When B-Boy comes to stay overnight, Little J becomes envious of the attention he is getting from everyone. Out walking on Country, Nanna, Little J, Big Cuz and B-Boy find an injured joey. Uncle Mick, a Search and Rescue officer, tells them how to care for the joey that they name ‘Hopalong’. The children feed and look after Hopalong until Mick finds him a place in a wildlife shelter.

Evaluate - Compare observations with those of others

Theme - HABITAT

Evaluate what students have learnt (know and can do) from the activities in relation to the Science curriculum content descriptions. Assess the success of the module through reflecting on students’:

• Questioning, and making predictions about the difference between native and non-native animal species in Australia
• Identifying and comparing of the different habitats for animals, particularly Australian animals.
• Identifying and comparing different animals and their needs within the habitat.
• understanding that the physical features of an animal relate to the food they need to survive, and that food is provided by the specific habitat it lives in
• understanding of how extreme weather events such as floods and droughts affect habitats and the animals that rely on them
• Participating guided investigations to record observations (data) and present findings to others in the class
• displaying their learning through visual, text and/or oral communication?

As a culmination of the learning in the module, students could

• Design and create a model of a habitat (e.g. waterhole, swamp, and river) with representations of some of the animals that depend on it.
• Produce a poster or digital presentation comparing two habitats, using words and images to explain how the different habitats have different plants and animals, perhaps also different levels of moisture.
• Present a talk about animals in a specific habitat that is threatened by a flood or a drought.
• Create a human habitat montage: In a clear space in the classroom, ask a group of students to sit together in the space to represent the grassland. Behind another group of students stand and are the trees or bush, particularly the eucalyptus forest that meets the grassland. Other students can represent the different animals, such as, kangaroos, kolas, wombats, goannas, etc. Nominate a season and have the different groups react to how the environment changes, and how the animals live, e.g. in drought, flood, fire, snow, etc. Discuss with students the importance of preserving and conserving habitats.

Student evaluation tools:

Students could self-evaluate their learning using a ‘monitoring’ journal (physical or digital) where the teacher lists the key understandings and concepts students needed to acquire through the module.

Where applicable, a self-evaluation could be constructed as a poll rating their responses using.

• Kahoot
• Quizlet

Use Early Years writing using rubrics to provide feedback to students using the rubric.

Students can use a learning worm to evaluate their work, adapted from:

• Learning Worm

Teacher reflection tools:

Reflect on your teaching of the module. What worked well? What needs more work? What would you add/change/omit in future?

Ask students to rate your efforts and recommend areas for improvement. You may wish to refer to broader resources for reflection or for gaining feedback, for example:

• Demonstrating impact
• ‘How-to’ guide: Learning walks 
• Reflection on Practice Tool