What Responsibility Has God Given People For Taking Care of Creation? Christianity

Name of Unit: What Responsibility Has God Given People For Taking Care of Creation? / Faith: Christianity
Key Stage In Which This Unit Should Be Taught: KS 1 / Recommended Year Group (if specified):
Previous Learning:
Who Made The Wonderful World?
Who Cares For This Special World and Why?
AT1 Learning about Religion
Focus: Beliefs, teachings and sources. / AT2 Learning From Religion
Focus: Values and commitments.
What This Unit Teaches:
The Christian Story of Creation is found in The Bible; what happens in the Story of Creation in The Bible;
Creation refers to animals, humans and the whole of the natural world;
To identify how to be good stewards of creation;
How creation has changed over the years and by whom;
How the Story of Creation affects the way we look at and think about the world;
What Christians believe are the Maker’s instructions to follow in caring for creation;
The chance to think about some interesting and puzzling questions pupils would like to ask God about Creation;
What the Biblical phrase “. . . Made In God’s Image” means for a Christian;
How the Church cares for God’s creation of people;
Similarities and differences between Christianity and other faiths.
Key RE Vocabulary:
Creation, Christian, Christianity, God, Creator, Maker, Bible, Old Testament, Genesis, pollution, treasure, instruction, responsibility, steward, stewardship, care, Adam, Eve, natural world, environment, “God’s image”, special, unique, Church, belief, respect, Garden of Eden, value, kindness, Jew, Judaism, Torah. / Cross-Curricular Links:
Literacy; Numeracy; Science; Geography; Art and Design; Music; Personal, Social and Health Education; Citizenship.
Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development:
Deep and reflective thinking, awe and wonder;
Respect, responsibility and stewardship,
Caring for others and the environment;
Living and working with others and collaborative learning;
Appreciation of cultural diversity as part of creation, Islamic patterns. / Sensitivities:
Be mindful of Muslim pupils who may not be permitted to write as if they are God (Allah);
Please be mindful that Muslim pupils have restrictions on what they are allowed to represent visually from God’s (Allah’s) creation. They therefore need to be allowed to work in one of the groups representing what they feel comfortable in representing;
Please take account of and encourage children with low self esteem
and be aware of pupils who may be ‘unpopular’;
Please be mindful of pupils and their families who may be in similar circumstances to those people shown on the images as people in need.
Possible Further Thinking and Extension Activities:
Creation stories from other religions and cultures.
Future Learning:
Who Decides? (Bridging / Transition Unit)
Learning Objectives / AT1 / AT2 / Suggested Teaching Activities / Points To Note /
Lesson 1
Pupils should:
know how Christians (and Jews) are instructed to care for creation from God’s instructions in the Creation Story;
(AT1)
be able to talk about how people have treated creation, linking what is important to me and other people. / ü
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Introduction:
Watch a Creation montage showing different scenes of the natural world.
Questions:
V  What do we know about creation?
V  What do we think about it?
V  What is good about it?
V  Is it the same as when it was first created?
V  How is that?
Main Part of the Lesson:
Christians and Jews and some other religions as well believe that God created the world, that He is the Creator.
What do you think is God’s creation?
Class to share their ideas in talk partners. Class Teacher / Teaching Assistant to list their contributions.
Display an image (on the interactive whiteboard) of the world or a globe then a selection of images, e.g. pictures of beautiful sunsets, unusual and interesting landscapes, a stream, seagulls flying freely, etc. and talk about the beauty in creation, for Christians that will be God’s creation.
Then show some images of pollution, e.g. factory chimneys and littered streets, a river full of rubbish, seagulls covered in oil, etc. and compare and contrast the images. Generate a discussion with the pupils asking them to describe their observations, discuss how they feel when they see beautiful images in God’s creation and then when they see creation damaged or destroyed?
Guide them to identify the differences.
Class to work in groups creating a mind map highlighting some of the things people have done to spoil creation. e.g. drop litter, waste things, etc.
Pupils could record and illustrate their thoughts and feelings.
Make reference to God’s instructions about humans looking after his creation: Read Genesis 1: 26B
Talk about the phrase, which is often illustrated on posters, that say’s “For the best results, follow the Maker’s instructions.”
What do the pupils think that this phrase means? Where have they heard / seen this phrase before? How and why is this phrase appropriate to creation and for Christians?
Questions:
V  In what ways are people looking after creation?
V  In what ways are people not looking creation?
V  How and why has creation changed over the years?
V  By who?
V  Where is God in all of this?
Activity:
Pupils to imagine that they are God and write a letter to humans in the world about creation and how they should look after and care for it;
or
Pupils to have a circle on which one side they draw and colour Earth as seen from space and on the other they draw and write their most treasured part of creation.
These could then be stored in a mini treasure chest on an interactive class display of ‘Our Treasures of Creation’.
Plenary:
Pupils read out their letters or share their treasures with reflective music playing underneath. The rest of the class to listen and reflect. / Resources:
‘Planet Earth’ – BBC has beautiful and awe-inspiring images of the natural world;
Globe / NASA photo of earth
www.freefoto.com
has some useful images of pollution;
‘Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish;’
Mind map with picture of the world / the word creation in the middle;
The Bible;
Poster / Card of “Follow The Maker’s Instructions!”
(There will be examples on Google under the Images tab if you have not got a copy of this poster / card already;)
‘Everywhere Around Me’ – YouTube;
Reflective music.
