stem. Choose a criterion for grouping. With help, present ﬁndings in a block graph and explain what this shows.

UNIT 4: Variation LESSON PLAN Through this unit children are made aware not only of the huge variety of plant and animal life, but also of how the differences between living things can be used to group and order animals and plants into types and species. Location: Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: Collection of play buttons Resource sheet: Scavenger hunt list (provided below) Resource sheet: Happy Families Simple Mini-beast key (provided below) Bug jars Clipboards Pencils Animal pictures

Activity 1: Sorting Buttons Resources: Collections of play buttons This activity introduces children to the idea of how to look for differences and similarities between plants and how the characteristics of living things can be used to identify particular species and groups of living things. • Divide the class into groups of five or six. • Give each group a couple of handfuls of buttons. • Ask the groups to divide their buttons up, do not give too many instructions as you want the children to do this working as a group and through discussion. • Once the groups have finished sorting, ask the children from each group to explain how they divided their buttons, you will find some groups have used colour, some have used shape, some the number of holes in the centre and some have used a combination of these characteristics.

Activity 2: Scavenger Hunt Resources: • Resource sheet: Scavenger Hunt list Before looking at the variety of life children need to understand the idea of what is alive, what has been alive, what was once part of a living thing and what has never been alive. This scavenger hunt has been devised to help them think creatively by using simple language; if working with very young children or supported readers, use illustrated lists or call out item by item. To make the hunt fun and not an impossible chore, it may be necessary to seed a few items in places.

Activity 3: Happy Families Resources: • Resource sheet: Happy Families Simple Mini-beast key (provided below) • Bug jars • Clipboards • Pencils Using the simple mini-beast key the children will use the layout of the sheet to identify their animal finds under the broad classification of animal families. The key is simple in that they use number of legs and body segments to divide animals into groups. This activity is based on a mini-beast search for invertebrates that live in dead wood, under logs and stones. The animals are easy to find and the animals are already familiar to most children.

Activity 4: What Animal Am I? Resources: • Animal pictures This is basically like the game 20 questions. Pick a volunteer from the group and show them a picture of an animal the children would have seen locally or on the mini-beast hunt. Check that the volunteer is happy and knows what the animal is. Make sure the rest of the class has not seen the picture. Explain that the children can only ﬁnd out what the animal is by asking the volunteer questions, but the volunteer can only give yes or no answers. By the children having to think of questions that can be answered by yes and no, the group is beginning to key animals out mentally.

Resource Sheet: Unit 4, Activity 2

Scavenger Hunt Collect only things you can pick up safely and cleanly, without harming plants or animals. 1. A feather 2. A seed that spins in the air 3. A green leaf 4. A brown leaf 5. A stone 6. A stick 7. A spoonful of soil 8. Something human-made 9. Something shiny 10. An acorn 11. A snail shell 12. A yellow petal 13. A ﬁr cone 14. Some moss 15. A piece of paper

a joint project

Resource Sheet: Unit 4, Activity 3

Happy Families Simple Mini-beast Key This sheet shows a key, which helps us identify mini-beasts. NO Does it have a shell? NO Does it have segments?

YES

Does it have 3 parts to the body?

YES

Is the body in 2 parts?

Is the body in 1 part?

YES

Does your minibeast have legs?

YES

Does it have 6 legs? NO Does it have 8 legs? NO Does it have 14 legs? NO Does it have more than 14 legs?

Is there only 1 pair of legs on each segment? NO Are there 2 pairs of legs on each segment?

YES

Worm

Insect larvae

Snail

YES

Insect

Does it have less than 14 segments? NO More than 14 segments?

YES

Harvestman

Slug

YES

Spider

Millipede

Centipede

Woodlouse

YES

a joint project

Unit 5 Around our School – The Local Area NC Geog 1 pos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Geography KS1

ABOUT THE UNIT This is a ‘long’ unit. It uses investigative tasks to introduce children to the idea of looking at their local area. The local area will be studied frequently during a child’s time in primary school and therefore this unit focuses on aspects of local features, land use and environment. The aim of KS1 Geography is the investigation of the children’s local area. In doing this they ask geographical questions and investigations inside and outside the classroom. This unit depends on the built environment London has to offer the budding geographer and uses the unique opportunities a cityscape has to offer. The unit offers links to Literacy, Mathematics, Speaking and Listening, Design and Technology, History, IT and the world of work.

SKILLS • Take part in enquiry process • Use geographical terms • Undertake ﬁeldwork • Follow directions • Make maps and plans • Locate home locality • Follow a route • Use secondary sources

THEMES • Land and building use • Environment: express views

VOCABULARY In this unit, children are likely to use: • Address, near, far, travel, journey, routes, features, attractive, buildings, ofﬁces, church, shop, houses, ﬂats, garage, factory, leisure, playground, park. They may also use: • Parade, library, museum, facilities.

PRIOR LEARNING It is helpful if the children have: • Experienced some introductory work on their school grounds and local area in reception classes.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children Should Learn

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

What can we see in the streets around our school? To recognise some of the Show the children pictures of the Identify a clear sequence of physical and human features in locality, ask them to group them features seen on their route their locality. into sets, e.g. far and near, buildings to school. and features, and place them in the To understand some of the Use correct vocabulary to sequence they are seen on the route ways in which the features are describe features. to school. used. Help the children to identify what individual buildings are used for and ask them to annotate correctly the map they have drawn. Ask parents and grandparents about their memories of how the local streets have changed: What are new features? What are old features? What are our immediate surroundings like? To describe the features of the local environment. To express views on the features. That changes occur in the locality.

Walk the children around the local area to identify the main features and changes that are occurring. Ask the children to complete a simple questionnaire to rate the quality of the features and to present the ﬁndings in a suitable way, e.g. chart, graph, poster or similar. Ask the children to sketch or photograph a range of attractive and unattractive places and locate these on a large-scale map. Discuss with the children their favourite place seen on the walk and ask them to write about it, explaining what makes a ‘nice’ or ‘nasty’ place. Divide the children into pairs and ask them to identify a route around the area that visitors could follow to give them a good idea of the character of the place.

Use a range of words and pictures to show their views on the quality of the environment. Know about changes in their locality.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children Should Learn

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

How do people spend their leisure time? Look at how people use leisure time in parks, nature reserves and other spaces where wildlife thrives.

With the children’s help, design and carry out a survey of how they, their parents, other adults and friends spend their leisure time in parks and other green spaces. With the children’s help, use local maps, photographs, including aerial photographs to plot a base map of green spaces.

Know that a local area may have a variety of leisure green spaces. How many green spaces are open to the public?

Ask questions such as: How often do people visit green spaces? Why do people go to green spaces? Are there any changes taking place in our area? How places change for better Discuss with the children the changes or worse over time. they have noted during their work on the area. With help from the children, make a list of them and mark them on a large map of the area. Take photographs of the changes to form a historical record that future classes can use when looking at how the area has changed.

Realise that the process of change is continuous and happens in most places. What areas are conserved in terms of heritage or nature conservation? Develop their understanding of chronology.

UNIT 5: Around our School – The Local Area LESSON PLAN In this unit children are enabled to understand their local environment. Most people are unaware of their own environment, but don’t realise it: they think they have noticed everything, but in fact they have only retained only a small, highly selective proportion of what they see. For small children the activities in these pages allow them not only to explore their area by using survey techniques, but also interact with friends and family in discussing their work. Location: Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • Clipboards • Pencils • Resource sheet: Window Shopping (provided below) • Large-scale map of route from school to park • Resource sheet: Landscape Assessment (provided below) • Resource sheet: Park Survey (provided below) • Plan of the school playground

Activity 1: A Walk from School to the Park Resources: • Clipboards • Pencils • Resource sheet: Window Shopping • Large-scale map of route from school to park In this activity the children work in teams of four with one adult, mapping on a large plan the shops, services, houses, buildings, green spaces, etc. and a route from school to a local park. If there is no park within walking distance, take a well-known route to a churchyard, a recreation ground or some kind of safe gathering space. Be sure that each adult reminds the children to stick with them at all times, have ﬂuorescent jackets or sashes for the children to wear and if at all possible only use a route with no or few crossings, crossing roads using pedestrian crossings.

Back in the classroom most children will have recorded some buildings more than others, and others by none. The class can discuss why some buildings are more memorable then others. If time allows do the ‘Window Shopping’ resources sheet. Just get the children to look at the windows on the route and tick off which ones they see and where. In some parts of London the window survey can bring up some very surprising results and allows the children to imagine a walk to school from 100 years ago to 800 years ago.

Activity 2: The Park Resources: • Clipboards • Pencils • Resource sheet: Landscape Assessment (provided below) • Resource sheet: Park Survey (provided below) This activity can be combined with one of the science units to save time. Children are asked to use the Landscape Assessment sheet to determine whether the landscape is nice or nasty. Back in the classroom the children can do the same assessment again of the view of the school ground or from their classroom window. The children can be helped with the addition in the classroom and the class results used to gauge people’s individual impressions. Ask questions: Did every one agree on some points? Why do people have different ideas about what is nice or nasty? After looking at the park broadly in terms of landscape, then take an opportunity for the class to look at how the landscape is used. The Park Survey resource sheet lists key activities which the children then look out for, and tick off the number of times they see an individual doing those actions. The results can be used to draw charts of how the park is used. Discuss why the time of day, the season and weather may have had an affect on what happened at the park during the survey.

Activity 3: The Playground Resources: • Clipboards • Pencils • Plan of the school playground During a school break time organise the class into groups of four and with an adult helper ask the children to write on their school playground plan the activities that happen in each part of the playground. The children need to be looking at how space, playground furniture and the outside of the school building, is being used. Back in class pool the class results and discuss why space is used as it is. Can they see any conﬂicts between various user groups and how can the playground be improved for its users. Compare the ﬁndings with the park survey and discuss how different spaces are used.

