Stage 1 Human Society and Its Environment

Unit: Identifying Us

Foundation Statement
Students recount important family and community traditions and practices. They sequence events in the past and changes in their lives, in their communities and in other communities.
Students explore the composition of a number of groups, including Aboriginal peoples, in their community and recognise that groups have specific identifying features, customs, practices, symbols, religion, language and traditions. They acquire information about their local community by direct and indirect experience and communicate with others using various forms of electronic media.
Students make comparisons between natural, heritage and built features of the local area and examine the human interaction with these features. They investigate the relationship between people and environments including the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the land. Students use the language of location in relative terms and construct and use pictorial maps and models of familiar areas.
Students identify roles, responsibilities and rules within the family, school and community and explore their interaction. They describe how people and technologies link to produce goods and services to satisfy needs and wants.
Overview: This unit provides opportunities for students to explore the groups to which they and others belong, and the benefits of belonging to a group. The unit focuses on the diverse activities and practices of these groups and the associated clothing, equipment, symbols and rules.

Outcomes and Indicators

CUS1.3

Identifies customs, practices, symbols, languages and traditions of their family and of other families.
ü  Identifies and describes the groups that individuals belong to, including family, class and school groups, sporting groups, a community, religious groups
ü  Describes the activities, clothing, equipment and symbols that give identity to groups
ü  Recognises that each person is an individual but that people also belong to a variety of groups, eg family, school, sporting, artistic, religious and community groups
ü  Locates and identifies the symbols and names used by family, school and community groups, eg surname, school flags, badges, signage.
CUS1.4
Describes the cultural, linguistic and religious practices of their family, their community and other communities.
ü  Communicates an understanding of how families express their cultures through customs, celebrations, practices, symbols and traditions. / ENS1.6
Demonstrates an understanding of the relationship between environments and people.
ü  Describes interactions with the environment that can affect their life or the lives of others, eg moving from the country to the city, engaging in sport and leisure, dressing appropriately, building and modifying housing, planning and constructing roads.
SSS1.8
Identifies roles and responsibilities within families, schools and the local community, and determines ways in which they should interact with others.
ü  Describes their responsibilities as a family, school and community member
ü  Identifies similarities between their rights, roles and responsibilities in their family and at school
ü  Explains the importance of having rules in the family, at school and in the local community.
Resources:
The Board’s website (http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au) lists current available resources such as some selected fact sheets, websites, texts and other material that can be used to support this unit. A wide range of visitors from older classes and the community, who can to talk about the sporting, leisure, artistic or religious groups to which they belong and show some of the associated clothing, equipment and symbols. Try to ensure a gender balance, eg male and female dancers, netball players and soccer players, horse riders, children who attend Saturday or afternoon ethnic schools, church clubs, skateboarders.
A simple, large map of the local area. Videos, pictures and books showing activities in a variety of environments and climates. E-mail or letter contact with students in schools in different environments (to investigate how environments can affect available community activities). / Links to other KLA’s:
English: The structure and grammatical features of the text types students create and interpret (see above).
Science and Technology: Content from the Built Environments strand (how people modify environments to meet their needs).

