Curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment > Across the curriculum >

Learning about water efficiency

The changes imposed by Level 5 Water Restrictions on children's daily lives both at school and at home make them an obvious candidate for inclusion in the curriculum.

Almost every KLA provides an opportunity to address aspects of this vital topic, but many teachers are seeking a way to integrate the diverse learning opportunities into a cohesive and authentic task.

Office of Curriculum has developed two such tasks that are appropriate for students in Years 5 to 9 in a range of settings. Use of these learning tasks is open to all state schools who may choose to implement either^# or both.

The specification of each task allows sufficient flexibility for it to be implemented in a range of settings and to incorporate elements of student negotiation. The task description incorporates a statement of the expected standard of the resulting student work.

Project management and water efficiency

97k

Students research facts about water and water usage in different times and places, and consider the effects on their school of a chronic water shortage in their community. They complete an initial water audit (in terms of practice and consumption) in their school. Using both their research and the findings of their initial water audit, they devise and implement:

an awareness campaign using stalls in their school community
a pilot project aimed at saving water through implementation of non-financial remedies, leading to a second water audit.

Using the findings of their pilot project, they make a presentation to an authoritative group associated with the school to justify an extension of the project, possibly involving finances. They create a Code of Practice for the school community to adopt as part of sustainable water practice in the future.

Weighing up Water

101k

Students acquire and demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the causes and repercussions of critical water shortages generally, and of particular cases of such shortages. Applying this knowledge, they compose three purposeful products targeting specific audiences - one for each of the following three phases of water shortage:

Awareness Phase: sensitisation to the possibility, causes, manifestations and repercussions of critical water shortage and to a range of preventative and remedial measures that might be taken in response to potential or actual water shortages
Contingency Phase: actions to be taken by various stakeholders should demand exceed supply of water in a community
Recovery Phase: actions to be taken once a water shortage crisis is over to ensure that adequate water supplies are secured and maintained.

The format in which each task is presented is based upon on-going work within the Office of Curriculum into the use of "Blueprints" as a tool for describing shared expectations about curriculum content, learning experiences and standards among schools.

Included with these tasks is a comprehensive resources page 45k for teachers and students to use to help them access valuable and current information about water efficiency on the internet.

Teachers wishing to learn more about Blueprints can do so at the blueprints website.

# Schools implementing Project management and water efficiency will be eligible to enter the H₂O Challenge competition to be announced during Term 2.

^ Top of page