Unit 04 – A Butterfly Garden

Please open the Butterfly Garden Outcomes pdf to view the following information as a diagram for print-out.

SOSE: Place and space
1.3 Students participate in a cooperative project to cater for the needs of living things.
1.4 Students organise and present information about places that are important to them.
1.5 Students describe the relationships between personal actions and environmentally friendly strategies in familiar places.

SCIENCE: Life and living
1.1 Students discuss their thinking about the needs of living things.
1.2 Students group living things in different ways based on observable features.
2.1 Students look for patterns and relationships between the features of living things and how those living things meet their needs.
2.2 Students illustrate changes which take place in the course of a life span of living things.
2.3 Students make links between different features of the environment and the specific needs of live things.

TECHNOLOGY: Technology practice
1.1 Students gather knowledge, ideas and data from familiar environments and consider how they will use this information to meet design challenges.

Early years curriculum guidelines

• Investigating and understanding environments
• Creating and designing
• Communicating

Outcomes

Establishing the butterfly garden
1. Survey students to establish attitudes to caterpillars
2. Discuss prior knowledge and understandings about butterflies
3. Make a KWL chart
4. Brainstorm and list ideas for the garden
5. Compare plants
6. Survey school grounds for suitable area
7. Plan garden
8. Raise funds and buy plants and materials
9. Organise parents to help
10. Make garden

Key questions / Deep understanding
1. What is biodiversity?
2. What is a butterfly?
3. How do butterflies contribute to the environment?
4. What can we do to help sustain a population of butterflies?

Working with the garden
1. Brainstorm needs
2. Measure plants
3. Record growth
4. Match, compare and classify the leaves
5. Conduct experiments
6. Reproduce the colour

Investigating caterpillars and butterflies
1. Observe and record visiting butterflies
2. Photograph and draw butterflies
3. Record number of eggs and caterpillars
4. Record growth and changes in caterpillars
5. What have we learned?

Culminating activities
1. Present PowerPoint slideshow
2. Question and answer Session
3. Debate
4. Report
5. Survey attitudes to caterpillars. Are there any changes?

Key questions / Deep understanding
1. What is metamorphosis?
2. How is this process different between frogs and butterflies?
3. The life cycle of the butterfly.
4. What are the attitudes of the students now?

Whole class:
Cooperative skills and group skills might need to be explicitly taught.
Activities need to cater for a diverse range of ability and interests.

Individual:
Plan inclusive activities.

Understanding Individuals

Content

Deep understandings

• How and what we do impacts on animal lives.
• Butterflies are important.
• Butterflies are part of our world.
• Butterflies need our protection.

Related curriculum areas

• Mathematics
• Art
• Literacy
• SOSE

Productive pedagogies

• Connectedness
• Substantive conversation
• Supportive classroom environment
• Intellectual quality

Active learning processes

• Thinking
• Investigating
• Imagining
• Responding
• Classifying
• Experimenting
• Observing
• Reporting
• Comparing

Key genres

• Report
• Invitation
• Debate
• List
• Persuasion

Evaluation

Tips for assessment

• Report
• Question and Answer Session
• Debate
• Artwork
• PowerPoint slideshow
• Animation
• Webpage
• Response to anti-caterpillar letter

Program evaluation

• Have attitudes changed?
• Are the students actively engaged in the project?