Learning Experiences

Weeks
1-2 / Learning Sequence 1: Initiate the Unit: ‘Identifying Us’
ü Provide groups of students with samples of photographs, hats, clothing, equipment or badges that symbolise a variety of children’s sporting, leisure, artistic or religious groups. Ask the students to suggest the types of groups to which the items belong. Ask each of the student groups to share their suggestions with the class, and then ask if any of the students or members of their family belong to these groups.
ü Commence a display of different groups.
ü Introduce the investigation question: Why do people join groups?
ü Explain that the students will meet and interview community members from a range of different groups in order to learn about why people join groups.
ü Introduce the following retrieval chart and explain that the class will keep a record of each interview on the chart.
Name of Visitor’s Group: ______
What does the
group do? / Clothing and
symbols / Equipment / Rules and
responsibilities / Environment / Benefits
/
Date
Weeks
3-4 / Learning Sequence 2: Groups in Our Community –
What Groups Do Children Belong to in Our Community, and Why?
ü  Prior to the first interview, ask students to suggest questions that will help the class to complete the chart.
ü  After each interview, add to the chart.
ü  Have students complete the retrieval chart using themselves, as a group, as an example.
ü  Have students draw each person interviewed participating in their group activity. Ask them to label any clothing, equipment etc depicted. Emotional and social aspects of group membership may also be listed. Display students’ work.
ü  Ask students to indicate if they or members of their families belong to any of the listed groups, and to bring to class any artifacts that symbolise this membership. Add these to the display.
ü  Have each student complete an identity sheet that records information about a group that they belong to, including a self-depiction that identifies them as part of this group.
ü  Build students’ field knowledge about the functions and purpose of particular clothing, eg swimming costume/goggles; soccer uniform/goalie’s uniform; horse riding helmet/bicycle helmet.
ü  Refer to the visits and the display in order to jointly list groups in the community. Categorise the groups under labels such as ‘Sporting’, ‘Artistic’, ‘Religious’, ‘Leisure’, ‘Cultural’, ‘Other’.
ü  Refer students to the ‘Benefits’ column of the chart and ask them to identify benefits of belonging to the various types of groups. Construct class statements, eg ‘Sporting groups can provide exercise and enjoyment’.
ü  Generalise to develop a class answer to the question: What groups do children belong to in our community and why? /
Date
Weeks 5-6 / Learning Sequence 3: Environments and Groups – How Does the Environment Influence Groups to which Children Belong?
ü  Review the ‘Environment’ column of the retrieval chart and assist students to locate and mark venues for groups on a simple, large map of the local area. Label the venues as natural or built environments.
ü  Ask students why particular types of environments are necessary for particular group activities and whether seasons influence the activities, eg: Why couldn’t the swimming group learn to swim at the netball courts? Do people swim all year? Why or why not?
ü  Provide students with print-based and electronic visual texts of different activities in a variety of climates and venues. Ask the students to decide whether each activity would be possible in their own community and to give reasons why or why not.
ü  Arrange for students to make contact (eg via e-mail or by writing letters) with students in schools in different environments to find group activities that are available in different environments and at different times of the year.
ü  Jointly develop a chart linking environments with activities available at different times, eg:
Community and Environment / Activities Available
Alpine Environment / Winter – Skiing Tobogganing
Summer – Horse Riding, Bush Walking
All year - Dancing
ü  Have students select aspects of information from the chart and draw pictures to illustrate the chart. /
Date
Weeks 7-8 / Learning Sequence 4: Group Responsibilities – How Can I Be a Good Group Member?
ü  Have students consider school or class rules and the consequences of not observing them.
ü  Refer students to the rules for different groups listed on the retrieval chart. Ask students to read the rules and discuss why each group needs to have rules. Ask ‘What would happen if … (particular rules) ... did not exist?’ Jointly construct consequence charts.
ü  Ask students to think of a rule from one of the groups to which they belong. Have each student draw themselves obeying the rule. Ask them to annotate the drawing with a statement saying why the rule needs to be followed.
ü  Display the drawings and discuss the annotations to identify how rules help groups, eg ‘Rules protect members or equipment and help the activity to be fair and enjoyable for everyone’. / Date
Weeks 9-10 / Learning Sequence 5: Personal Groups –
What Groups Do I Belong to Now and What Groups Would I Like to Belong to in the Future?
ü  Jointly construct a picture book about groups that students belong to. Have each student draw themselves – on separate pages - as a member of the following groups: family; class; school; group(s) to which I belong now; groups to which I would like to belong to in the future.
ü  Have students select one of the groups to which they belong now. Ask each student to identify a person who has helped them to enjoy being a group member. They could then write a thank-you message to that person. / Date
Assessment:
Evaluation: