Islington Ecology Centre scheme of work

LEARNING OBJECTIVES Skills/Concepts/attitudes	NC REF. AT/SoA	LEARNING EXPERIENCES Teaching and Learning Strategies
1. Children should understand that water is a RESOURCE That it is a very important or VITAL resource, that we need it and use it individually and collectively, and this includes all living things; humans, animals and plants	Science AT1 AT2 Geography AT2 AT5 English AT1 AT3	In groups or as a whole class children brainstorm, using spider diagram "What we need to survive" Highlighting water, use another spider diagram to look at how we use water. get groups or class to prioritize water use In small groups children look at how plants need and use water Experiments to show how plants take up water, what happens if they don't have water
2. Water and People. Children should consider what is DROUGHT. Where does it happen, what you might do, how would you ADAPT to this situation How much Water is ESSENTIAL for life? How would you use it? CHOICES and PRORITIZING	Science AT1 AT2 Geography AT2 AT5 English AT1 AT3	Look at pictures of drought stricken areas around the world. What might it be like to live there? Where is it? How would you adapt? Fill containers with water. How heavy are they? How far can you carry them? What would you use water for? PRIORITIZE
3. Recap on what VITAL means. If water is vital it is careless/worse to waste it. How do we waste water? What could we do to try and cut down waste? Introduce idea of water harvesting. What does this mean?	Science AT1 Geography AT5 Maths AT3 Tech AT3	Short discussion of what we did last week. Teacher led discussion highlighting turning off taps. Monitoring sheets to be placed by taps. How much does the school use? Consider what containers to use for harvesting.Where will you put them? draw equipment. Draw a plan of where your containers are. Possibility of making rain gauges so you know how much water you have saved.
4.Results How was water in school used - from tap monitoring sheets. How much rain did we collect? What could we use this water for/ What could we not use this water for, and why? Disease Drought contingency - if no water was collected Consider What does this mean? When did it last rain? Are there any things we should do when it doesn't rain?	Science AT1 Maths AT2 AT3 AT5 Tech AT4 English A3 AT1	graphs form tap monitoring- questions arising - is one tap more used than others? What is the most common type of use? Which container was best? How do we know? Why do we think it was better? Discussion on how to use water collected. discussion which will return to prioritzing water use - what is essential? Water plants with watering cans rather than sprinklers or hose pipes. Possibility of looking at drought resistant plants. All groups to consider why a water butt would be th best way to collect water and where to put it- present findings to head teacher.
5. Cleaning and recycling water at the Islington Ecology Centre. How do we make the water we collected cleaner? explanation of grey water and reed bed cleaning.	Science AT1 Geography AT5	Practical experiments cleaning and filtering water. Reed bed demonstration Draw and write up experiments
6.Cleaning and recycling water industrially. Why do we do this? What is this process? Compare with what we did at the Islington Ecology Centre	Science Geography AT5 Art AT1	Video on water treatment. Pictorial flow diagram showing how water treatment fits into water cycle - reinforcing recycling aspect. Work sheets on process involved.
7.Problems Problems with sewage. What might happen if sewage is not treated? What is pollution. What other types of pollution might there be?	Science Geography AT5 English AT3 Art AT1	Teacher led discussion. Pollution spider diagram Pictures of polluted water Measuring chemicals in different types of water Poster advising people what not to throw down sinks, into canals and rivers.
8. Because water is vital to all animals and plants it has been part of our culture through out the world and through time. Look at water in creation stories, water in mythology, weather folklore.	English AT1 AT3 AT4 AT5 Art AT1 RE Drama	Listen to Bob tell weather/water stories. Test traditional weather folklore Rewrite one of the stories or make up your own write a story where water is central Redraft in neat handwriting to be mounted with appropriate illustration, possibility of oral drama presentation.