Curriculum Plan

Social Studies –Level 4

Resources and Economic Activities
Aim: To explore how and why people view and use resources differently and the consequence of this.

Specific learning outcomes:

1. Identify the different values people may attach to a resource in Oamaru (e.g., spiritual, cultural, industrial and recreational).
2. Identify the possible consequences when people in Oamaru view the same resource in different ways.

Place and Environment
Aim:To explore why and how people find out about places and environments.

Specific learning outcomes:

1. Identify different reasons people have for finding out about places and environment in Oamaru.
2. Give examples of ways people find out about places and environments in Oamaru.

Science – Level 4

Living World
Aim: Use simple food chains to explain the feeding relationship of familiar animals and plants, and investigate effects of human intervention on these relationships.

Specific learning outcomes:

1. Identify feeding relationships of familiar animals and plants found on Oamaru’s Walkways by constructing food webs.
2. Give examples of the impact of the development and use of Oamaru’s Walkways on ecosystems found in the area.
3. Recognise positive influences people have made to the environment.

Health and Physical Education – Level 4

Healthy Communities and Environments
Aim: Access a range of health care agencies, recreational resources, and sporting resources, and evaluate the contribution made by each to the wellbeing of community members.

Specific learning outcome:

1. Identify and evaluate how Oamaru’s Walkways contribute to the wellbeing of the community.

Essential Skills – Social and Co-operative
Aim: Develop good relationships with others and work in co-operative ways to achieve common goals.

This is the process we followed to solve our inquiry

Knowledge Attack
First we were divided into groups of eight. These are called 'jigsaw groups' (the teachers picked these groups). 2-3 of us from our group of 8 went to health, science or social studies. Then at the end of the session, we went back to our jigsaw groups and reported back what we learnt about resources, wellbeing, food chains and ecosystems.

Developing Questions
After we had gained all this knowledge, the teachers gave us a focus question for our inquiry, which was to evaluate how the walkways contribute to the wellbeing of the community.

In order to find an answer to this big question, we had to create lots of little, or subsidiary, questions. To help us create these the teachers introduced us to the questioning keys. The keys help to focus our thinking and questioning. To use the keys you must use the word on the keys in your questions. For example, we used the key ‘consequences’ and came up with questions like “What would be the consequence to our community if there were no walkways?” Another example was the 'roles/jobs' key. This is a question using this key: “What are the roles of the Waitaki District Council in maintaining the tracks?”

Explore
This is the search for answers! We brainstormed places where we could get information to answer the subsidiary questions. We used process of elimination to decide on the places that we believed would be of more use to us. We searched for information by faxing people, e-mailing people, ringing people and going to the Information Centre and the Library. We also used the internet. The most useful places were the Information Centre, Library and the District Council. Everyone in our group was responsible for finding information on at least one question.

Record
When we had gathered all of our information, we needed to record it in a place and in a way that allowed all of our group easy access to it at all times. Each group had a manila folder to keep all their notes or printed information. Graphs and tables were used for comparing information. Some groups chose to type out their information and then save it into a general folder or a floppy disk where the other members could access it whenever.Others wrote it all out on to a big A3 sheet of paper and put it up on the wall of our syndicate room, Room 2. When we had gathered and recorded all our information, we were ready to organise!

Organise
The next process in our task was to organise all the information we had received. This included matching answers to our many questions, both essential and subsidiary. Then we organised our knowledge into paragraphs for our website. Finally in this section, we used our information to answer the essential question.

Create
The next process was to create our web pages. First we planned our page on paper deciding where all the information and photos went. Next we put all that in tables to separate the information. We decided on the colours because that would be the same colour throughout the whole website. The buttons, branding and font are all the same as well to ensure uniformity in our site.

Evaluate
The final, but by far not least important, process in our task was to evaluate all the work we had put into our website. This involved us in identifying what are the good points in our site and what we can improve on for next time. We also did a self-evaluation on how well we worked as a group, which included skills such as co-operation, time management, preparedness and our attitude. And, of course, the teachers want to know how much knowledge we have gained in science, social studies and health – this was put on a series of three double-sided worksheets.

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