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 - Compare observations with those of others

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:

• investigating the life cycle of living things: how they grow, change and have offspring like themselves
• observing, posing and responding to questions about the physical characteristics of a moth, a butterfly, and a caterpillar
• naming and ordering the seasons of the various calendars: Aboriginal seasons and/or Torres Strait Islander seasons and the Western seasons
• exploring the connection between how people use science in their daily lives, including examining how the environment produces seasonal bush tucker, and people harvest and eat different foods at different times in the year
• recognising and representing the stories Arrernte people tell of the Yeperenye caterpillars, and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander bush medicines, tools and technologies
• presenting and sharing  their learning through visual, text and/or oral communication

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

• Identify and harvest local bush tucker and write a procedural text explaining how to cook an item of bush food.
• Prepare a seasonal menu, including invitations, for a seasonal bush food meal.
• Conduct monthly observations in the school grounds or garden and collate the data.  Identify and record data on which insects students find and when they appear? Identify types of insects in two different phases of its life (e.g. cabbage moth caterpillar and white cabbage moth)?

Have student provide photos, life cycle diagrams and data in a display.

Download and use National Guide Apps, Museums Victoria to sources local and Australian fauna in 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 (PDF) to provide feedback to students using the rubric.

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

• Learning Worm (PDF), Eduweb, DET Victoria

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 (PDF), AITSL
• ‘How-to’ guide: Learning walks (PDF), AITSL
• Reflection on Practice Tool, AITSL