The world- How many countries can you locate? Try this activity.

Asylum Seekers So who are asylum seekers and why do people argue about them so much? A Behind the News report. May 2009

Migration Cuts The unemployment figures have also had an effect on immigration.  A Behind The news Report-March 2009 

A timeline of 20th Century Historical events

How has immigration shaped the kind of nation we are? 

TERM 1: WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A LEADER?

The Inquiry Overview

Every individual has the potential to be a leader. Leaders have a set of social and friendship skills to enable them to help and empower others.
Through this inquiry students will extend their social knowledge and skills to enable them to make and maintain positive relationships and close friendships and work collaboratively in teams.

REMARKABLE LEADERSHIP

TERM2- WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

The Inquiry Overview

Through fieldwork and research students will investigate the role of the River Murray in sustaining life and supporting human activity.

Students will discuss environmental, conservation and resource issues to bring about positive change in the Coorong and Lower Lakes.

We have been investigating this question in our inquiry unit and this post will provide you with a number of digital resources to help your understanding of the problems facing the River Murray and the Lower Lakeshere in South Australia. We saw many of these issues first hand whilst on camp on Hindmarsh Island. Many concerned South Australians are pushing for action from the Federal and State Governments and have created websites and posted videos to show their point of view. Like any complex problem, the points of view vary and take quite a bit of reading and viewing to understand.

We spent most of our time on camp on Hindmarsh Island and around Goolwa so that area is familiar to those and is a good starting point. We know that the Murray River has reached record lows, that all fresh water has to be imported onto Hindmarsh Island. You may recall Andrew telling us about 2 minute showers and having to wash our dishes in the three tubs of water at mealtime – and that water was trucked onto the island while in years gone by, they could have pumped it in from the nearby Murray.

The Murray River is extremely important to South Eastern Australia. An article from The Age back in 2003 stated:

Australia has 5.6 per cent of the world’s land mass, but less than 1 per cent of its run-off. Most of that flows into the rivers of northern Australia and Tasmania. Just 6 per cent flows into the Murray-Darling system, which supplies two-thirds of the water for Australia’s irrigation farmers.

You can see where the River Murray ends up at Goolwa, and its current state has been caused by a combination of human use along the way and record drought conditions. To see how much water is taken from the Murray along the way, Water Use And Consumption page gives us a lot of detail. The following map shows where South Australians also use the Murray as a source of water for the majority of our population.

Of course, a lot of water is used in Victoria and along the Darling River in NSW, which is one of the major rivers feeding into the Murray. To find out more about the relationship between the Murray and Darling Rivers go to the Murray-Darling Basin Commission’s Basin Encyclopedia.

As the river levels have dropped, conditions around Goolwa, Hindmarsh Island and the Lower Lakes have changed considerably. There have been problems with the growth of tubeworms as the salinity levels have changed as shown in this article from the Advertiser showing a scientist standing in the same spot as some of us did on our Murray River Walk.

A Flickr user, Mundoo, has also created a photo set called Murray River Dying, which shows many photos of the region current and from a few years back that show how dramatically things have changed. You should be able to view these at home as the DECS internet filters stops a lot of images on our school computer system.

As I’ve looked around for suitable resources to explain how all of this occurred and what people propose as a solution, I found that not all concerned people favour the same solution. There are sites that want the Government to act and spend money to get more water into the river upstream by buying irrigation licences, paying out irrigators so they take less water because they are convincd that only more fresh water flowing through to the Mouth and Lower Lakes will return the environment back to normal. One site is Stop The Weir- a proposed weir at Wellington (near Murray Bridge) is one goverment solution to preserve the drinkability of the water taken from the river for Adelaide residents – but that would totally prevent fresh water from ever reaching the Lower Lakes area. This side of the debate is also concerned about the freshwater lifein the Lower Lakes like turtles, which are suffering greatly from the effects of the tubeworms. The following video (viewable at home and on the school network) shows this point of view:

A COLLECTION OF NEWS ARTICLES

Lower Lakes Crisis

MURRAY RIVER IN CRISIS

Use these pages to create a flow chart showing WHAT is the problem, WHO it affects, WHY it’s happening  and  ACTION  being taken or needing to be taken.

ARTICLES- read through a variety of articles to record notes and summarise your ideas.

River Murray Photos

Murray River Facts

2008-YEAR 5 /6

HOW CAN I BE THE BEST I CAN BE?

TUNING IN-finding out what is already known.This is the first stage of the Inquiry process.

The students prepared a 2 min oral presentation about their greatest success.

