We're off to the Museum...

Diprotodon - Victoria's Megafauna

Today I had the privileged of joining Learning Team 3 from Findon Primary School on a visit to the Melbourne Museum. Whilst I had attended an excursion a couple of times in the past, this was the first one that involved visiting a specific venue.

The Museum had things down pat - they had things figure out and their systems and processes enabled a fairly stress free day for the teachers (apart from trying to supervise 5 classes of grade three students:)). The visit gave me some great ideas for how to improve some of the processes we have in place at the Wildlife Sanctuary.

Students on the Forest Walk

The students had a great time exploring all the exhibits from the Melbourne Gallery, were students explore Mellbourne's history, including an old shack and Phar Lap, to the Forest Gallery, where live exhibits engaged students in understanding frogs, lizards and forest plants, to the Science and Life Gallery where evolution, dinosaurs and wildlife were on display.

Something I noticed was the way in which students engaged with the technology in various exhibits. Whilst interpretation experts would tout their educational benefit, I noticed in so

Students exploring the Dinosaur exhibit

me exhibits that this was a very surface level of education and in fact bordered on students being more engaged with the interactivity than the information presented. One particular instance was when students were fighting over looking at a virtual display of animals. pressing screen images that would provide information about the animals - at no point did students pay any attention to the content, even when it directly linked to questions in their worksheets (they had to have the exact section of information pointed out to them). At this time I asked the students what they were looking at - they explained - 'just random animals'. They were amazed and excited, when I pointed out the animals on display (above the screen) and were then actively engaged in looking at what was around them - rather than the screen. I feel if the screen wasn't there, they'd have had a more interactive learning experience.

Science in the Bush

For some years we have been offering an experience that provides students with an insight into some of the scientific processes we use to understand ecosystems. In 2016 we have renamed this experience Science in the Bush. Essentially this is a version of the Minibeasts Wonderland experience, except with more specific data collection outcomes, aimed at students in years 7-10.

There are three main activities:

Aquatic Sampling

In small teams students take samples of the aquatic invertebrates in Fozzies wetland, the highlight of this activity is being able to go right out into the wetland with a pair of waders on. Students are able to apply a scientific method for catching invertebrates to ensure that the sample is consistent with other groups sampling.

Terrestrial Sampling

Students use quadrats to determine the presence and abundance of terrestrial invertebrates in a given area (1m x 1m).  In this session I incorporated 'Graphically Grubs' as a way of creaing their data on site.

Identification and Analysis

Back in the Learning Centre we use dissection microscopes to identify and quantify the animals that have been caught in each environment and use this to form a discussion around the health and diversity of a woodland ecosystem.

First Run for 2016

The students from a school just up the road from the sanctuary attended the session today. There was fantastic bunch of eager grade 7 students keen to jump into the wetland (after a bit of encouragement) and get their sample of invertebrates. It did take a little to warm the students to the ideas of engaging with nature, most being preoccupied with cleanliness and fairly sterile environments, so this place with bugs and mud and where 'anything can happen' may have left them a bit concerned.

Once the students got past this, however, they really engaged and worked well in their teams to collect and analyse there samples.

The invertebrate ID session that I was working on previously, worked really well with this group and asking them why they made a particular conclusion really allowed them to critically engage with the topic. In the Terrestrial session I found two students having a rigorous discussion about their animals and using markers on the worksheets to describe how they had determined what animal it was - this was some great evidence of Creative and Critical Thinking.