A great resource from Department of Conservation

Almost the end of the year! I was sort of wrestling with whether to write another blog with activities but then realised that there are still three more weeks of school and the weather is glorious! Get the kids outside and looking at the plants and birds!!

A wee while ago, I had the opportunity to see the Department of Conservation roll out some new teaching resources for primary teachers. They did look good but, as is sometimes the case, I sort of forgot about them... until this week! I'm doing some teaching down in lovely Opotiki and we've decided to look at a small park/reserve/wetlands that's by the school. In writing up my little unit plan, I came across the DoC stuff again and was very impressed!

From the website -don't bother clicking it, it's not hyperlinked!

The best way in is here: http://www.doc.govt.nz/get-involved/conservation-education/ which leads off to other places. I also like their "Big Picture": http://www.doc.govt.nz/get-involved/conservation-education/the-big-picture/. There's good links from a Maaori perspective as well through the values.

With my unit, we are looking at what's in the wetlands already, how everything's connected together. There are some lovely resources to download... with activities to print out, identification supports and the science capabilities too! And quite coincidentally "I notice, I think, I wonder"... it does make me a little sad as I thought I had made this up but obviously there are other clever people out there too!

The "Experiencing ... in your green space" (birds, native trees, etc) series and the "Investigating pests" series have lots to keep your children busy!

So a great resource to start playing with this year or for a big unit next year!

And a wee side order: don't forget about some of my posts sharing smaller activities that might be useful at this time of the year to support one-off writing activities, developing observation skills, etc.

Keep sciencing on!
Paul