Little J finds a Hawk Moth caterpillar on the Tar vine in the backyard that he names ‘Sausage’. He wants to take it to school but the caterpillar has other ideas and disappears underground. Nanna teaches Little J the story about the Yeperenye caterpillar of the Arrernte people from central Australia. Sausage finally returns to give Little J a further lesson on life cycles. Sissy wants to perform a dance for the school with Big Cuz, but Big Cuz feels ‘shame’.

Evaluate - Represent and communicate observations and ideas in a variety of ways

Theme - LIVING THINGS

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 questions about living things and the variety of external features they have, to camouflage themselves by matching to their environment
• observing caterpillars, their markings and body structure and predicting what the adult moth will look like, their markings and scaly structure
• documenting and analysing how moths and/or butterflies live in different places where their needs are met through their life cycle
• participating in a guided inquiry, recording data and comparing observations (data) about rainfall and soil saturation
• communicating and representing the stories Arrernte people tell of the Yeperenye caterpillars, and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander bush medicines, tools and technologies they use to survive in their Country

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

Design and plant an area of the school yard to attract moths/butterflies that are common in the local area

Visit a Natural History Museum to view the collections of moths and butterflies, or apply for a lending box of moth and butterfly specimens from a museum

Conduct a ‘Critter count’ in the school grounds, collecting data about any insects the students find, particularly butterflies and moths. Students can photograph evidence of local insects and catalogue the images as an online journal, such as:

• CSIRO Identification Resources Online_ Insects
• CSIRO's Australian Moths Online

Access the National Guide apps, Museums Victoria, covering the Australian fauna of each state and territory

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, construct a self-evaluation 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 link below:

• Learning Worm 

Teacher reflection tools

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

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

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