They brought in a picture of someone they believed represented ’success’ and explained the reasoning behind their choice. These pictures were displayed as a collage.

The meaning of the word ‘BEST’ was examined. Students wrote their own definition. Students shared key words from their definition to create a collaborative class mind map of the word ‘BEST’.

KT wrote this as his definition and understanding of the word ‘BEST’.

My meaning for best is never give up you can do it if you put in 100% and say I can do it. It’s your personal best that counts. You have to use the 5 keys that will let you get though the door and it is not always about winning you just have to keep trying and trying and put in effort.

FINDING OUT
For home work we had to research a famous inventor and design a model or poster describing what he invented and how he was persistent. I chose Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and it took him alot of persistence to make it. Other people chose other inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell, Michael Angelo and Bill Gates.
N.C.

GOING FURTHER

Students were asked to think of themselves as successful graduating students and predict a speech that would be read out about them at their Graduation Ceremony.

JC has been at this school since reception.He has always enjoyed helping out around the school and has played good football for the school since year 2. Perhaps his best achievements,though,are the awards he has earned for his outstanding school work,and especially good achievement considering he used to give the teachers a hard time with all his cheeky attitude and problems focusing. You’ve made some fantastic and positive changes to your learning JC. Keep up the good work and all the best with your future.

TERM 2

CAN WE REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Students will understand that
• The behaviour of living things are interrelated and interderpendent.
• Actions by humans can have positive and negative impacts on the earth’s ecology.
• It is necessary at times for human intervention to maintain a balanced, sustainable environment.

TUNING IN-finding out what is already known.This is the first stage of the Inquiry process.
 

PICTURE PRIORITIES

Students were given a series of pictures and in groups were asked to prioritise them in order of relevance to the phrase ‘Port River Dolphins.’ Their ordering needed to be justified with reasons.
These were then presented back to the class.

FINDING OUT

Ann a guest speaker from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society visited and spoke to the class about Dolphins. She brought with her two dolphin models. We used the models to simulate how a dolphin uses SONAR to locate food and be warned about predators. Ann showed us the WDCS website which has lots of information a and activities.

WDCS
The global voice for the protection of dolphins and whales and their environment.

Bottle Nose dolphin diagram
A labeled diagram of a bottle nosed dolphin

ECOSYSTEM- What is is it?

DOLPHIN PLACE FACTS
A report about dolphins including appearance, diet, reproduction and behaviour.

FROM LA 20
DISAPPEARING DOLPHINS VIDEO
It lookS at the impact of overfishing in the Ionian Sea on the dolphin population while the banning of fishing in the Amvrakikos Gulf has produced the opposite effect.

The Baiji dolphin is a unique species of river dolphin, but it is feared that it may already be extinct. It lived in the Yangtze River in China and had evolved to be slow moving and with limited eyesight because the waters are so muddy.

VIDEOS

Whyalla Dolphins
Dolphins to turn tourism tide 
Article featured in the Advertiser on Saturday 14th June 200b

RICK HOLDEN

June 14, 2008 12:30am

A QUIRK of nature, likely to send scientists into a spin, is also destined to turn the steel city of Whyalla into a tourism magnet.
In a rare case of animal-human interaction, a pod of dolphins is exhibiting extraordinary behaviour more akin to trained aquarium animals.

GOING FURTHER

Some organisations are dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities.
TASK:

1.Choose an animal from the drop down menu that you interested in. Record your choice on class list. If four students have chosen the same animal you must choose a different one.

2.LAP TOP TIME-Locate and organise
During class laptop time locate information about the animal and organise under the headings
FACTS
THREATS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
3. PUBLISH your collected information as a brochure

Use the contract sheet to check on due dates, check in points and criteria needed for assessment.

CLEANING THE PORT RIVER

SODA ash maker Penrice Soda has started a $1.5 million clean-up of the Port River – 70 years after it first put silt into the waterway.

TERM 3 ‘WHO MAKES THE RULES?’
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
What is democracy?
Sal becomes an active citizen
being an active citizen
How are decisions made in South Australia?
How do we make sure the system is honest and fair?

News

Recycling law

Daylight Saving

AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIP DAY
Learn about the responsibilities and privileges of being an Australian citizen

PARLIAMENT HOUSE videos

BILLS in parliament

TERM 4 ‘WHAT MAKES US AN AUSTRALIAN?’

We Are Australian research activity

Australian Cultural Stories-An alpahabetical listing of Australian cultural topics

Lower Lakes Crisis