Part Two: Concept Map Bushfires, Year 5

Subject

English

Curriculum link

Activities

Resources

Plan, rehearse and deliver

presentations for defined
audiences and purposes
incorporating accurate and
sequenced content and
multimodal
elements (ACELY1700)
Plan, draft and publish
imaginative, informative and
persuasive print and
multimodal texts, choosing text
structures, language features,
images and sound appropriate
to purpose
and audience (ACELY1704)

Students are to work in groups of 3 to

research and create a speech based on one
Australian bushfire and present their
findings to the class. They are to use the
websites provided by their teacher.

iPads for research students can

write up their information into their
books before typing up a good
copy.
App such as Pages
Computers for typing up
information

Students are to write a diary entry from the

perspective of someone who was affected
by a bushfire.
Students are to write a story about someone
who was involved in a bushfire. They need
to explain that persons experiences and
how the bushfire has affected them and
their family.
Students are to write a poem of an
Australian bushfire. Before students begin
read the text Fire by Jackie French and
brainstorm the descriptive words used in the
text. They can relate to the text Fire by
Jackie French and use descriptive words
from the text to highlight the bushfire
element of their poem.

Childrens literature book Fire

by Jackie French.

Identify aspects of literary texts

that convey details or
information about particular
social, cultural and historical
contexts(ACELT1608)

Read the book The Fire by Jackie French

as a class. Students are then to complete a
Plot Profile from the First Steps Reading
Resource book. This activity allows students
to consider each event of the story and their
feelings towards the text. As it is a bushfire
text, this activity may put it into perspective

Helpful websites for students:

http://www.australia.gov.au/aboutaustralia/australian-story/naturaldisasters
First Steps Reading Resource
page 149, 2 Plot Profile.

Designing:
Develop and communicate
alternative solutions and follow
design ideas, using annotated
diagrams, storyboards and
appropriate technical terms.

Digital
Technologies

Use of a variety of techniques

and forms, such as digital
imaging, sculpture, mixed
media, printing, drawing and
painting (ACAVAM115)

The Arts

for those students who have never been

affected by a bushfire.
Create a poster to promote how we can
save animals during a bushfire using the
app VanillaPen-Poster Maker. Students
are to use the free website Pixabay for their
pictures.
Students are to use the app Bushfire
Bulletin created by the New South Wales
Rural Fire Service. In pairs they are to read
information on the Black Saturday Bushfire
that occurred in Victoria 2009. Students are
to create a storyboard highlighting the
events of this bushfire using the app Comic
Life.
Students are to work in groups of three to
four to create an animation using the iPad
app Toontastic. The animation should be
about someone who is involved in a
bushfire in some way. This could be though
volunteer fire fighter or victim.
Create a new cover for the literature The
Fire by Jackie French.
Students are to create a dot painting of a
bushfire using the technique of line.
Students are to create a diorama in pairs of
an environment that has been affected by a
fire. This environment needs to represent an
animal and how its ecosystem has been
affected by the bushfire.

IPad apps
VanillaPen-Poster Maker
Bushfire Bulletin
Toontastic
Pixabay for free pictures.

Childrens literature Fire by

Jackie French.
Painting examples to show
students:
https://s-media-cacheak0.pinimg.com/originals/50/
d3/13/50d313d4fc6e8872cf8
38233ff01b731.jpg
Students should create something
like this but use dot painting
instead of thick marker lines.

Mathematics

Civics and
Citizenship

List outcomes of chance

experiments involving equally
likely outcomes and represent
probabilities of those outcomes
using fractions (ACMSP116)

Students are to research the chances of

their being a bushfire at certain months or
seasons of a year. Put these into a fraction
representation using the months and then
the seasons.

Construct displays, including

column graphs, dot plots and
tables, appropriate for data
type, with and without the use
of digital
technologies (ACMSP119)

Represent the findings from the previous

activity on the chances of a bushfire
occurring into a pie graph using the
fractions they found.

Use a grid reference system to

describe locations. Describe
routes using landmarks and
directional
language (ACMMG113)

Using graph paper, students are to create a

grid referencing activity of an area that was
affected by an Australian bushfire. Students
should provide a key for their
representation.