Resource Sheet: Unit 5, Activity 1

Window Shopping

□ Tudor

□ Elizabethan

□ Queen Anne

□ Georgian

□ Victorian

□ Edwardian sash and stained glass

□ Pre-war tenement

□ Fifties suburban

□ Double-glazed modern

a joint project

Resource Sheet: Unit 5, Activity 2

Landscape Assessment View of.

Circle a number between 1 and 3 in answer to each question

Yes

Unsure

Is this view friendly?

Is this view pretty?

Is this view tidy?

Is this view colourful?

Is this view well looked after?

Do the paths look good?

Are the trees and plants nice?

Well looked after?

Do you feel safe?

Is it quiet here?

If there are buildings are they

View total score

The weather was

The date was.

a joint project

Resource Sheet: Unit 5, Activity 2

Park Survey In this survey you are ticking off the number of times you see someone doing an activity on the survey sheet. Someone may be doing more than one thing at a time so tick them off for each activity.

What people may be doing in the park Tick for each person seen doing the activity

Cycling Walking Walking the dog Sitting Chatting with friends Having a picnic Reading Meeting friends Playing on the play equipment Playing games Bird watching Feeding the birds Running Playing a musical instrument

Use the spaces left for anything else people might be doing. a joint project

Key Stage 2 Schemes of Work for Outdoor Education Unit 1: Plants Unit 2: Characteristics of Materials Unit 3: Rocks and Soils Unit 4: Moving and Growing Unit 5: Habitats Unit 6: Interdependence and Adaptation Unit 7: Improving the Environment

a joint project

Unit 1 Plants

NC Sc1 1, 2a, 2c, 2d, 2i, 2j, 2k, 2l 2m NC Sc2 1a, 1b, 1c, 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d, 4a 5e

Science KS2

ABOUT THE UNIT In this unit children learn about what plants need to grow well and why it is important that they do. Work in this unit also offers opportunities for children to relate their knowledge about the growth of plants to everyday contexts.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Builds on unit 1 ‘Growing Plants’ and Unit 3 KS1 ‘Plants and Animals in the Local Environment’ . Children need: • To know that plants grow and reproduce. • To know that plants need water to grow. • Links with Design and Technology (food) and Geography.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Words to describe physical characteristics of plants e.g. yellow, pale, thin, spindly. • Expressions of reason using ‘because’. • Expressions making generalisations. • Words and phrases associated with life processes e.g. reproduction, life cycle. • Names for parts of a ﬂower e.g. stamen, style, stigma, sepal, petal, ovary, pollen. • Names for processes related to life cycles and associated verbs e.g. reproduction/reproduce, germination/germinate, pollination/pollinate, fertilisation/fertilise, dispersal/disperse. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children Should Learn

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

Review children’s knowledge of plants as living things by asking them questions e.g. • What plants can you see? • Are they all living? • How do you know? • How do we help plants to grow well? That water is taken in through Why do we need plants to grow well? the roots. Show how plants grow in the wild, That leaves are important for compare surface rooting grasses with deep rooting dandelions. plant growth. Compare leaves from different types of plants; show how long tall grasses have little leaf area, but a fast growth form. broad leaf plants, such as dandelions grow in rosettes in short grasslands, and have a slower growth then grasses.

Explain that plant roots vary between different species of plants. Plant roots are part of the adaptations of plants to their habitat. Explain how leaf shape and leaf arrangement on plants, best ﬁts different species to their preferred habitats.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

That ﬂowering plants reproduce.

Remind children of earlier work on seeds and plant growth and show them ﬂowering plants or plants with ripe fruits and ask children a series of questions about their ideas about fruits e.g.

Recognise that ﬂowering plants produce seeds from their ﬂowers which grow into new plants.

• Where did the fruits grow from? • What will happen to the fruits? • Why are they important to the plant? Remind children that ﬂowering plants produce fruits and seeds from their ﬂowers and that these grow into new plants and ask them to draw a simple sequence of pictures to illustrate this. That seeds can be dispersed in a variety of ways.

Help children to make a collection of fruits with seeds. Talk with the children about seed dispersal and use observations to ﬁnd out and record To make careful observations how the seeds are dispersed including of fruits and seeds, to the role of humans and other animals compare them and use results in the process. Ask children to suggest to draw conclusions. why plants produce so many seeds. Talk with them about reasons why seeds may not grow into new plants That many fruits and seeds e.g. including humans growing some provide food for animals plants to provide food. including humans.

Explain why seeds need to be dispersed e.g. to have the best chance of growing into a new plant.

That plants reproduce.

Suggest suitable factors e.g. light, warmth, water, soil to investigate and how they will carry out a fair test of these.

To consider conditions that might affect germination and plan how to test them. That seeds need water and warmth (but not light) for germination.

Remind children that once seeds have been dispersed they need to germinate. If it is spring, look for new plants and ask children to describe where they grow. Ask children to suggest what seeds need in order to germinate and how they could investigate this.

Explain that water, wind, explosion and animals disperse seeds. Suggest reasons why some seeds may not grow into plants.

State that the seeds in the dark germinate as well as those in the light. State that water and warmth are also needed for germination.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

That insects pollinate some ﬂowers.

Talk with children about what happens to seeds once they have germinated and refer back to what they know about the conditions needed for healthy growth. Visit park or school grounds to look at ﬂowers and insect pollination. Talk to children about the role of the insects and ask them to think about how pollination takes place early in the year when there are few insects about. Relate to hay fever and pollen count.

Explain that pollen has to be transferred from one ﬂower to another during pollination e.g. by insects, wind.

That plants produce ﬂowers which have male and female organs, seeds are formed when pollen from the male organ fertilises the ovum (female).

Using examples and drawings of ﬂowers help children to observe ﬂower structure and to learn the names and function of parts. Using a hand lens or microscope, observe stamen with pollen and pollen grains from a number of different sources. Challenge children to speculate how the differences might be useful.

Name the parts of the ﬂower e.g. stamen, stigma, style, petal, sepal and explain the function of each.

About the life cycle of ﬂowering plants including pollination, fertilisation, seed production, seed dispersal and germination.

On a ﬁeld trip look at the various stages of plant growth e.g. dandelion seeds, their dispersal, seedlings, adult plants and ﬂowers. With the children compare the life cycles of different plants.

Distinguish between pollen dispersal and seed dispersal and the mechanisms for these.

Children can recognise plants that depend on insects for pollination and those plants that depend on wind pollination e.g. buttercups and grasses respectively.

Explain that seeds are formed after pollination when pollen fertilises the ovum.

Order correctly the steps in the life cycle of a plant.

UNIT 1: Plants LESSON PLAN At KS2 children are building on the scheme of outdoor work from KS1. Take time to review children’s knowledge of plants as living things. Revise what makes a thing living and non-living. In this scheme of work the emphasis is on plants requirements for growth and how their leaves, roots and stems help them achieve the best capture of nutrients and sunlight. Location: School Grounds Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • Leaf slides: see details below • 10 P.E. Hula-hoops • Resource sheet: Dandelions, Daisies and Buttercup (provided below) • 10 Clipboards • Pencils • 60 Yellow circles of card 5cm in diameter

Marked S

• 60 Blue circles of card 5cm in diameter

Marked H2O

• 60 Red circles of card 5cm in diameter

Marked C

• 60 White circles of card 5cm in diameter

Marked O2

• A green tarpaulin or green table cloth cut or folded into the shape of a leaf • Sticky velcro

Activity 1: Leaf Slides You will need: Leaf slides: see details below This game encourages the children to view leaves close up and share descriptions of their leaves to their classmates. This activity is best if there are some leaf slides prepared for the group. The children can make their own leaf slide before going out. Leaf slides are rectangles of card 16cms by 8cms. Fold the card forming a 8cm square, then cut a central square window from both sides of the card leaving a frame of 2cms in-depth in both halves of the card. When folded the children should have something that resembles a slide frame. The frames can be decorated; laminating them adds to their longevity and waterprooﬁng.

This activity works well in a school garden or formal park where there is great wealth of garden plants, trees and wild ﬂower areas. Children have their leaf slide and when they reach an area of plant life for investigation they are told they can pick one leaf from a tree, a bush or from the ground ﬂora. Warn them about thistles, nettles and brambles; show them examples of these plants if they are around. (Check with site staff if you are visiting a park: if there are any giant hogweeds around, they are very noxious and touching them will result in rashes). • Tell the children to stand in a circle around you. • Ask the children to place their leaf in the leaf slide and hold the slide up to the light. (Tell them not to stare directly into the sun). • Tell the children to look at both sides of their leaf using the leaf slide. Can they see the following: Tiny pores (the stomata), hairs, waxy surface, veins, spots and rot, places where the leaf is damaged, or any surprises? • Then just like a carousel in a slide projector ask them to pass their leaf to their neighbour, describing exciting things about their leaf. The cue to pass the leaf slide could be a buzzer or a pace clicker. • Stop the activity once every child has their original leaf returned to them. Extension: Ask the children to return their leaf to the plant or tree they took it from. Ask them to observe whether all the leaves on their plant are the same size, shape and colour.

Activity 2: Dandelions, Daisies and Buttercups Resources: • 10 PE Hula-hoops • Resource sheet: Dandelions, Daisies and Buttercups (provided below) • 10 Clipboards • Pencils In this activity a green space that has open space under trees, areas of long grass and mown grassland are best. The children are exploring where different plants grow and why. dandelions, daisies and buttercups are easily identified, even by their leaf shape and a quick introduction to the plants will help children pick the plants out by leaf shape in the grassland. Show them how to follow the plants leaf to where the plant is growing and this will lead them to find the whole plant. The leaves of all three species grow from a central point around the stem, in a rosette pattern. • Divide the class up into 10 teams. • Ask the children to place their hula-hoop on the ground in the area of long grass, mown grass and in the shade of trees. • Using the resource sheet, ask the children to count how many plants (not leaves) of each of the three species they can find in the area of their hoop. • Ask them to note if the leaves are bigger or smaller in comparison to the other areas. The results from the resource sheet could be added together and an average result taken for an extension into mathematics.

