Activity Introduction

Quick summary: Students will complete a reading task to learn how Hydro Tasmania utilise Nature’s water cycle in their energy production process.

Activity developed in partnership with   tasmania_hydro_200x84_300pxl

Hydro Tasmania has been at the forefront of clean energy innovation for one hundred years. It is Australia’s largest producer of clean energy – generating hydro and wind power – and the largest water manager. Hydro Tasmania has 55 major dams, operates 30 hydropower stations and has built some of Australia’s largest wind farms.

Hydro Tasmania also sells energy in the National Electricity Market through its retail business Momentum Energy, and sells its expertise internationally through its consulting business Entura. Visit the Hydro Tasmania website to learn how the business is working towards Australia’s clean energy future.

Learning goals: This lesson is designed to provide valuable practice for NAPLAN* – the national literacy tests held in Years 3 and 5 of Primary school. It features reading and visual texts with comprehension and language questions that require students to find facts, interpret meaning and apply text-processing strategies.

General capabilities: Literacy, Critical and creative thinking, Ethical understanding.

Australian Curriculum content descriptions:

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability OI.2.

Year 3 English

  • Recognise high-frequency sight words (ACELA1486) 
  • Read an increasing range of different types of texts by combining contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge, using text processing strategies (for example, monitoring, predicting, confirming, re-reading, reading on and self-correcting) (ACELY1679)
  • Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1680)

Syllabus outcomes: EN2-4A. 

Topic: NAPLAN Preparation, Hydro Tasmania, Energy.

Time required: 60 mins

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – oversee activity

Resources required: Student Worksheet – one copy per student or a written or emailed link to the online Student Worksheet version, Internet access (optional).

Digital technology opportunities: Digital sharing capabilities.

Homework and extension opportunities: Includes opportunities for homework and extension.

Keywords: NAPLAN Preparation, water, renewable energy.

* This lesson plan is not an officially endorsed publication of NAPLAN’s creators and administrators – the ACARA body – but is designed to provide practice for the Australian Curriculum’s compulsory NAPLAN testing scheme.

Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.

Worksheets

Teacher Worksheet

Teacher Preparation

Teacher background information: Energy is the lifeblood of our modern life. It gives us light and keeps our food fresh. It powers our industry, fuels our cars, and charges our iPhones. Our energy is produced by burning fossil fuels and this has a range of environmental, social and economic impacts. One of the most significant is the emission of greenhouse gases. A solution is the transition to clean energy sources. The brilliant thing is that we have huge amounts of free, renewable and clean supplies of natural energies. These include sunlight, wind, running water, oceans and underground hot rocks.

According to the Clean Energy Australia Report 2013:

  • 14.76% of Australia's electricity came from renewable sources in 2013; enough to power the equivalent of almost 5 million homes.
  • Wind turbines provided enough energy to power 1.3 million homes.
  • 3.1 million Australians lived or worked at a property with solar panels at the end of 2013.

We've still got a long

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Student Worksheet

In this lesson, you will complete a NAPLAN* style practice test. The test is in multiple-choice format.

Water Cycle Diagram

water-cycle

Reading text

An Introduction to Hydro Tasmania

Hydro Tasmania provides electrical energy for the people of Tasmania, Australia’s island state. The word ‘hydro’ means ‘water’. Power stations can make electricity by using water to turn large engines (or ‘turbines’) that make electromagnets release energy. Hydro Tasmania catches this electrical energy and sends it to places where it is needed, to power people’s homes and businesses.

How water is recycled naturally

Hydro Tasmania uses water to make big turbines turn inside power stations. This water is re-used many times. It is returned to lakes and rivers through the natural water cycle. After the water has run through a hydro power station, its journey continues downstream to the sea.

At sea level, the water absorbs heat from the sun, which causes it to turn into a gas or ‘evaporate’. During evaporation, w

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