Home/Curriculum resources/Caring for Country/Activity 3: Changes that hurt, help and heal Country
Learning Areas:
Humanities and Social Sciences, Science, English, The Arts
Year levels:
Foundation, Level 1, Level 2
Activity 3: Changes that hurt, help and heal Country
This activity is a part of the Caring for Country resource.
Echidna in the Bush. Photographer: Sara Carter. Source: Getty Images. Used under licence.
Activity 3: Changes that hurt, help and heal Country
Focus: Evaluating local changes to determine whether they help, heal or hurt Country.
Possible overarching question: How can we look after Country by changing what we do?
Step by step guide
Step 1: Connecting to students’ prior learning
Step 2: Shared text and discussion
Step 3: Mini lesson – Introducing the language hurt, help and heal Country
Step 4: Revisit T-chart identifying changes that hurt, help and heal Country
Step 5: Reflection and Sharing
Required Resources
Teacher Support Material
T-chart (Natural / Human)
Benny Bungarra’s Big Bush Clean-up by Sally Morgan; illustrated by Ambelin Kwaymullina
What is Country poster
Step 1: Connecting to students’ prior learning
Connect students back to the Spotlight Zones activity and invite students to recall how they collected the evidence (using their senses). Ask students to recall some examples they recorded and if they are human or natural changes.
Introduce students to the T-Chart. Model using some examples you observed from the school grounds or local environment. An example has been provided in the teacher support material.
Let students know that they are going to regroup from Activity 2 and document their observations from the Spotlight Zones on a T-Chart. Have students complete the T-Chart.
Step 2: Shared text and discussion
Gather students together as a whole class, letting them know they will come back to these observations recorded on the T chart. Let students know that you will now be reading Benny Bungarra’s Big Bush Clean-up by Sally Morgan; illustrated by Ambelin Kwaymullina. This story highlights how animals are affected by rubbish left in their habitat by humans. The animals then work together as a team to come up with ways to look after the bush.
Benny Bungarra’s Big Bush Clean-up. Sally Morgan; Illustrator Ambelin Kwaymullina. Magabala Books. © Sally Morgan and Ambelin Kwaymullina. Used with permission.
As you read the text, pause at different pages to note down the rubbish left by humans and the impact it has, for example, the python’s head gets stuck in the bottle. In the second half of the book the animals come up with ways to look after the bush, note these actions. For example, some rubbish can be re-used.
Step 3: Mini lesson – Introducing the language hurt, help and heal Country
Connect students back to the What is Country poster and focus on the aspect of Country being alive and the reference to it as family.
Facilitate a short discussion about family members and how sometimes we help each other, sometimes we can hurt each other and sometimes when we hurt someone, we can heal them and how this might happen. You may provide a personal example.
Let students know that we are going to explore more about our observations of change in our local Country, and what we can do to hurt, help and heal Country.
Define each term with everyday examples.
Hurt: litter, walking over plants and not staying on a path
Help: placing a sign where people keep walking, creating a bird box, planting particular plants that attract animals
Heal: repairing something that is broken or hurt, watering a plant that needs water
Introduce a coding system such as colour dots for example Red – Hurt, Green – Help, Blue – Heal and come back to the T-chart you modelled to students in Step 1. Next to the natural and human changes work with students to identify which changes, hurt, help and heal Country.
Now, focus on all Red (‘hurt’) dots and brainstorm ways to turn them into Green or Blue. You may remind students how the animals in Benny Bungarra’s Big Bush Clean-up came up with ideas to work together to look after the bush.
Step 4: Revisit T-chart identifying changes that hurt, help and heal Country
Students regroup and spend time identifying changes that hurt, help and heal Country on their T-chart. They then move into offering suggestions for how some of the Hurting Country changes could be resolved by helping and/or healing Country. These can be record on sticky notes around the T-chart.
Step 5: Reflection and Sharing
Facilitate a discussion about any examples where students found it challenging to identify a change that hurts, helps or heals Country and any ways the hurt can be resolved.
Have students come back to the “Our Country is alive” chart from Activity 1 where students identified examples of how we can care for Country. Have students add any additional actions that can be taken after their new learning today.
Related activities within this resources:
Activity 1: Reconnecting with prior learning - What is Country, and why do we care for it?
Students revisit the idea that Country is a living system, land, water, sky, plants, animals and stories, by rotating through discovery stations. They notice, name and feel each part of Country, laying the groundwork for viewing caring for Country as an ongoing, relational responsibility.
Activity 2: How does Country change?
Building on their sensory noticing from Activity 1, students learn to distinguish natural change (created by Country itself) from human change (caused by people). After revisiting the anchor chart and tuning their senses with The River, they explore changes in either the school grounds or on a short neighbourhood walk, then sort their findings into a simple two column chart.
Activity 4 (Part one of two): Indigenous ways of noticing and caring
Students discover how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples use their senses to notice changes in Country and then act to care for it. They view a short “Did You Know?” resource, discuss which senses are at work, and finish with a quick reflection that links these examples to the local seasonal calendar, setting up part two of the activity.
Activity 4 (Part two of two): Noticing the current season
Students build on the slideshow from part one, by exploring a picture book about an Aboriginal seasonal calendar, comparing it with the four fixed Western seasons, then heading outside to spot real life indicators of their own local season. Teachers adapt the walk to the seasonal calendar for their region.
Activity 5: How can we care for our school or local community?
Students consolidate their learning about the unit, by designing and beginning a project or creative product that helps and/or heals Country. Choices include a hands-on caring for Country action project, a collaborative seasons storybook, a walking museum, or a senses soundscape including calls to action.
Visual Art Activity: Seasons of Country collage
Students revisit the parts of Country and seasonal cues they have been exploring. After a deep dive into three works from the 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art exhibition, students observe, sketch, photograph or create rubbings of natural materials in the school environment and create a mixed media collage that shows the current Indigenous season of their school’s Country. The finished collages may form a long “Season Ribbon” display outside the art room to support the whole class Caring for Country projects in Activity 5.