The results should show that there are few rosette forming species under the trees, but the group may have noticed that there were also very few grasses or other species there. In the long grass there would be fewer rosette forming species than in mown grass, but where they did grow in long grass they had very long and wide leaves. Rosette-leaved species such as dandelions, buttercups and daisies are superbly adapted for growing in mown areas of grassland, and their leaves lie ﬂat on the ground and are not cut by the blades of the mower. In long grassland they grow larger, trying to reach the sun and to capture as much light as possible in competition with the tall grasses. In the shade they do not grow well, but they can survive due to their ability to spread their leaves on the ground and capture as much light as they can. The shade limits their growth, which is why they are quite small. Extension: The activity also leads the group into thinking about plant roots. dandelions, daisies and buttercups are all fairly deep rooting, where as grasses are very shallow rooting. Using a trowel and just by taking one plant, compare the roots of the dandelion with that of the grasses. The long taproot of the dandelion can reach deep into the soil to absorb moisture and nutrients, grasses are surface rooting and are excellent at taking moisture and nutrients from the top of the soil.

Activity 3 : Seed Scavenger Hunt Resources: • 3 P.E. Hoops • Laminated cards saying: - Wind dancer - Animal passenger - Self-propelled This activity is outlined in KS1 Unit 1, Growing Plants, Activity B4. For KS2 the class are asked to consider not only the wealth of forms seed take, but why their dispersal is essential to plant growth. Also consider what seeds need to germinate and how this compares with growing plants from seed in the classroom, in gardens and in agriculture.

Activity 4 : Suntrap Food factory Resources: • 60 Yellow circles of card 5cm in diameter

Marked S

• 60 Blue circles of card 5cm in diameter

Marked H2O

• 60 Red circles of card 5cm in diameter

Marked C

• 60 White circles of card 5cm in diameter

Marked O2

• A green tarpaulin or green table cloth cut or folded into the shape of a leaf • Sticky Velcro in the following order backs the circles: • Yellow

2 Hooked Velcro patches

• Blue

1 fuzzy and 1 hooked

• Red

1 Fuzzy

• White

1 Hooked

The results should show that there are few rosette-forming species under the trees, but the group may have noticed that there were also very few grasses or other species there. In the long grass there would be fewer rosette-forming species than in mown grass, but where they did grow in long grass they had very long and wide leaves. PHOTOSYNTHESIS: CARBON DIOXIDE + WATER + SUNLIGHT ENERGY = GLUCOSE, SIMPLE SUGAR

The yellow circles

= Sunlight energy (S)

The blue circles

= Water (H2O)

The red circles

= Carbon (C)

The white circles

= Oxygen (O2 )

Red and white circles combined = Carbon dioxide (CO2 ) • Stick all the red circles to the white circles and place them in a bucket. Put the blue circles and the yellow circles in their own separate buckets. • Place the green leaf tarpaulin or table cloth on the ground and sit ten children in the leaf in a small circle, they are the chloroplasts. • Divide the rest of the class into three teams. Place one team a few metres south of the leaf by the bucket full of blue circles. • Place a team a few metres north of the leaf by the bucket full of yellow circles. • Place the other team a few metres to the side of the leaf, by the bucket full of joined red and white circles. • Tell each group what they are to do very carefully: 1. The blue team are the roots and they take water (the blue circles to the leaf), each person taking only one circle at a time. 2. The yellow team are the suns rays and they transport sunlight energy to the leaf, one circle per person. 3. The red and white team are air and they take the carbon dioxide to the leaf, one molecule at a time and wait for the chloroplast in the leaf to give them each a white circle of Oxygen to take back to their bucket. 4. The chloroplasts in the leaf have to split the red and white circles and the white circles to the air team. They then have to stick the red circles to the yellow circles and then the other side of the yellow circles to the blue circles. These they then put in the centre of the leaf. The combined circles equal the glucose made from the process of photosynthesis. By the end of the game the children have an understanding of how sunlight ‘sticks’ everything together. Give the class a chance to swap roles and play it again.

Resource Sheet: Unit 1, Activity 2

Dandelions, Daisies and Buttercups Number of Dandelions

In the shade of the trees (tally)

Long Grass (tally)

Mown Grass (tally)

a joint project

Number of Number of Buttercups Daisies

Unit 2 Characteristics of Materials NC Sc3 1a, 5f NC D&T 4a, 4b NC Geog 5a, 6e

Science KS2

ABOUT THE UNIT Through this unit children should extend their knowledge of the range of materials we use and of the properties that characterise them. This knowledge should help them recognise what needs to be considered when a material is chosen for a particular use. In terms of the environmental context this unit offers the opportunity to look at packaging, litter and recycling of materials. Work in this unit also offers opportunities for children to relate science to materials they use every day, to obtain evidence to test ideas, and to identify hazards and risks as they work.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Builds on Unit 2 KS1 ‘Sorting and Using Materials’ Children need: • To know that every material has characteristics or properties which can be identiﬁed. • Appropriate vocabulary to describe some of these properties. • Links with Art, Design and Technology.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Words describing the characteristics of materials e.g. strong, hard, ﬂexible, absorbent, transparent. • Nouns and related verbs e.g. comparison/compare, description/describe. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

To identify a range of common materials and that the same material is used to make different objects.

Review children’s knowledge of materials and their properties by presenting them with a collection of everyday materials and asking them what they know about the materials. Talk about responses with the class, drawing out similarities and differences between materials.

Children Should Learn

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

Identify other objects made of a particular material e.g. glass, plastic, wood, stone and name the material.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Ask children to do a survey around the local area of materials that have been used for particular purposes e.g. wood for floors, plastic for guttering, metal for door handles, stone, brick, plastic for electric sockets, gold for rings. Ask children to say how they know or what helped them to decide that a particular object is made of a particular material. Ask children to explain their classification of ‘difficult’ objects e.g. plastic with a wood grain. To recognise properties such as hardness, strength and flexibility and compare materials in terms of these properties. Which materials are easily mass-produced, used in packaging, recyclable and biodegradable?

Ask children to describe a material so that others can identify it, using terms e.g. transparent, strong, hard, and ﬂexible. With the children, draw up a table or simple database of properties of materials e.g. wood, glass, metal, rubber, plastic, wool, cotton, and ceramics. Which materials are biodegradable, recyclable and durable? Survey materials used for packaging in lunch boxes. Go on a litter walk and spot materials that are common elements in litter and which materials could be recycled.

State one or two characteristics of a range of common materials and make comparisons between materials e.g. wood is usually hard and strong but glass is usually hard and breaks easily. Identify the long-term durability of materials and their place in the recycling of materials.

UNIT 2: Characteristics of Materials LESSON PLAN This activity builds on the introduction to materials in KS1. In terms of the KS2 curriculum and outdoor education this unit gives a chance for children to experience materials in the natural world and human beings inﬂuence on the environment through our use of materials. Location: School Grounds or Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • 30-40 Small objects made of natural and non-natural materials • Resource sheet: Leaf Litter (provided below) • Resource sheet: Soil Animal (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils • Pooters • Long probe thermometer • Gloves • Resource sheet: Materials Search (provided below)

Activity 1: Unnature/Nature Trail Resources: • 30-40 small objects made of natural and non-natural materials This game is based on the KS1 Unit 2, Sorting and Using Materials, Activity 2. However as this activity is with KS2 children, increase the number of objects used to between thirty and forty items. Use more challenging items to spot. For example: • New catheter tubing which looks like worms • Plastic insects • Large springs • Elastic bands

Above are a few suggestions. The aim is to provide items that can be confused as part of the natural world, items that are camouﬂaged, things that are bright and unnatural looking and surprises. In this activity it is also possible to include items that would be hazardous; if found by a child outside of school. For example a scientiﬁc syringe, without a needle, could be part of the trail. Children can then be warned that if they saw such an object they would not pick it up, but immediately tell a known and responsible adult. At the end of the session after the children have spotted the objects, tell the class how many objects are actually in the trail and let them do it again this time being able to talk and point and spot items as they go along. This activity helps children understand how some unnatural objects can become invisible in the natural environment and how even things which are brightly coloured, large and non-natural can also be left unseen as we become more and more unaware of their impact on our environment.

Activity 2: All that Rots Resources: • Resource sheet: Leaf Litter (provided below) • Resource sheet: Soil Animal (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils • Pooters • Long probe thermometer • Gloves This activity relates directly to the study of soils in KS2 Unit 3, Rocks and Soils. Take the children to an area of leaf litter or leaf fall that has been able to accumulate over a few years. This can be in an area of woodland or a rough corner of ﬂowerbed or grassland. The leaf litter is like a layer cake of rot. Use the resource sheet to sketch leaves from the top of the leaf litter, through to the last layer covering the soil. Leaves change from their Autumn coloured appearance, to tattered, dark brown or black, to their skeleton of veins and then to fragments before becoming part of the soil. As the children search through the layers they will see tiny soil animals and fungi, responsible for the decay process. Take a moment to look for any apparent litter and compare the litter to the process of decay on leaves. For added amusement tell the children that soil animals like rotting leaves covered in bacteria, because a nice covering of microbes on old leaves is like jam on toast to us. With the litter layer now disturbed use pooters to suck up a few soil animals. Use resource sheet to tick off the animals found. If there is a compost heap or bin in the school grounds or at the local park use a long probe thermometer to take the temperature of the inside of the compost heap and the temperature on its surface and compare those with the air temperature. Use gloves and pull the compost heap apart to show the children how the inside of the heap steams in air. Take a moment to observe the compost heap before the activity to check bees or wasps are not using it as a nesting site.

Explain how rotting compost is warm, because of the process of decay due to bacteria. The process of decay happens on a variety of organic materials, but rarely on non-natural materials. Some plastics decay over time, but some forms of plastic will take thousands of years. The class has a chance to look for other forms of decay in the natural environment, how buildings are attacked by weathering and erosion over time; and how metals rust.

