Learning Story- Biodiversity-December 2019
To give students a broader sense of Biodiversity and how it extends beyond our school this year Epping Views Primary School did some research into adopting an animal through Zoos Victoria.
Students were given the opportunity to research animals for adoption through the Zoos Victoria website https://donate.zoo.org.au/adoption and were encouraged to take into consideration the animal’s risk of becoming extinct before voting on 1 animal for the school to adopt.
A survey was set up using Google Forms, where students could select 1 animal to vote for. During our Sustainability Hour in Term 4, Biodiversity students from years One, Two, Three, Four and Six researched and voted for an animal.
We were then able to use Google Forms to graph the results to determine which animal would be adopted. From 158 responses 27.8% of students determined that our school should support the snow leopard.
We were then able to contact Zoos Victoria to arrange adoption. They sent us information about the snow leopard along with an adoption certificate that is displayed in the office along with a collection tin for parents and student to donate.
We hope to run a similar activity each year to expose more students to the decreasing numbers of some animal species and run more awareness activities increase student knowledge of biodiversity beyond our school. Students gained knowledge about the different classifications of animals and thought about environmental factors posing a threat to endangered wildlife. We then worked on improving our school habitat by planting trees.
Over the course of the year students took part in planting trees, which the school had donated from Bunnings. They also learnt about bees and created bee hotels along with learning about caring for horse with a free incursion from 16 Hands https://www.16hands.com.au/school-incursion/book-a-school-incursion.
This year we mostly learnt about animals, how to care for them and what factors impact their survival. Next year we hope to increase our native wildlife by creating lizard lounges and learning more about reptiles as well as caring for plants and vegetables to be used in our Kitchen Garden program. We also hope to introduce awards at assembly to recognise students showing sustainable practises across the school.