Sensitivities:
Be mindful of Muslim pupils who may not be permitted to write as if they are God. (Allah)
Learning Objectives / AT1 / AT2 / Suggested Teaching Activities / Points To Note /
Lesson 2
Pupils should:
be able to talk about what happened in the story of creation from The Bible, describing what a Christian (and Jew,) would learn from it;
(AT1)
think about how the Creation story makes them feel about the world in which they live and are a part of.
(AT2) / ü
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Affect The Way I Look At and Think About The World?
Introduction:
Discuss with the pupils about when we listen to a story, what is its effect on us? Make reference to some of the stories that the class has read and their favourite authors, what do we gain from listening to / reading a story?
Elicit the response that we can learn from stories, imagine, dream and they encourage and inspire us to look at and think about things around us and in our lives in a new way, a way that is informed by the story.
Main Part of the Lesson:
Read / retell the Christian / Jewish Story of Creation found in Genesis 1, using visual stimulus e.g. Reflective Story telling, video clip, song, etc.
Make sure that the pupils understand that it is found right at the beginning of The Bible, in the Book of Genesis in The Old Testament. As the first 5 books of The Old Testament are contained in The Torah, it is also the Creation story that Jews believe.
Discuss with the children what happened on each day.
Questions:
V  What did God create each day?
V  Why did God create His creation in the order that He did?
V  Why do you think that He created what He did on each day?
V  What do you think He was thinking when He created each part of creation?
Main Activity:
In 7 groups, focusing on a different day of Creation, pupils should illustrate the 7 days, using paint or collage material. Put all the pictures together to make a big class ‘Book of Creation.’
Include their thoughts to the following question in relation to the day of creation that they are representing: -
How does this make you feel about the world in which you live and are a part of?
Plenary:
Each group to retell each day of creation showing their page of the class ‘Book of Creation’. / Resources:
The Bible;
/ The Creation story in a big book or
The Beginner’s Bible
or The Big Picture Bible http://bibleforchildren.org/languages/english/stories.php
/The Creation story animated Teaching Christianity at KS1 (Church House Publishing Seaman & Owen) pp.58-61
/ Video Clip of the Creation story
/ “Let It Be” From ‘Children of Eden.’
CD and available on Google.
/ (‘Godly Play’ resources for the Creation Story.)
Sensitivities:
Please be mindful that Muslim pupils have restrictions on what they are allowed to represent visually from God’s (Allah’s) creation. They therefore need to be allowed to work in one of the groups representing what they feel comfortable in representing.
Learning Objectives / AT1 / AT2 / Suggested Teaching Activities / Points To Note /
Lesson 3
Pupils should:
be able to describe what believers learn about caring for the world from God’s command to Adam and Eve in the Christian (and Jewish) story of creation;
(AT1)
be able to link this with the way I think about and behave towards the world.
(AT2) / ü / ü
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Introduction:
Listen to ‘We Are The World’ as a stimulus, thinking about the message contained within it.
Main Part of the Lesson:
Read Genesis 1 2B: 29 – 31 from The Bible.
Ask class to focus on what God said to Adam and Eve about caring for the world and all that is in it.
Questions to discuss in small groups:
V  What did God say to Adam and Eve?
V  What did He mean by it?
V  Why did He say this?
V  Did Adam and Eve do this?
V  Have we done it, as people who came after Adam and Eve?
List on the whiteboard the pupil’s responses.
Remind pupils about the phrase, which is often illustrated on posters, that says “For the best results, follow the Maker’s instructions.”
How does this phrase reflect God’s instructions to Adam and Eve?
Were they just instructions to Adam and Eve?
If not, who else are they instructions for? Why?
Why is it “For the best results . . . ?”
What will “the best results. . . .” be?
Discuss how The Bible teaches that God said that people are responsible for looking after His creation, that people are ‘stewards’ of creation. As stewards, how they look after creation is called their ‘stewardship’ of creation.
Highlight that people have talked and written much about caring for the world and you would like the pupils to think about what they do already and could do further to care for the natural world, how would they look after the animals and birds, etc. and everything else that is part of creation in the best way?
Discuss with the class how could we, as a class, help to look after our classroom, our school environment, our local community, each other and our homes?
Activities:
Pupils to each draw up a Caring For Creation Charter with ten popular actions that they can think of and will commit to trying to follow to help look after creation;
or
Ask the pupils to write a letter to themselves for when they are a grown up, (to their grown up self,) asking their adult self about how they have cared for creation during their life?
Class could also plan a class project to do something to help others, the school or the environment.
Plenary:
Share the Caring For Creation Charters with each other;
or
Share questions that we could ask us when we are adults about how we have cared for creation. / Resources:
‘We Are The World’
by Michael Jackson et al
- CD / YouTube;
Poster / Card of “Follow The Maker’s Instructions!”
(There will be examples on Google under the Images tab if you have not got a copy of this poster / card already)
Learning Objectives / AT1 / AT2 / Suggested Teaching Activities / Points To Note /
Lesson 4
Pupils should:
think deeper about the teachings of the Christian (and Jewish) Creation Story by asking questions about creation and suggesting answers.
(AT1 and AT2) / ü
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Introduction:
Watch the video “Cosmic Zoom”.
Main Teaching:
Show class short film about the Creation story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVUBg7
Recap on the creation story with class contributing what they have learnt and understood. Use the class ‘Book of Creation’ to help with this.
Activities:
Class Teacher to use pictures of creation to stimulate questions.
Thinking about “Cosmic Zoom” and the class Book of Creation, what do you wonder about creation? What do you daydream about in relation to creation? What interests you about creation? What puzzles you about creation? What interesting or puzzling questions about the creation story do you have and that you would like to ask?