Activity 3: Materials Search Resources: • Resource sheet: Materials Search (provided below) • Pencils • Clipboards In this session the children explore an area and describe which items are useful and which items are litter. It may be that some things are made from more than one material and will be recorded in more than one part of the table.

Resource Sheet: Unit 2, Activity 2

Leaf Litter Sketch into the boxes below

a joint project

Leaf from the surface

Leaf from next layer

Leaf skeleton

Leaf fragments from the bottom layer

Resource Sheet: Unit 2, Activity 2

Soil Animal Soil Animal

Worm

Millipede

Centipede

Woodlouse

Slug

Ground beetle

Grub

Springtail

Mite

Ant

a joint project

How many (tally)

Resource Sheet: Unit 2, Activity 3

Materials Search Material

Wood

Metal

Glass

Plastic

Stone

Brick

Cloth

a joint project

Useful Objects

Objects left as Litter

Recyclable Yes/No

Unit 3 Rocks and Soils NC Sc3 1d

Science KS2

ABOUT THE UNIT Through this unit children should come to recognise that underneath all surfaces is rock, which they may not be able to see. Rocks get broken down into pebbles and soils which we can often see. There are different sorts of rock with different characteristics. Pebbles and soils from different rocks consequently have different characteristics. Work in this unit also offers opportunities for children to use their understanding of science to explain observations about rocks and soils, to collect evidence to test ideas, and to recognise hazards and risks.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Builds on Unit 2 KS1 ‘Sorting and Using Materials’. And Unit 2 KS2 ‘Characteristics of Materials’ Children need: • To understand rocks are naturally occurring. • To know vocabulary used to describe characteristics of materials. Links with Geography NC 5c.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Names of different rocks and soils e.g. slate, marble, chalk, granite, sand, clay • Words relating to rocks and soils e.g. rock, stone, pebble, texture, absorbent. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

That rocks are used for a variety of purposes.

Review children’s understanding of materials which are naturally occurring, and those which are not, through a visit to look at different types of rock used in a local environment e.g. school, on a walk to the local park or the local churchyard. Explain that rocks are naturally occurring and that many other building materials e.g. bricks are not.

Identify some rocks e.g. marble, granite, slate and explain why they are used for a particular purpose e.g. slate for a roof, church yard monuments and buildings.

That rocks can be grouped according to observable characteristics.

Present children with a collection of rocks or churchyard monuments to observe and group in terms of texture e.g. size, shape and arrangement of particles and appearance e.g. range of colours.

Group rocks according to differences in texture and record and justify the groupings.

Children Should Learn

To observe and compare rocks.

Children

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

That differences between rocks can be identiﬁed by testing.

Compare rocks in terms of how easily they are worn away. Help children to carry out a ‘rubbing’ test to compare how well different rocks withstand being ground down, and record results.

Use results of their tests to rank rocks in order of ease of wearing away and/or permeability.

Help children test for differences in permeability by dropping small quantities of water on to rocks and observing whether it remains on the surface or not. That rocks are chosen for particular purposes because of their characteristics.

Children survey the uses of different rocks in the local built environment and link these to their characteristics.

Relate the use of particular rocks to their characteristics and explain why they are used e.g. that granite is often used for steps to buildings because it doesn’t wear away easily, that marble is used because it is attractive to look at.

That beneath all surfaces there is rock.

Show a series of pictures e.g. cliffs, quarries, mountains with rock faces, ﬁelds/moors with rocky outcrops, muddy ﬁelds, town streets and ask children to point out where the rocks are. Ask them to suggest why they can see rocks in some pictures but not in others.

Explain why they can’t see the rock in some pictures e.g. by saying because it is covered with soil or buildings.

That there are different kinds Show a video or a series of pictures of soil depending on the rock showing different soils. Ask children to from which they come. compare these with a sample of soil from the local environment.

Describe how the soils differ from those in the local environment.

To observe differences and make comparisons.

Separate particles using the equipment provided.

Present children with samples of different soils and ask them to observe and record differences in colour, texture and what makes up the soil. That particles of different sizes Suggest children use a sieve with large can be separated by sieving. mesh to separate out large particles. Use graded sieves to separate the dry soil sample. Ask children to describe and explain what they found out about the soils.

Rank soils in terms of changing colour and particle size, justifying the ranking in terms of their observations. Describe how the soil articles are separated e.g. by saying the stones were too big to go through the holes.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

To use simple apparatus to measure volumes of liquids and to measure time.

Ask children about, or show pictures of, puddles or floods on different surfaces e.g. fields, dry sandy beaches, school fields and ask why puddles stay longer in some places than in others.

Explain why the test was unfair and describe what should have been done.

To recognise when a test is unfair.

Demonstrate that water ﬂows more quickly through sand than through clay e.g. by pouring a speciﬁc volume of water which children have measured on to both soil types, placed in containers with small perforations at the bottom. During demonstrations, do the test unfairly and challenge children to decide whether the test was fair or not.

Use apparatus to measure volume of water carefully.

UNIT 3: Rocks and Soils LESSON PLAN A In this session children are introduced to the concept of rock weathering and forming soils. They will also learn that different rocks are found across the country and the nature of the rock beneath our feet gives rise to different kinds of soils in the area. In London there is a wealth of geology on the doorstep, many Edwardian and Victorian schools and parks were built using rocks from across the country and sometimes from other countries. This diversity of rock type is also seen in old churchyards and Victorian cemeteries. To fully utilise the diversity of rocks in London, all that is needed is a simpliﬁed identiﬁcation chart. The study of rocks takes the class naturally to the study of soils, which the class may have been introduced to through the scheme of outdoor work in Unit 2, KS2 Location: School Grounds or Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • Blue caps or hats • Resource sheet: Rock Type Chart (provided below) • Resource sheet: Rock Search (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils • Safety scissors • White vinegar • Pencils • Resource sheet: Soil Investigation (provided below)

Activity 1: River Dance Resources: • Blue Caps or hats This game introduces the concept of how rocks are made and weathered and eroded. It is best played in a wide-open space in the playground or on a playing ﬁeld. It takes a long time to explain, but is played in a matter of minutes and can be played twice more afterwards.

• Begin by asking the children to line up in four rows and then ask them to hold hands not only with the neighbour next to them, but also some can link hands with those behind or in front of them. The end result is to have a group, which has joined firmly, so that by gently pulling one person means there is a pull exerted through the whole group. Obviously do not pull them over! • Explain that they are now an igneous rock, one that was formed from hot molten rock from the inside of a volcano. As the rock cooled crystals formed which interlocked with the other crystals around them. This rock is hard. • The children are acting as the crystals of a rock and they must imitate the crystals warming up in the hot sunshine by pushing their arms gently outwards and then cooling by relaxing their arms. This has the effect of gently pushing and pulling their neighbours. After a few expansion and contraction exercises some of the crystals loose hold of each other. • Using one of the gaps between the children, place another child who can be wearing a blue cap into the gap. Their role is to act as a raindrop, which at night freezes and then thaws during the day. Water has the opposite action of expanding when frozen and contracting when it melts. The raindrop person needs to gently expand through holding out their arms and then drop their arms every so often. In a little while the crack is bigger and more raindrop children, also wearing blue caps, can be fitted in. With more raindrops, there is a greater effect as these children gently force the rock apart. • Let the rock crumble apart and the children as loose crystals are allowed to run down the field or playground as they imagine being washed away by a sudden rainstorm into a river. • At the bottom of the playground or field, stop them and let them wash up on the bank. Arrange them as crystals in three or four layers, just like sand washed up on the beach. • Explain that as time goes by thousands upon thousands of layers are washed up on top and the layers are squashed and stuck together. Ask them to hold hands with their neighbours only. They have now formed a sedimentary rock. • Finish with the thought that if they were super heated, they would melt and become free flowing and as they cooled would ooze around their neighbours and form a tough jigsaw of crystals making a metamorphic rock.

Activity 2: Doorstep Geology Resources: • Resource sheet: Rock Type Chart (provided below) • Resource sheet: Rock Search (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils • Safety scissors • White vinegar This activity is best explored on a geology trail from the school grounds to the park and/or cemetery/ churchyard. Once a good route has been found it can be used as a familiar learning tool for the whole school. Use the identiﬁcation sheet to determine the rock type and then use the recording sheet to record the rocks found, where they were found and how weathered they are. Old buildings on the route are often made of sandstone or limestone. Old stone horse troughs are wonderful ﬁnds on London’s streets. Old kerb and paving stones also reveal a wealth of geology.

Activity 3: Investigating soils Resources: • Resource sheet: Soil Investigation (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils In this activity you will be exposing the children to a very messy activity, so make sure they are in old clothes! This investigation gains the best results if the class can explore more than one soil, perhaps one in the school grounds, one in a local park or nature reserve and one in an allotment or garden, etc. It is advisable to look at a soil proﬁle before the session starts, by digging a pit in an area where no one will tumble in. Otherwise lookout for exposed banks or excavations on a route to school or to the local park (obviously do not enter construction areas without permission).

Soils differ in proﬁle by the thickness of the litter, topsoil and sub-soil layers. When investigating soils the aim is to determine how much the soils are made up of three elements: clay, sand and silt. By wetting soils and taking small amounts of it there is a simple test to see how plastic the soil is, the more mouldable the more clay is present. If the wet soil feels smooth and sticky there is a large proportion of clay, if gritty and rough then the soil is mainly sand and lastly if the soil is not smooth and sticky, but also not very gritty and can be moulded into a ball then the soil is silt-y. The resource sheet that accompanies this unit outlines the tests to determine soils types. The children need a small amount of soil in their hands and the soil needs to be made damp. The children then feel and mould the soil to be able to ﬁll in the sheet. Once the analysis is complete the children then rub a little of the wet soil into a circle at the base of the table. The soil sample dries and the grains and organic matter in the soil can be seen with a hand lens back in the classroom.

Resource Sheet: Unit 3, Activity 2

Rock Type Chart Limestone

Obvious sand grains Looks like sugar stuck together by grains, which cement. interlock. Grains glint in sunlight.

