Lesson 2 - Urban bushland
Lesson overview
In this lesson, students investigate how people use urban bushland. After watching a short video shot at a Field of Mars playground, students consider which uses of bushland are responsible and which may cause harm. They then complete an activity where they categorise positive and negative uses of urban bushland. Finally, students watch a video about a child on a bike and respond to a question about whether this behaviour is appropriate in bushland.
Learning intention
We are learning why urban bushland is important.
Success criteria
We can use the results from a survey to communicate the reasons why bushland is important to people.
Activity 1 - Why is urban bushland important?
Urban bushland provides:
- habitat for wildlife
- ecosystem health providing cleaner water, air and healthy soils
- climate control
- a place for people.
Tasks
-
Brainstorm the benefits of urban bushland for people and the environment by creating a mind map. Share your ideas with your class.
- What did you discover?
- What would you like to know more about?
- How will you find out?
Activity 2 - What are the benefits of urban bushland to people?
Urban bushland provides a place for people.
Why are these places important to people? To learn more let's take a look at how we can spend time in these places.
Tasks
- View the image gallery of the ways people spend time in the Field of Mars Reserve.
- List the activities people do in the bushland at the Field of Mars Reserve.
- Have you participated in some of these activities in bushland before?
- How might these activities benefit a person's physical and mental health?
Activity 3 - Conduct a survey
To learn more about the benefits of bushland to people we can survey or interview friends and family using Google forms.
Tasks
- View the excerpt of the Google form survey 'Bushland for people'.
- Create a Google form that will investigate how and why people spend time in bushland.
- Send the form to two or more family and friends who like spending time in bushland areas.
- Collate the responses from your survey. Create a graph to represent your results.
- List the ways people use bushland.
- Explain why bushland is important to people.
- Create a video or written response to the question, why is it important to maintain bushland in urban areas?
Google form survey Bushland for people