The Nature of Science strand

Living World

Students engage emotionally as well as cognitively with the natural world.

Students watch the video of Yucky bugs . This video has the potential to engage students emotionally as it shows bugs as both fascinating and fearful. The presenter is enthusiastic and full of energy – he is obviously fascinated by the bugs himself.

Adapting the resource

Provide students with opportunities to talk about the video. For example:

• What were the “yucky” things?
• What were some amazing things they found out?
• Were there any bugs they could describe as beautiful?
• Are there any bugs that they now feel more positively about?
• What are some of the “good things” bugs do?

After watching and discussing the video take the children outside on a hunt for as many different bugs as they can find. Encourage students to choose one bug and observe it closely and carefully for an extended period of time. Ask:

• What does it look like?
• How does it move?
• Does it make any sound?
• Does it have a smell?

As a follow up activity students could choose a bug and find out as much about it as they can from a range of sources. Students then present their bug to the class and make a case for why it is a really special creature that needs looking after.

Supporting students to become scientifically literate, i.e., to participate as critical, informed, and responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a significant role is the purpose of science in NZC. If citizens are to be able to engage critically with science they need a functional knowledge of science.  It is not enough to be able to say what science is and what its strengths and weaknesses are, citizens need to be ready, willing and able to use this knowledge. This resource focuses on these “dispositional” aspects of the capabilities. Students are gathering and collecting data, using and critiquing evidence and representing their ideas about science but the focus is on engaging emotionally as well as cognitively.

A number of theorists argue that the experiences children have with nature during middle childhood are significant for the development of lifelong ecological understanding. “One’s knowledge about ecological processes and principles is made meaningful and personal by an emotional attachment to the natural world.” (Judson, 2010).

Are students excited by the activities?

Do they ask curious questions?

Are they developing a sense of the inter-connectedness of different life forms, including humans?

For suggestions about adapting tasks in ways that allow students to show progress in engaging with science see  Progressions .

A huge range of activities could be used to encourage students to engage emotionally as well as cognitively. Story telling is a powerful technique. Extended experiential learning episodes such as camps and repeated field trips to a local stream, park, beach or bush area can also foster positive attitudes to the natural world.

The virtual field trips run by LEARNZ also have the potential to engage students’ imaginations especially if the class has an “ambassador” on the field trip.

• Staying Alive (L2) Connected 2, 2012
• Hukanui Enviroschool (L2, 3 & 4) Connected 3, 2002
• The Shell Collector (L2, 3 & 4)Connected 1, 2005
• Rocky shore food web (L3 & 4) Assessment Resource Banks
• Rapid response to the Rena (L3 & 4) Science Learning Hub
• Tidal Communities: Interdependence and the Effects of Change (L3 & 4) Building Science Concepts, Book 22
• Science Fairs (L3 & 4) No specific resource
• Solving the dog death mystery (L5) Science Learning Hub
• The Gene Seekers (L5) Applications, 2001
• What’s my carbon footprint? (L5) Genesis Energy resource
• Biomagnets (L5 & 6) NCEA Level 1 assessment exemplars