Sandstone

Very small grains, which cannot be seen.

Slate

Types of Rock Igneous Basalt

Black or white with grey veins.

Metamorphic

Class of Rock Granite

Glinting grains, cemented together. Small fossils may be seen.

Yellow or red.

Sedimentary

Examples Grains very small and difﬁcult to be seen separately.

A white or grey rock.

Can be scratched by scissors.

Marble

Crystals or grains.

Large interlocking crystals.

Dark.

Easily scratched by thumbnail.

Colour.

Easily scratched by thumbnail.

Hardness when scratched with scissors.

Can be highly worn Can be highly worn Can be worn and and crumbling. and crumbling. crumbling.

No obvious signs of weathering, until layers begin to peel away.

Dark grey and in obvious layers, which can be peeled off. Easily scratched by scissors. Slight scratching by scissors.

Can be washed and Can be washed and dirt lifted off. dirt lifted off.

Signs of pollution.

Three different colour of crystals spread throughout the rock. Cannot be scratched with scissors.

Can be coloured black by air pollution. Only coloured on the surface.

If polished can be left with a dirty smut on it’s surface which can be washed off.

No obvious signs, but if washed with a white cloth will have a smut of dirt clinging to it’s surface. No obvious signs of weathering, some cracks.

Can be coloured black by air pollution. Only coloured on the surface.

How worn away by weathering?

Does not show signs of weathering, may have some cracks or splitting.

a joint project

Resource Sheet: Unit 3, Activity 2

Rock Search Questions

Where the stone was found?

Any clues as to when the stone was placed, e.g. inscription on buildings?

Any staining due to pollution?

What do its crystals look like?

Can it be scratched?

Are there any obvious layers in the rock?

How weathered is the rock?

Rock Type

a joint project

Rock 1

Rock 2

Rock 3

Rock 4

Resource Sheet: Unit 3, Activity 3

Soil Investigation Test

Soil from Site 1

Soil from Site 2

Soil from Site 3

Squeeze and mould into a ball.

Squeeze and mould into a sausage.

Gritty.

Smooth.

Sticky.

Colour.

Soil 1 a joint project

Soil 2

Soil 3

Unit 4 Moving and Growing NC Sc2 1a, 2e, 2f

Science KS2

ABOUT THE UNIT Through this unit children learn about how the skeleton is related to movement and support in humans and what happens to the skeleton and muscles as they move. In terms of environmental education this unit gives an opportunity for children to compare human bones and skeletons with those of other animals. Children can also appreciate how different animals move and how animals have different types of supporting structures and muscle arrangements.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Builds on NC Sc2 ‘Health and Growth’ and ‘Teeth and Eating’ Children need: • To know scientiﬁc vocabulary for some parts of their bodies. • To know vocabulary used to describe materials. Links with Physical Education.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Words relating to skeletons and muscles e.g. ribs, spine, skull, contract, relax, vertebrate • Nouns and related verbs e.g. contraction, contract • Words which have other meanings in other contexts e.g. relax LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children Should Learn

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

Suggest children explore what they can feel of their own bones e.g. • Where are the ribs? • Are they hard or soft? • How many ribs can we feel? • Where else can we feel bones?

That humans and some other animals have bony skeletons inside their bodies and to raise questions about different bony skeletons. To make and record relevant observations of bones and skeletons.

Talk about the skeletons with the children. Ask them to suggest questions about similarities and differences between skeletons and bones of humans and another vertebrate e.g. • Do ﬁsh have ribs? • What similarities are there between skeletons? Encourage children to make comparisons.

Identify similar parts of the skeleton in some other species. Describe the characteristics of bones as materials e.g. the bones are hard, strong and identify differences between bones from different animals e.g. the ﬁsh bones are much smaller and easier to break.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

That the skeleton supports the body.

Observe some invertebrates e.g. snails and worms and compare the body of the invertebrate (its lack of rigidity) with the human body. Look at how bodies of animals without bony skeletons are supported.

Explain that all bodies need support, but that not all animals have an internal skeleton to do this.

That adults have young and that these grow into adults which in turn produce young.

Use secondary sources to compare lengths of stages e.g. gestation period for different animals and to illustrate the differences between newly born animals of different species in terms of dependence on their parents, ask children about the implications of these differences.

Recognise stages in the growth and development of humans.

From pond dipping and mini-beast hunting look at the life cycles of insects in complete and incomplete metamorphosis. In the spring observe frogspawn and the changes associated with that.

Recognise differences in the length of time humans and other animals are dependent upon parents.

Look at the helplessness of garden birds and the more independent ducklings at the park pond.

Describe differences in capabilities of newly born humans and other animals e.g. in movement, feeding.

UNIT 4: Moving and Growing LESSON PLAN This unit builds on the National Curriculum for Science, Health and Growth. Children will be learning about the human body. In this lesson plan they are encouraged to compare the way humans walk, grow and move to animals, common in their local environment. Location: Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • Picture cards of local animals • Blindfold • Plastic mirror cards for each child • Pond nets • White trays • Bug jars

Activity 1: Animal Mimics Resources: • Picture cards of local animals • Blindfold Children are used to the idea of walking on two legs, might have had experience of the dreaded threelegged race and would certainly know how to crawl as if on four legs. However, children seldom realise the co-ordination necessary to move more than four legs or how to move with no legs at all. This activity makes children think about how an animal’s body is organised to best effect to help it move. Children in groups of three can try to move like an insect, through to a group of four moving with eight legs moving like a Spider, to groups of seven moving like a woodlouse. Finally get the whole class in line to move like a centipede. Ask questions, for example: • As the body length increased, how easy was it for the head to know what the back was doing? • Did the group feel like they had a rhythm when they moved their legs? Extension Activity: If the group is particularly good at this activity, they can experience what it would be like to lead a head that is blindfolded. Many centipedes are sightless and have to feel their way around. Link it with how human beings use their bodies to sense their environment for movement.

Activity 2: Flying and Crawling Resources: • Plastic mirror cards for each child Trying to get an animal’s perspective about the world can be a challenge. By taking a simple mirror we can fly through the air or experience the pitfalls of living on the ground. To Fly: This activity creates the feeling of flying without feet leaving the ground. It can be done anywhere outside, but it is best if you take a path under some tree branches, pergola arches, overhanging roofs, etc. • First ask everyone to breathe through their mouth and not their nose (this will get their attention and of course halt any chattering). • Next demonstrate how to hold the mirror, by placing it horizontally above the mouth and below the nose. Children need to keep their heads up and resist looking down into the mirror. Then have a good snort on to a mirror to show how the mirror steams up if you breathe through your nose. • Ask everyone to keep their head up as if they are looking straight ahead, but use their eyes look into the mirror to see the world above, not their own faces. • Get the group to walk in single file, quietly and without running or pushing. Describe how you can see the world upside down and if they are doing it right they can see the clouds and tree branches moving above them and through them. For first timers it can make them feel slightly queasy, but the over all affect is the same as a roller coaster ride, but without the adrenaline rush. After a few minutes collect the mirrors and share the feelings the group had about being a flying animal. Did they imagine themselves as birds, bats or insects? To Crawl: This activity gives everyone a ground beetle’s eye view. This is a very disorientating experience, but helps the group to imagine how life is for an ant. • Simply repeat as for above, but this time put the mirrors horizontally above eyes. Of course they can breathe through their noses in this case. • Keeping heads straight and peering up into the mirror, children can see the ground just in front of their feet. • Walk in a line, warning the group not to bump into the person ahead.

Activity 3: Life Cycles Resources: • Pond nets • White trays • Bug jars

This activity is best in the spring. By hunting for mini-beasts or going for a pond dip the class can find animals at different stages of their life cycles. The group can see caterpillars and butterflies in searches in flowerbeds, window boxes and in any school fields. On a pond dip children can find the nymphs of dragonflies, mayflies and tadpoles. These animals exhibit a complete metamorphosis. Many insects have an incomplete metamorphosis and if the class has a chance to search through long grass they might find froghoppers, grasshoppers and bush crickets which hatch from the egg and look very much like the adult, but they have no wings until their seventh and last moult. Snails and slugs grow slowly and their young look like the adults and they increase in size slowly till they reach the adult size.

Activity 4: Bug Olympics Resources: • Bug jars This activity shows how animals move in relation to each other. It also shows the variety of animal adaptations. • From a bug hunt select a few animals. Put a few animals in a couple of bug jars, making sure spiders and centipedes have their own jars! Make sure there are a good variety of animals such as a slug, woodlouse, beetle, etc. • Ask the group to make a small circle around you (they will act as the stadium). • Place the bugs in the centre of the circle with the jars upside down. • Explain how animals have different ways of moving and ask the children to guess which animals will reach the edge of the circle ﬁrst. Then remove the bug jars and allow the animals to move from the centre spot. Children get very excited during this activity, but make sure they understand that they cannot creep forward as they might squash the animals. As the animals reach the edge collect them in gently and place them back in the jars ready to be released back where they had been collected from.

Unit 5 Habitats NC Sc2 1c, 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d, 5e

Science KS2

ABOUT THE UNIT Through this unit children will begin to understand the concept of a habitat, how it provides organisms found there with conditions for life and how animals depend on plants or other animals, which eat plants for food. Throughout the unit ways in which organisms are suited to the habitat should be emphasised. Work in this unit also provides opportunities for children to learn about the interdependence of living things and how the environment and living things need to be protected.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Builds on Unit 3 KS1 ‘Plants’, Unit 3 KS1 ‘Animals in the Local Environment’, Unit 1 KS2 ‘Plants’ and Unit 6, KS2 ‘Interdependence and Adaptation’ Children need: • To recognise organisms as plants or animals.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Words related to life processes e.g. nutrition. • Words relating to habitats and feeding relationships e.g. habitat, condition, organism, predator, prey, producer, consumer, food chain, key. • Words which have a different meaning in other contexts e.g. producer, consumer, key, condition.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children Should Learn

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

At this point in the curriculum children are introduced to a lot of new terminology. Use the term ‘organism’ as a general term for all living things. Use pictures of e.g. vertebrates, invertebrates, humans, small ﬂowering plants, trees and challenge children to sort them according to their own criteria and then into plants and animals. Let children choose how to record their groupings.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

To identify different types of habitat.

