Activity Introduction
Quick summary: In this lesson students synthesise what they have learned from the Love Food? Love Bees! unit and develop a plan for taking action around themes presented in the unit. Students will work in groups to select a theme that is important to them, then brainstorm an idea for action. Next, they collaboratively plan their action project and execute this plan. Finally, students are asked to reflect upon the success of their project and their role in creating and executing the project.
This activity has been developed in partnership with 
Essential questions:
- What are the themes covered throughout the Love Food? Love Bees! unit?
- What are the different ways to take action around the issue of bees?
- How can we take action around this issue at our school or in our community?
- What are the processes and steps required for planning and executing a social action project?
21st century skills:
Advice for teachers: This unit is designed to help Year 5 and 6 students to look critically at the impact of bees upon food production and the environment more generally. Parts of this unit are suitable for Learning areas such as: HASS, English and the Arts. These lessons can be used to integrate the Cross-curricular priority of Sustainability into your learning area. Each lesson is designed to stand on its own; you can easily pick and choose what learning activities best meet your curricular goals.
Australian Curriculum Mapping:
This lesson concludes the Love Food? Love Bees! unit. It provides students with the opportunity to apply their knowledge to create a social action project or awareness raising campaign around an issue they connected with through the unit. As a result this lesson can be integrated into a number of subject areas as the focus is on developing the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum and 21st century skills.
General capabilities: Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, Ethical Understanding, ICT Capability.
Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability OI.1, OI.2, OI.5, OI.7, OI.8.
Topic: Sustainability
Unit of work: Love Food? Love Bees!
Time required: 60+ mins (this lesson could take between three and six sessions). Time should be determined by teacher prior to commencing the lesson so that students have a clear expectation of the deadline in which to execute their project.
Level of teacher scaffolding: High – oversee project planning and project execution.
Resources required: Student Worksheet – one copy per student OR computers/tablets to access the online worksheet. Project Planning Tool, Project Checklist. Butcher’s paper and textas, online stopwatch.
Digital technology opportunities: Digital sharing capabilities, creating with ICT, communicating with ICT.
Keywords: bee, sustainability, community action, collaboration, project based learning, social action.
Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.
Teacher preparation
