Duration

2-3 x 30-45 minute lessons

Students will investigate some human impacts on the marine environment and develop informative posters for their school community.

Preparation

This lesson is part of a unit of work on the text Blueback. It assumes some previous study of the text has already been completed. View the full Unit here.

Students may require access to the internet and/or library to research some potential sources of human impacts on the marine environment.

Western Australian curriculum

LEARNING AREA STRAND SUB-STRAND CODES
English Literature Responding to literature ACELT1620
English Literature Examining literature ACELT1617
English Literacy Interacting with others ACELY1699, ACELY1710, ACELY1719
Science Science as a human endeavour Use and influence of science ACSHE100
HASS Knowledge and understanding Geography ACHASSK112
HASS Inquiry and skills Analysing ACHASSI099
HASS Inquiry and skills Communicating and reflecting ACHASSI105

Steps

  1. Engage students in a shared reading of Chapter 12.
  2. Discuss the human impacts on the marine environment as raised in the text – e.g. dynamite fishing, pollution, oil spills, spearfishing, tourism.
  3. Discuss other potential human impacts that students are aware of, on the marine environment in Western Australia – e.g. ecotourism, overfishing, damage to corals from snorkellers and scuba divers, removal of seagrass from ill-placed anchors, trampling of sand dunes.
  4. Brainstorm as a class, ways that people can lessen their ecological footprint when using the marine environment.
  5. Ask students to work in pairs (small groups) to develop a poster to educate others in the school community on how to minimise their impact on the marine environment.
  6. Display posters around the school and/or present at a school assembly.

Keywords

human impact, overfishing, dynamite fishing, spearfishing, pollution, oil spill, prop scars, sand dunes, blueback