Introduce children to the word ‘habitat’. Explain to children that they will be studying local habitats, and go for a walk round the school and/or immediate locality to find and make a list of habitats. Review the final list with the children and group habitats of similar scale or diversity together e.g. pond, field, wood, tree, hedge, flowerbed, grassy patch, plant trough, under leaf, under stone. Ask children to record the habitats identified.

Identify local habitats and recognise those which are similar in scale or diversity. Recognise that animals and plants are found in many places e.g. on window sills.

Ask children to predict where a particular organism will be found e.g. woodlice, snail, butterﬂy, and bee. Visit To make predictions of locality to check predictions. Explain organisms that will be found that collecting animals must be done in a habitat. with care so that the animals are not damaged. Help children to collect To observe the conditions invertebrates and record locations in in a local habitat and make a which they were found. Ask children to record of the animals found. observe and describe the conditions That animals are suited to the e.g. light, water, soil, shade, and temperenvironment in which they ature. Ask children whether they found are found. the organisms they expected. Help children return any animals collected to their habitat.

Make and justify a prediction e.g. the woodlice will be under the stones because it’s damp there.

Present children with living organisms To group organisms according collected earlier including similar pairs to observable features. e.g. spider/beetle, daisy/dandelion and discuss features e.g. legs, wings, eyes, colours. Ask children to identify similar features of organisms and how to group similar organisms together and explain their groupings.

Identify similarities and differences between similar organisms.

That different animals are found in different habitats.

To use keys to identify local plants or animals.

Present children with an organism from the local environment that is likely to be unfamiliar to most of them. Ask them to write down two or three things about it. Show some reference books and ask children how easy it would be to identify the organism from these. Show children a simple key and how to use it. Practise with other keys and other organisms.

Describe a habitat in terms of the conditions e.g. leaf litter is cool, damp and dark. State that animals and plants are found in some places and not in others.

Group animals and explain criteria e.g. number of legs, wings/number wings on which the groups are based. Use simple keys to identify local plants and animals.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

To identify the food sources Investigate the food needs of a chosen of different animals in different animal from a local habitat, and where habitats. it ﬁnds its foods. Use one that is found locally e.g. bird, small mammal, and mollusc.

Describe what a particular animal eats and explain that it can only live where its food source is available.

To identify the structure of a Review habitats with children and food chain in a specific habitat. ask them to say which organisms are found in a specific habitat. Challenge That animals are suited to children to identify the food of specific the habitat in which they are animals, some of which eat plants and found. some of which eat animals – refer back That most food chains start to previous activity. Introduce terms with a green plant. ‘predator’ and ‘prey’. Show how a food chain is represented. Give children pictures of organisms in a habitat with information about what each eats and ask them to practise writing or sequencing food chains.

Identify food of a speciﬁc animal.

To recognise ways in which living things and the environment need protection.

Ask children to think about the effect on plants and animals of changing conditions in a particular habitat in various ways e.g. draining the pond, removing the pondweed, removing the shade, ground cover. Ask children to prepare a presentation to an audience to explain why the organisms could no longer live in a changed habitat or write a letter opposing a change, which would alter a habitat.

State that predators eat other animals. Identify animals which are predators and their prey. State that many animals that are prey live on green plants. Draw food chains using the arrow convention correctly.

Identify the effect of changes to the habitat on some organisms.

Unit 5: Habitats Lesson Plan In this unit the class gets to unify areas of knowledge from the other areas of the science curriculum for outdoor education so far. In habitats children get to apply their knowledge of the natural world to a wider ﬁeld. Children enjoy the application of knowledge and the realisation that every space has its own special community of animals and plants. Location: School Ground/ Local Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • Labels with names of different mini-beasts • 10 Hula-hoops • 40 Green plastic leaves • Survey markers • Orange warning tape • Resource sheet: Notices 1,2, 3 (provided below) • Resource sheet: Census Takers Tally Sheet (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils • 30 Plastic cups • 4 Buckets • 2 Long rulers

Activity 1: Snack Track Resources: • Labels with names of different mini-beasts • 10 Hula-hoops • 40 Green plastic leaves This activity helps the class to understand that the more structurally complicated the environment, the more animals can survive in it. This game introduces the children to animals they will ﬁnd in the habitats they will be exploring. This game is best with lots of room to run around. • Each child is given a label, which gives the name of a different plant-eating animal found in a minibeast hunt. Give four children labels naming predatory mini-beasts, for example centipede, ground beetle, harvestman and wolf spider.

• Place the plastic leaves in the centre of the play area with 10 hula-hoops placed in a large circle around it. • The object of the game is for the carnivorous animals to catch as many herbivores as they can. Once caught the herbivores stand out of the game. The herbivores are safe from the carnivores as long as they stand in a hoop, but they have to leave the ring to get a leaf to ‘eat’. They survive the game if they manage to get a leaf and return to a hoop uncaught. Let the game run for ten minutes and then stop it and see how many herbivores have been caught, how many managed to get leaves and how many got back to a hoop with a leaf and how many did not manage to get a leaf. Take ﬁve rings a away and play the game again. This game should demonstrate that when there are fewer rings for children to stand in there are fewer opportunities for them to get away from predators. The same fact relates to natural habitats, for example the more logs to hide under the more mini-beasts exist in the area. Extension: The game can be made more challenging by placing a child in the game wearing a blackbird label. The blackbird can catch herbivores and the animals that predate on them. The carnivorous mini-beasts have to evade capture by blackbird.

Activity 2: Census Takers Resources: • Survey markers • Orange warning tape • Information sheet: Job Descriptions (provided below) • Resource sheet: Notices 1,2, 3 (provided below) • Resource sheet: Census Takers’ Tally Sheet (provided below) • Clipboards • Pencils This activity combines the children’s ability to identify different plants and animals in an area of school grounds or open green space. The aim of the session is to survey the inhabitants and the ‘jobs’ they do in the habitat. It demonstrates the interdependence of organisms within a habitat and their relationship to humans in a wider context. This activity also introduces children to the concept of surveying for the future conservation of a habitat. • Take the children to a local green space or a well-loved area of the school grounds and ﬁnd ‘Notice 1’ (see Resource Sheet) and the area cordoned off with survey markers and orange warning tape. Discuss how the children feel about the loss of this place to a housing development and talk about why it should be left. By surveying the area there may be a chance to prove why the place is so important and has to be conserved. This activity supports Geography in Unit 7, Improving the Environment, in these schemes of work. • Tell the children they are going to be census takers for the day, surveying the local inhabitants of the site and listing where they live and what they do. Using the tally sheet (see Resource Sheet), go through the job descriptions (see information sheet) and how the home addresses relate to where the animals and plants can be found: Basement = ground level Street level = above ground High Rise = on bushes and trees As a group thinks of a few examples of plants and animals which live at different levels, discuss a few jobs and highlight a few examples where plants and animals can be described as having more

than one job. • Demonstrate how to record information on their tally sheets and refer to the job descriptions on the back. • Remind children to replace any logs or stones turned over when they inspect the ‘basement level’. • Give the group keys or identification sheets to help them describe the animals and plants they find. After half an hour of surveying bring the class together to discuss the results. Did the inhabitants of the community fill all the job categories? • Agree with the class where to place the Notices 2 (see Resource Sheet). There may be some debate about which areas most deserve the signs of important work being done. • Finally turn the original notice of the ‘Housing Developer’ around. On the back is revealed Notice 3 (see Resource Sheet).

Activity 3: Sun Bucket Chain Gang Resources: • 30 Plastic cups • 4 Buckets • 2 Long rulers This game is best played on a hot day, in lots of space and with the children in old clothes, which they are prepared to get wet. Otherwise this is a great game for the end of an intensive session on habitats. It is a game that clearly demonstrates the transfer of sunlight energy from plants and through the food chain. At each level of the food chain energy is used to ﬁnd food and this is clearly demonstrated through this activity. • Organise the class into two teams: team herbivore and team carnivore. Team herbivore has the following: • 9 ‘Leaves’ holding plastic cups. • 5 ‘Rabbits’ holding cups, which have small holes in the bottom. Team carnivore has the following: • 9 ‘Rabbits’ holding plastic cups. • 5 ‘Rabbits’ holding cups, which have small holes in the bottom. • 2 ‘Foxes’ holding cups, which have large holes at the bottom. Lay out two running lanes; if you are doing this in the school grounds perhaps there is a track for sports day or playground markings you can use. Otherwise securely lay out two very wide lanes with string, ensuring there are no trip hazards – one lane for each team. At the end of both running lanes place two buckets; at one end the buckets are full of water. The empty buckets at the opposite end have the long rulers placed in them. Place 3 markers or cones on both lanes, equidistant from each other. The markers nearest the water ﬁlled buckets will be the leaves base, the second marker the rabbits and the third the foxes. Team herbivore will have an empty third base.

The aim of the game is for the leaves to fill their cups with water from the water filled buckets and return to their base and wait for the rabbits. The rabbits go to the leaf base and the leaves fill the rabbits cups with water. For the carnivore team the foxes run to the rabbits base and wait for returning rabbits, which in turn fill the foxes cups with water. The foxes then run to the empty buckets and pour in their water. For the herbivore team the rabbits run to the collecting bucket and pour their water into it. The aim of the game is to empty the water filled buckets and the first team to do so marks the end of the game. Alternatively stop when exhaustion or saturation sets in! At the end of the game use the rulers to see which team managed to collect the most water. In this game a lot of concepts arise, for example the fact that there are more rabbits than foxes and more leaves than rabbits. Children will recognise that leaves and rabbits are left waiting to pour their water on to the next level. This is true in the natural world when you find more herbivores than carnivores in any habitat. They will also see that the holes in the cups meant water was lost from the chain gang and that foxes had larger holes than rabbits. Explain how the size of the hole relates to the energy expended by the animals in gaining their food: for example, rabbits do not have to chase leaves.

