Activity: Bringing It All Together: A Shared Future – Years 7 to 10

Quick summary: This activity ties together all the learnings from the cool burning unit. The aim of this activity is for students to create a shared vision of the future for Australia’s fire-prone landscapes. Students create this vision using a ‘thinking hats’ learning tool and consider a range of opinions and perspectives. They identify the cultural, economic and environmental aspects of their shared vision and pitch their ideas to the class.

Learning intentions:

• Students understand the cultural, economic and environmental benefits of putting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples land management strategies into practice
• Students find out that science can be used to make predictions about our future
• Students recognise that they have the skills and knowledge to create their own vision for the future
• Students understand that different people have opposing ideas about what the future should look like but that these differences can be used to give strength to the vision and its meaning.

21st century skills:

Australian Curriculum Mapping

Content description:

Year 7 English

• Reflect on ideas and opinions about characters, settings and events in literary texts, identifying areas of agreement and difference with others and justifying a point of view (ACELT1620).
• Discuss aspects of texts, for example their aesthetic and social value, using relevant and appropriate metalanguage(ACELT1803)
•  Use comprehension strategies to interpret, analyse and synthesise ideas and information, critiquing ideas and issues from a variety of textual sources (ACELY1723)
• Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects of subject matter and particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas (ACELY1725)

Year 8 English

• Share, reflect on, clarify and evaluate opinions and arguments about aspects of literary texts(ACELT1627). 
• Recognise and explain differing viewpoints about the world, cultures, individual people and concerns represented in texts(ACELT1807)
• Use comprehension strategies to interpret and evaluate texts by reflecting on the validity of content and the credibility of sources, including finding evidence in the text for the author’s point of view (ACELY1734)
• Create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that raise issues, report events and advance opinions, using deliberate language and textual choices, and including digital elements as appropriate (ACELY1736)

Year 9 Science

• Scientific understanding, including models and theories, are contestable and are refined over time through a process of review by the scientific community (ACSHE157)
• People can use scientific knowledge to evaluate whether they should accept claims, explanations or predictions (ACSHE160)
• Communicate scientific ideas and information for a particular purpose, including constructing evidence-based arguments and using appropriate scientific language, conventions and representations (ACSIS174)

Year 9 English

• Use interaction skills to present and discuss an idea and to influence and engage an audience by selecting persuasive language, varying voice tone, pitch, and pace, and using elements such as music and sound effects (ACELY1811)
• Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements for aesthetic and playful purposes (ACELY1741)
• Interpret, analyse and evaluate how different perspectives of issue, event, situation, individuals or groups are constructed to serve specific purposes in texts (ACELY1742)
• Create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that present a point of view and advance or illustrate arguments, including texts that integrate visual, print and/or audio features (ACELY1746)
•  Use a range of software, including word processing programs, flexibly and imaginatively to publish texts (ACELY1748)

Year 10 Science

• Global systems, including the carbon cycle, rely on interactions involving the biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere (ACSSU189)
• Scientific understanding, including models and theories, are contestable and are refined over time through a process of review by the scientific community (ACSHE191)
• People can use scientific knowledge to evaluate whether they should accept claims, explanations or predictions (ACSHE194)
• Communicate scientific ideas and information for a particular purpose, including constructing evidence-based arguments and using appropriate scientific language, conventions and representations (ACSIS208)

Year 10 Geography

• The human-induced environmental changes that challenge sustainability (ACHGK070)
• The environmental worldviews of people and their implications for environmental management (ACHGK071)
• The application of environmental economic and social criteria in evaluating management responses to the change (ACHGK075)
• Reflect on and evaluate the findings of the inquiry to propose individual and collective action in response to a contemporary geographical challenge, taking account of environmental, economic and social considerations; and explain the predicted outcomes and consequences of their proposal (ACHGS080)
• Present findings, arguments and explanations in a range of appropriate communication forms selected for their effectiveness and to suit audience and purpose, using relevant geographical terminology and digital technologies as appropriate (ACHGS079)

Syllabus outcomes: GE5-2, GE5-3, GE5-4, GE5-5, GE5-8, SC5-12ES, SC5-13ES, SC5-9WS, EN4-2A, EN4-4B, EN4-5C, EN4-8D, EN5-1A. EN5-2A, EN5-3B.

General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability.

Cross-curriculum priority:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures OI.2, OI.3.
• Sustainability OI.6, OI.8.

Topic: Cool Burning, Indigenous Education.

Unit of work: Cool Burning – Secondary.

Time required: 60 mins.

Level of teacher scaffolding: Low – oversee activity

Resources required:

• Device capable of presenting a website to the class
• Pitch Factsheet
• Pitch Assessment Rubric
• Student Worksheet – one copy per student.

Related professional development: 

• Teach Indigenous Land Management Using Fire
• Teach Caring for Country Using Fire

Keywords:  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, tradition, culture, land management, career, employment, social benefits, social benefits, grazing, carbon credits, conservation, climate change.

Special thanks to:

Fish River Station, John Daly, Dr Jeremy Russell-Smith, Peter Jacklyn, Peter McConchie, Dr Tommy George, David Claudie, Dale Musgrave, Carolyn George and Victor Steffensen.

Cool Australia would like to acknowledge the support of the Bennelong Foundation in updating these lessons.

Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum. There is great diversity in histories and cultures among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout Australia. This resource includes investigations into and information about some of them. It has an emphasis, but not an exclusive one, on the histories and cultural practices of the Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory. It is underpinned by consultation with Aboriginal communities in various parts of Australia.