Little J shares his bird feather collection with B-Boy. In school, Little J promises to find bush tucker to share with the class. The problem is that he doesn’t know how to find bush tucker. He enrols the help of Big Cuz and Nanna to teach him ‘proper way’ to identify and track animals. The group finds emu eggs but overnight a greedy goanna eats them. Nanna comes to the rescue by making spaghetti bolognaise for the class.

Explore - Science involves observing, asking questions about, and describing changes in, objects and events

Ask students to identify how science is evident in their local environment. Direct their responses to an understanding that science features in all aspects of everyday life today. Refer back to the Little J & Big Cuz, Episode 5 ‘Goanna ate my homework’, and how the story is evident of science playing an important part of everyday life. Have students identify the ‘science ‘in the story, for example,

• Cooking spaghetti bolognaise – recipes, technologies and energy
• Australian animals and their habitats – animal classification, habitat, animals and their young, ecology, biology, sustainability
• Tracking animals – navigation, the earth’s surface – geology,
• Bush tucker collection – plants, fruits, food, sustainability, seasons
• Feather/specimen collection – birds, species, native and introduced species, food, habitat.

After considering what the episode offers to learning about science, ask students to define what ‘science’ means in their everyday life. Have students identify how science helps them live in the world. Ask students to draw their representation of who is a scientist and what they may look like. Prepare a presentation with images of different scientists from different industries and include an image of a mother and father, grandparent, etc. Discuss the idea that everyone is a scientist at some time.

• Famous scientist videos
• Access Google Images and enter search for ‘scientists’ and ‘modern scientists’

Provide information that Aboriginal peoples and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples were also scientists who discovered ways of understanding their world. Introduce students to some of the science achievements of Aboriginal peoples and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples. Resources to support this topic include:

• Indigenous weather knowledge
• Mandy explains the six seasons
• Indigenous knowledge in science education
• Rangers with traditional knowledge
• Celestial creatures: how animals inspired legends, constellation names and more’
• Australian Aboriginal astronomy
• Forest Secrets_Climate
• The Seven Seasons of the Kulin People
• Unit 2: Changing lands and skies
• Aboriginal bush medicines 
• Top 10 Aboriginal bush medicines

Divide the class into smaller groups, and ask each group to research one aspect of science (listed above) as evidenced in the episode and written on the IWB/board. Each group develops a presentation on the topic (using software such as PowerPoint, Prezzie or Glogster) and shares it with the class. In this activity, the student becomes the science expert (scientist). Presentations should follow a similar report format:

• Topic
• Inquiry question
• Observations / experiments
• Researched facts/evidence
• Conclusions