One night, Little J hears the nocturnal Barking Owl and becomes fascinated by how the owl stays awake at night. In the morning, he is woken by the carolling of magpies and on the way to school, he is swooped by Maggie, the magpie. Miss Chen teaches the class about nocturnal animals.

Evaluate - Compare observations with those of others

Theme - DAY & NIGHT

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

• posing and responding to information on how living things live in different places where their nocturnal needs are met
• Identifying  and describing nocturnal Australian animals and their specific habitats
• discussing and analyzing how the sun transits the sky from night to day
• identifying and predicting the various phases of the sun and the moon during the day, month and year
• comparing the seasons, how they occur, and how they differ in different areas of the world.
• observing the night sky, and what it looks like at different times and from different perspectives
• communicating, cooperating and sharing information and activities with peers
• detailing relevant information in a report on a topic
• describing cause and effect science
• constructing a telescope and understanding simple science principles, including reflection and refraction.

As a culmination of the learning experience in this module, students could:

• Create a story about different times of the day and what is happening in the sky at that time
• Script and/or film a TV and/or radio weather report that informs about the local weather for a week.
• Design and create an illustrated storybook about an Aboriginal Dreaming story and/or Torres Strait Islander Bipo Bipo Taim (Before Before Time) story about a constellation, e.g. the emu
• Plan and sequence a local seasonal calendar based on personal observations and experiences of the local area.
• Design and create playing cards based on Australian nocturnal and/or diurnal animals, e.g. a ‘Guess Who’ style game
• Visit a planetarium in the local area and engage an education officer to guide you through the current celestial sky.

Students could self-evaluate their learning using a science journal (physical or digital) where the teacher lists the key understandings and concepts students needed to acquire through the activities. Where applicable, a self-evaluation could be constructed as a poll rating their responses using Kahoot, Survey Monkey or Quizlet.

Optional game activities, include:

• Living in Space
• NASA Kids’ Club
• NASA Science, Space Place: Expore Earth and Space
• Astronomy - Outer space experiments for kids

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.

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