Resource Sheet: Unit 5, Activity 2

Notices Notice 1

Notice 3

Front

Back

Coming soon to this unimproved area the utmost in modern housing.

Vital Work being done. Local community to be conserved.

Notices 2

Caution soil ploughing in progress Caution air being conditioned Caution garbage being disposed of Caution food factory in operation Caution seed manufacture and transport a joint project

Resource Sheet: Unit 5, Activity 2

Census Takers’ Tally Sheet Plant/Animal

Job or role

Home address Basement

a joint project

Street level

High rise

Information Sheet: Unit 5, Activity 2

Job Descriptions

Title

Description

Aerators

Animals which help keep the soil loose so that water can ﬂow more easily and plants can grow.

Food producers

Living things in the community which can take in the sun’s energy and turn it into energy forms, which residents can eat.

Garbage men

Animals which help the community by removing or breaking down dead materials.

Soil builders

Plants which are breaking down rocks into ﬁner pieces which will then become part of the soil.

Transporters

Animals which move things from one part of the community to another part. Seeds often ride with these transporters.

Air conditioners

Things which make the air breathable for others in the community.

Population controllers

Animals which help control the numbers of residents in the community so that it doesn’t get crowded.

Fertilisers

Community dwellers that help make the soil a better place to grow by adding waste or reworking the materials.

a joint project

Unit 6 Interdependence and Adaptation

Science

NC Sc2 4a, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d, 5e NC Geog 3e, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6e

KS2

ABOUT THE UNIT In this unit children extend their knowledge of the way in which plants and animals in different habitats depend upon each other and are suited to their environment. They relate feeding relationships to knowledge of plant nutrition. There is the opportunity to consider the ways in which living things and the environment need protection.

WHERE THE UNIT FITS IN Builds on Unit 1 KS2 Plants’ and Unit 5 KS2 ‘Habitats’. Children need: • To be familiar with the ideas of habitats and feeding relationships. • To know what plants need in order to grow well.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Words relating to plant growth e.g. fertiliser, nutrients. • Words and phrases relating to feeding relationships e.g. consumer, producer, predator, prey, food chain. • Words which have different meanings in other contexts eg fertiliser, consumer, producer, key, suited, plant food. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children Should Learn

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

That green plants need light in On a ﬁeld trip or using the school order to grow well. grounds look at plant leaves in shade and in full light, plants in shade grow That green plants make new large leaves. Look at other factors; shade plant material using air and tolerant plants have very dark leaves, water in the presence of light. as well as large leaves. Look at climbing That for this to take place the plants such as ivy and clematis, noting green plant requires leaves. their growth form which allows them to scrabble up trees and bushes to get to the light.

Recognise that the plants grow towards the light and many have adaptations to help their leaves capture as much light as possible.

To use keys to identify animals Ask children what they remember of the local habitats studied before and revisit and plants in a local habitat. one speciﬁc habitat. Observe animals and plants found in these and help children to use keys to identify unfamiliar animals and plants from living things, or from pictures.

Use a suitable key to identify a number of plants and animals found in a local habitat.

Plants will compete against each other for light.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

That animals and plants in a local habitat are interdependent.

Ask children what they remember from previous work about the feeding of animals and plants and ask them to suggest other reasons why animals need the plants and why plants might need the animals. Help children to use their own knowledge and make an information card about an animal or plant in the local habitat.

Identify ways in which the animals depend on plants e.g. for food, shelter, shade and ways in which the plants need animals e.g. provide fertiliser for the soil, help to disperse seeds.

Remind children of earlier work on food chains. Present children with information e.g. from their information cards about the animals and plants in a local habitat, or in another habitat, together with information about what the animals eat. Ask children to construct food chains and to explain to each other what they mean.

Construct a food chain. Explain why plants are essential to food chains, as they can convert sun energy to food energy.

Show children plants growing in a variety of soils, look at carrots growing in sand, compost and clay and see That water and nutrients are how they differ in length. Ask them to taken in through the root. suggest how roots ensure the plant That roots anchor the plant in gets water and nutrients. Ask children the soil. to draw and annotate a diagram showing the importance of a root to a plant and ask them why fertilisers are often added to soil.

Recognise that different plants grow well in different conditions.

To make observations of soils. With hand lenses or microscopes, record differences between soils e.g. size of pieces of rock, colour, dryness, and animal/plant material. Challenge children to explain which could provide a good habitat for a soil-living animal and which would allow plants to anchor themselves most effectively. Remind them of earlier work on soils and drainage.

Describe observed differences between the soils.

How animals and plants in a local habitat are suited to their environment.

That food chains can be used to represent feeding relationships in a habitat. That food chains begin with a plant (the producer).

That different plants grow in different soil conditions.

If possible find a place to dig a soil profile, or look at an exposed riverbank and the soil profile exposed there.

Produce a drawing showing nutrients and water being taken in by the root and the root anchoring the plant in the soil.

Identify characteristics that would suit a soil-living animal e.g. air spaces, dampness, plant material and explain why these are important.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

That different animals and plants are found in different habitats.

Extend children’s understanding of habitats to a contrasting habitat, which may be in the locality e.g. grassland, scrubland, heath, river, and woodland. Talk with children about differences between the habitats and the animals and plants found in each.

Name some animals and plants found in the habitat.

Using the information gathered in the previous activity help children to construct food chains relating to the habitat. Ask children to compare the food chains from the two habitats and talk with them about similarities and differences.

Sequence food chains within a habitat including a plant as a producer and using the arrow convention correctly.

How animals and plants in a habitat are suited to their environment. To construct food chains in a particular habitat.

Identify features of animals and plants which make them suited to their habitat.

Unit 6: Interdependence and Adaptation Lesson Plan In this unit the children expand their knowledge of the diversity of life and relate the differences exhibited by animals and plants to the habitat the animals and plants live in and also to the way organisms interact with each other. The activities re-introduce keys and simple classification techniques, how to recognise adaptations to habitats, a special study in how plants are adapted to grow different sized leaves for different light conditions and finally how all the organisms of a food web finally interact. Location: School Grounds/ Open Green Space Session length: 1 to 2 hours Resources: • A class of children • Resource sheet: Pond Animals Adaptation Record Sheet (provided below) • Resource sheet: Soil Animals Adaptation Record Sheet (provided below) • Clipboard • Pencils • Hand lenses • Bug jars • Paper bags with labels • Graph paper • Metre rule • Animal labels • String

Activity 1: Keying out Kids Resources: A class of children This is a simple game that re-familiarises children with the concept of how keys are made and on a wider context how animals and plants are grouped into families and species. • Ask the class to stand in a big circle around you. • Take a moment to carefully make a mental note of what the children are wearing.

• Tell the class that when you call out an item of clothing, colour of hair or eye colour the children that have those items remain standing, and those who do not crouch down. For example: wearing a blue coat, trainers, brown hair, brown eyes, etc. • Continue the process until in the end there should be one child standing, having been successfully keyed out with all of his/ her characteristics. This game can be used as a parachute game by the class holding the edge of a parachute. Get the class to lift the parachute up whilst you ask for all the children wearing, for example, t-shirts to run under and across to the other side of the parachute, before the billowing parachute comes down. This is easy if there are only a few children running across, but if lots of children run across chaos ensues.

Activity 2: Mini-beast Adaptations You will need: • Resource sheet: Pond Animals Adaptation Record Sheet (provided below) • Resource sheet: Soil Animals Adaptation Record Sheet (provided below) • Clipboard • Pencils • Hand lenses • Bug jars This session develops the class’s observational skills and makes them think about how animals stay alive. To conduct a mini-beast hunt or pond dip, refer to Activity 3 in Unit 3, KS1. • Collect animals during a log hunt, bush beat or pond dip and use the resource sheets provided below to record the special features of a chosen animal for detailed observation.

Activity 3: Shady Leaves Resources: • Paper bags with labels • Graph paper • Clipboards • Pencils • Metre rule This investigation looks at how leaf shapes on the same plant will vary with light conditions and height off the ground. It shows how position in the environment affects a plant’s growth form and how a plant has an adaptation to best ﬁt its habitat. • Find a site where there are holly or ivy plants growing: some plants in full sun and some in the shade. It is best to use ivy as holly can be quite prickly, however it is interesting to note how holly leaves higher up the tree have less prickles then those lower down. • Put the class into teams of four and ask each team to pick the ten biggest leaves from the bottom of the ivy/holly in full sun and ten biggest leaves from a metre up. Tell them not to muddle up the leaves, use labelled paper bags to keep both samples separate. • Repeat the above, but this time from an ivy/holly in the shade. • Ask the teams to carefully draw around each leaf on graph paper, carefully labelling the graph paper with which sample is being drawn. Ask the question, how many centimetre squares do the base growing light placed leaves cover in comparison to the base growing shade placed leaves? • Repeat the above with leaves collected at a metre up.

The results should show that leaves in shady places grow larger then those in full sunlight, and that there is also a difference in the size of leaves dependent on the height off the ground.

Activity 4: Webbing Resources: • Animal labels • String This game is a good way to tie up loose ends, sometimes literally! It shows how the organisms in a habitat are interlinked and gives a good basis for a discussion on feeding relationships within a community. The game is based on the food web below for soil animals. Labels for each animal help the children remember who they are in the game.

Wolf Spider Ground beetle Beetle Grub Woodlice Centipede Earwig Caterpillar Springtail Snail

Millipede Dead leaves

Living plants

After labelling children with animals and plants in the food web above, ask the children to stand in roughly the right position as mapped out in the food web and then make all the connections between them with long lengths of string. Once the web is complete, ask any one of the children to tug on their strings; you can then see which of the others in the web are affected and which are not. To extend this activity further examine what would happen to the web if any one element was removed, for example the springtails, what is the knock-on effect to centipedes? Ask the children what would happen to the food web if the wolf spider were taken out.