Why people work in groups to

achieve their aims and
functions, and exercise
influence, such as volunteers
who work in community groups
(e.g. rural fire services,
emergency services, youth
groups) (ACHCK027)

Students are to work in groups and create a

brainstorm as to the different volunteers in
our community that help our society during
the time of a bushfire.
Each group is to create a pros and cons
chart based on having these volunteers in
the community.
Involve students in a whole class brainstorm
and discussion on the following question:
How can we as a school help people who
are suffering from a bushfire or how can we
help volunteers who are involved in a
bushfire?
Ask students to create a poster that can be
put around our community as to why the fire
ban during summer is important. Their

The roles and responsibilities

of key personnel
in law enforcement (e.g.

https://www.dfes.wa.gov.au/
regulationandcompliance/bushfire
proneareas/Pages/default.aspx
This map highlights the prone
areas in Australia for Bushfires.
Show this to students as an
introduction to their chance
lesson.

Regulations for bushfires in WA

information:
http://www1.planning.wa.
gov.au/8194.asp
Bushfires Act 1954:
https://www.slp.wa.gov.au/
legislation/statutes.nsf/main
_mrtitle_106_homepage.html
https://www.dpaw.wa.gov
.au/management/fire
Bushfire Regulations City of
Joondalup:
http://www.joondalup.wa.gov.au/

customs officials, police) and

in the legal system (e.g.
lawyers, judges) (ACHCK026)

Economics
and
Business

poster should contain reasons why the fire

ban is important.

Develop/BuildingPlanningHealth/
NewBushfireRegulations.aspx

The difference
between needs and wants,
and how they may differ
between individuals
(ACHEK001)

Discuss and brainstorm the differences

between needs and wants as a class.
Then ask students to make a list of the
things that they would need to take and the
things that they would want to take but
arent essentials if a bushfire was to take
control of their home.

Bushfire Black Saturday and

how it has affected school
children. Gives students a
background as to how it would
affect them.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/
content/2013/s3756872.htm

Strategies for making

informed consumer and
financial decisions (e.g.
budgeting, comparing prices,
saving for the future)
(ACHEK003)

Students are put into groups of 4. Each

group has to devise a plan as to how the
school can raise money for the town of
Yarloop who were affected by a bushfire at
the beginning of the year. As a group they
need to create a brainstorm on a sheet of
paper and organise fundraising options.
Using their brainstorm each group is to
create a poster on A3 paper as to why their
fundraising plan should be used to fund
money for those affected by the Yarloop
bushfire. Each poster should contain pros
and cons of the fundraising element chosen
and should be bright and colourful. Each
group will present their idea to the class.
The top three ideas will be presented to the
principal.
Students will incur on an excursion at DFES
Education and Heritage Centre in Perth.
They will learn about how to be safe during
the time of a fire and why it is important to
keep calm and follow safety instructions of
an official.

Yarloop Bushfire Before and

after shot to put things in
perspective for students:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201601-21/yarloop-bushfires-beforeand-after/7100968

Preventive health measures

that promote and maintain an
individual's health, safety
and wellbeing, such as:

Game link:
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/kidsschools/fire-safe-eLearninggame/
DFES Education and Heritage

Health

Bicycle safety
Sun safety

(ACPPS058)

History

The patterns of
colonial development and
settlement (e.g. geographical
features, climate,
water resources, transport,
discovery of gold) and how this
impacted upon
the environment (e.g.
introduced species) and the
daily lives of the different
inhabitants (e.g. convicts, free
settlers, Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Peoples)
(ACHHK094)

Students are to create a poster in groups of

3 on A2 paper highlighting how people can
be safe during the time of a fire.
As a class students are to participate in the
online Fire safe eLearning game that has
been created by the Victorian government.
Students will learn how to be safe during a
bushfire, what preparation they can do and
how they can create a survival plan.
Students are to imagine themselves as the
colonial settlers in 1788-1780. Discuss the
conditions with students and ask students
how a bushfire would affect the people of
this time.
As a follow on lesson, students are to write
a letter to the British Government from
Captain James Stirling asking for supplies
for the First Settlers explaining the affects of
the Bushfire that occurred on the land.
Students are to relate bushfires to
Aboriginal people. Discuss how a bushfire
would affect their lives in the times of the
1800s. How would a bushfire affect their
food, shelter, and over all survival?
Brainstorm ideas as a class. Show the
YouTube video to students as a starting
point.

centre excursion information:

https://www.dfes.wa.gov.au/
schooleducation/fehc/Pages/
default.aspx

Use the video to remind students

of the First Fleet conditions:
http://splash.abc.net.au/
home#!/media/1957482/first-fleet
This video tells the story of
Convicts during the time of 1788.
It will give students a visual
representation of what the
conditions were like.
Video:
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/
content/2013/s3767527.htm
This video will highlight to
students the landscape changed
since early settlement. Therefore
it will give students a visual
representation of how our land
has been formed today and
shaped by things such as natural
disasters.