Unit: Park Natives

Parks provide a protected habitat for native plants, animals, birds and insects. This unit aims to increase students knowledge of native flora and fauna, habitats, ecosystems and caring for parks and the environment. Students can explore a habitat to investigate the types of plants and animals living there, how they interact with each other, their daily needs for survival, what rules are required to help maintain this habitat, and what they can do to help.

• Describe, using appropriate language, scientific explorations of the chemical, physical and natural world.

• Describe aspects of the student's life in familiar environments.
• Explain why families and other groups have rules, and how these rules are applied.
• Illustrate how people use and care for familiar environments.

• Identify simple patterns in observations arising from explorations of readily observable phenomena.

• Examine change over time in the local community and environment.
• Explain what it means to be an active member of school and other groups within the community.
• Explain how and why resources are used and managed in the local community.

• Parks provide a protected habitat for native plants, animals, birds and insects.
• Parks maintain biodiversity.
• Parks provide opportunities for various forms of recreation.
• Parks have rules.

• To familiarise students with Australian native plants and animals.
• To introduce the concept of introduced species – both plants and animals.
• To introduce the concept of an ecosystem.
• To investigate how living things depend on one another for food and shelter
• To learn to care for parks and the environment.
• To understand that parks provide opportunities for various types of recreation.
• To cater for local wildlife by planting indigenous species.

• Native (indigenous) flora and fauna (plants and animals).
• Protection.
• Introduced species.
• Rules in parks.
• Caring for parks and the environment.
• Safety in the park – for the park and the visitor.
• Using all the senses for observation and exploration of the environment.

Additional Information
For additional information on the Science and SOSE curriculum detailed in Victoria's second Curriculum Standards Framework (CSF II), contact the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) at www.vcaa.vic.edu.au.