Resource Sheet: Unit 6, Activity 2

Soil Animals Adaptation Record Sheet Draw a picture of your animal here:

My animal is called Does it have a soft body? Yes/No Herbivore c

How many parts are there to its body?

How many legs does it have?

How big is it?

I found this creature:

Carnivore c

On a plant c

In the soil c

Under a log c

In the air c

Favourite food ____________

Measure it in Mm.

On a tree

How does it move?

Does it have wings?

What colour is it?

Crawl c

Slither

Yes/No

Walk

Fly

How many?

Hop

Wriggle c

What sensory organs does it have? Eyes

Antennae c

Sensory bristles c a joint project

Are there: Spots c Blotches

What shape is its body?

Stripes

Can you see how it breathes?

Flat

Long

Fat

Thin

Resource Sheet: Unit 6, Activity 2

Pond Animals Adaptation Record Sheet Draw a picture of your animal here:

My animal is called Does it have a soft body?

How many parts are there to its body?

Yes/No

I found this creature:

Herbivore c Carnivore c Favourite food ____________

Can you see how it breathes? c On a plant c In the mud c Through its skin Comes to the surface c On the bottom c Snorkel c Feathery gills c In the water c Internal Gills c Air bubble c On the surface c

How does it move? Float c Swim c Skate c Crawl c Hop c Wriggle c Fly c

Does it have wings?

What sensory organs does it have?

What shape is its body?

Eyes

Antennae c

Sensory bristles/hairs a joint project

How many legs does it have?

What colour is it?

Yes/No

Are there: Spots c

How many?

Blotches

Fish-like c Long c Thin c

Flat Fat

How big is it? c c Measure it in Mm.

Stripes

Unit 7 Improving the Environment

Geography KS2

NC Geog pos1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7

SKILLS

THEMES

Observe and question

Environment: impact, sustainability

Collect and record evidence

Settlement: land use issue

Undertake ﬁeldwork It is helpful if the children have: •Investigated the school buildings and grounds and immediate locality. •Started to develop a range of geographical concepts, e.g. location, place, environment.

VOCABULARY In this unit children will have opportunities to use: • Environment, issues, environmental quality, community, air pollution, vehicles, waste, recycling, compost, litter, derelict, planning, land use. They may also use: • Conserve, sustain, urban, rural.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children Should Learn

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Children

What is the environment like in the school ground? To ask and respond to geographical questions. To recognise patterns. To collect and record evidence to answer questions. Fieldwork skills. How people affect the environment.

Discuss with the children different environmental problems in and around the school and how people’s views differ. Discuss with the children how noise, smell, litter, crowding, buildings, grounds and access to clean water affect pupils at school.

Recognise and understand variations in the quality of children’s environment at school.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE TEACHING ACTIVITIES LEARNING OUTCOMES

Improving Environmental Quality To ask and respond to geographical questions. To collect and record evidence to answer questions. How people affect the environment.

At the end of each day for a week, collect all the classroom rubbish, estimate how much there is and then weigh it.

Become aware of the amount of waste of resources within the school and how and why it should be reduced.

Ask the children to produce a cumulative graph, for an interactive display, that shows the weight of rubbish throughout the week. Arrange for a small group to sort the rubbish into different types and produce a tally chart to add to the display. Discuss with the children which types might be recycled and how to go about it, e.g. using bottle banks, newspaper collection, compost heaps, jumble sales, aluminium collection. Discuss with the children why recycling is important.

Express a view on an environmental issue and justify it.

Assess how many rooms use energy efficient light bulbs, what opportunities exist for the school to save electricity? Could the school fit solar panels and aero generators? Look at water use in the school, how many toilets have dual flush? How many leaky taps are there? Are there measures to reduce the waste of water in the school buildings and school grounds? For example drought tolerant plants, grey water collection and rain water collection. What is this place like and why? How can it be improved? As a class, identify an area in the locality that has not been cared for, e.g. a park To collect and record or a shopping centre. Visit the area evidence to answer questions. and gather evidence, e.g. photographs, Fieldwork skills. sketches. To investigate places.

How people affect the environment. How and why people seek to manage and sustain their environment.

Discuss with the children how the area might be improved and who is responsible for improving the environment. .

Appreciate the need for improvement in some places. Are aware that particular groups of people have some responsibility for improving environments.

Unit 7: Improving the Environment Lesson Plan In this unit children expand on their understanding of the local environment and become familiar with the issues surrounding sustainable development. They have an opportunity to use landscape survey techniques, develop their appreciation of conservation and development issues. Students start the process of developing an appreciation of the quality of the environment and how people deserve good living environments. Location: School Grounds and Local Green Space Session Length: 1 to 2 hours for each activity Resources: • Clipboards • Pencils • Large plans of the school playground • Sheet of paper for sketching views • Resource sheet: Green Space Landscape Assessment • Resource sheet: Built Area Landscape Assessment • Resource sheet: Personal Conservation Plan

Activity 1: School Grounds Assessment Resources: • Clipboards • Pencils • Large plans of the school grounds Organise the class into pairs and ask them to plot positive and negative features of the school grounds on their copy of the school grounds plan. Brief them about how school grounds are used for play and P.E. Look at the ways the grounds have to be safe and visible from the school building, and attractive. Discuss what counts as negative features. Do the main survey in class time, but then repeat the survey at break time to see how the space is used. Are more features apparent during playtime? For example is there a need for more seating under shade?

Extension: Measure the school grounds and get the class to draw out their own school grounds plans. Plot static items, for example, benches, bins and play equipment. Remember to plot north and use this as an opportunity to use a compass.

Activity 2: Landscape Assessment Resources: • Clipboards • Pencils • Resource sheet: Green Space Landscape Assessment • Resource sheet: Built Area Landscape Assessment Take the class to two locations, a park green space and a public area of the local built environment (for example, a shopping arcade). At both locations ask the children to do a sketch of the site from a particular viewpoint. The green space and built environment have separate landscape assessment sheets. The children survey both areas taking into account the different requirements of each resource sheet. The children have a challenge to look at an area and view it objectively. They then have to grade each component of the landscape before them. Extension: Take photos from different viewpoints of the same site.

Activity 3: Personal Conservation Plans Resources: • Clipboards • Pencils • Resource sheet: Personal Conservation Plan This activity can form part of Activity 2 and the visit to the green space during the landscape assessment. Based around the Personal Conservation Plan resource sheet, the children are asked to personalise their feelings about their local green space and how they can improve their local environment. Extension: Back in class conduct a role-play where the park is under threat of development. There is a need for new affordable housing in the area and part of the park is to be included in a proposed new build.

Resource Sheet: Unit 7, Activity 2

Green Space Landscape Assessment Sketch a view of the site:

Landscape Checklist Site

___________________________

Date

Weather

___________________________

Time of day ___________________________

a joint project

___________________________.

Green Space Landscape Assessment Circle the features you can see Landform Plain

Flat

Marsh

Lake

Mudﬂat

Pond

Ditch

Valley

River

Hill

Stream

Canal

Steep

Gently sloping

Slopes Vertical

Undulating

Flat

Vegetation Woodland Broad-leaved woodland

mixed woodland

Heath Land and Grassland Bracken Grassland Linear features Hedgerows Roadside verge Small features Isolated trees

Coniferous woodland

Water meadow Woodland edge

Small groups of trees

Heath

Scrub Hay meadow

Railway embankment

Small gardens

Statues

Overall perception Criteria

Ring one word from each row

Scale

Small, large, vast

Enclosure

Tight, enclosed, open, exposed

Harmony

Well balanced, simple, chaotic

Movement

Calm, lively, busy, frantic

Texture

Smooth, bland, rough

Naturalness

Wild, natural, managed, false

Tidiness

Untidy, neat, over-managed, jumble

Colour

Dull, subtle, colourful, bright,

Smell

Pleasant, fresh, stale, unpleasant, obnoxious

Sound

Loud, noisy, humming, buzzing, quiet

Security

Comfortable, safe, unsettling, scary

Beauty

Ugly, uninspiring, pretty, attractive, picturesque

River bank Fountains

Resource Sheet: Unit 7, Activity 2

Built Area Landscape Assessment Sketch a view of the site:

Landscape Checklist Site

___________________________

Date

Weather

___________________________

Time of day ___________________________

a joint project

___________________________.

Built Area Landscape Assessment Circle the features you can see Landform Stepped

Flat

Valley

Exposed

Steep

Gently sloping

River

Hill

Undulating

Flat

Stream

Canal

Slopes Vertical

Vegetation Grassland Lawn

Over grown grass

Heath Land and Grassland Bracken Grassland

Water meadow

Linear features Hedgerows Roadside verge Small features Isolated trees Hanging baskets Cityscape Arches Pavement

Heath

Woodland edge

Small groups of trees Raised ﬂower beds benches Fences

Weedy area Hay meadow

Railway embankment

Small gardens Statues Planters Horse trough

Streets Turnings

Open squares Steps

Bins

River bank Fountains

paved areas Sunken areas

Overall perception Criteria

Ring one word from each row

Scale

Small, large, vast

Enclosure

Tight, enclosed, open, exposed

Harmony

Well balanced, simple, chaotic

Movement

Calm, lively, busy, frantic

Texture

Smooth, bland, rough

Naturalness

Wild, natural, managed, false

Tidiness

Untidy, neat, over-managed, jumble

Colour

Dull, subtle, colourful, bright,

Smell

Pleasant, fresh, stale, unpleasant, obnoxious

Sound

Loud, noisy, humming, buzzing, quiet

Security

Comfortable, safe, unsettling, scary

Beauty

Ugly, uninspiring, pretty, attractive, picturesque

Resource Sheet: Unit 7, Activity 3

Personal Conservation Plan Write down 5 statements under the heading:What I like about the Park 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

From the above, decide how the park could be improved 1. 2. 3.

Write down three things which people do which have a bad affect on the park. 1. 2. 3.

a joint project