On board, Thomas assisted scientists with marine research; enhanced his STEM content knowledge; ran outreach activities, including live video broadcasts; and developed curriculum-linked resources for his own classroom and to share with other teachers.

Prior to his voyage, Thomas attended a variety of training and planning activities, including an Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) online workshop. The ALA workshop explained how to find information on the species he might observe on his voyage, and provided a working knowledge of the ALA’s analysis tools. 

A requirement for teachers participating in the Educator on Board program was to develop curriculum-linked lesson plans and resources based on the research and/or ship operations.

Thomas incorporated the use of the ALA in his Year 7 Science resource Taxonomic classification and species data collection.

The three-part lesson sequence features real voyage data collected during Thomas’ trip on RV Investigator. In the lesson, students learn about seabird species in different regions and compare the collected data to environmental overlays provided by the ALA. Layers of environmental factors such as temperature, rainfall or humidity are used to show the conditions favoured by particular species.

For more information:

• Read further details about Thomas’ resource Taxonomic classification and species data collection

• Learn more about using the ALA in the classroom.

Join this workshop to learn how to use the ALA and:

• Find the biodiversity in your local area
• Add your own observations to the ALA
• Find information about Australia’s species
• Plot species distributions

Teacher Workshop

Thursday 2 July 2020 3-5pm

Online webinar: Webinar login details will be emailed to registrants

Register now

You’ll also explore the ALA’s suite of curriculum aligned educational resources that are ready to be used in your classroom.

Participants from the ACT will be eligible for 2 hours of TQI accredited Professional Learning.

The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is Australia’s national biodiversity database. It provides free, online access to information about Australia’s amazing biodiversity. It supports research, environmental monitoring, conservation planning, and biosecurity activities, and is a great way to learn more about the biodiversity in your area.

There are so many opportunities to explore science, meet scientists and make real contributions to Australian science.

National event

Great Aussie BioQuest

10-18 August Participate with QuestaGame (mobile app game)

The third annual Great Aussie BioQuest is on track to be the biggest yet. Help lead your state or territory to victory – with $10 000 worth of cash and prizes for science hubs and biodiversity education in schools. To play, download QuestaGame onto your smartphone and map biodiversity during National Science Week. Submit photos of wildlife in your neighbourhood and learn about it from experts, while earning points for your state or territory. Help identify the submissions of other players and earn even more points. The data you collect will be shared (with your permission) with the ALA. Visit The Great Aussie BioQuest website for more information.

Queensland

Natural Curiosity: Discovering the secrets of Queensland’s greatest collections

Saturday 6 Apr – 10 Nov 2019, Museum of Tropical Queensland, Townsville

Take the opportunity to step into the collection of stuffed bodies, pickled heads and gaze in wonder as science and nature collide. Discover the secrets of the natural world and why museums hold the key to protecting it.

Queensland Museum: Behind the Scenes Tour

Saturday 17 August 2019, South Bank, Brisbane

Delve into the mysterious unseen world of the Museum’s collection stores with our expert tour guides. This guided tour takes you behind the scenes for a unique chance to see the priceless collections up close and learn more about how we store and look after these precious objects and specimens.

Tasmania

Into the Vaults: an evening at the states zoology collection

Tuesday 13 August, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart

Unlock the vault and explore a space rarely seen by the public. You’ll have an opportunity to be guided by TMAG scientists while investigating a collection that covers whales to weevils and thousands of animals in between. You’ll also hear all about TMAG’s latest research on Tasmanian animals.

New South Wales

Science in the City

6-15 August, Australian Museum, Sydney

The biggest celebration of science for schools and the community with interactive workshops, shows, and a speciality Expo demonstrating the latest in science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM), it’s hard not to get inspired.

Western Australia

Western Australian Museum

10-18 August, WA Museum, Various locations across Perth

The Western Australian Museum is ready to celebrate National Science Week this year with fun, hands-on and educational activities throughout the metropolitan area. There will be something for everyone with fascinating activities ranging from the world of maritime archaeology, virtual realities, marine art, becoming a citizen scientist, and behind-the-scenes tours.

Australian Capital Territory

InterACTive Science

Saturday 10 August, The Shine Dome, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra

A family-friendly event featuring weird and wonderful public talks, hands-on activities, live performers, exciting stalls, food trucks and more. There will be plenty of science action available to all ages during the day.

Victoria

Ask us at Curious?

Saturday 10 & Sunday 11 August, 10am–3pm, Melbourne Museum, Nicholson St, Melbourne

Found something exciting in your garden lately? A fossil, an animal bone, an interesting rock or mineral? Perhaps you snapped a photo? We want to know! Bring us your best science finds and burning questions, and we’ll do our best to help figure out the answer.

Australia’s national training program for environmental science digital research infrastructure,  

The Council of Australasian University Directors of Information Technology (CAUDIT) is a not-for-profit association of all universities in Australia and New Zealand and some in the Asia Pacific region, as well as a number of major Australian research organisations. The association’s purpose is to support the application of digital capabilities to transform education and research.

This year CAUDIT held its first awards program to recognise, celebrate and promote the outstanding achievements and innovation of IT staff working in CAUDIT member organisations, and the application of digital capabilities which positively transform the experience of students, academics and professional staff.

ecoEd, an innovative training and skills development program for university lecturers, researchers and industry professionals, was selected as a finalist in the category Innovation in Teaching and Learning alongside four other outstanding projects from Curtin University, Deakin University, Griffith University, and University of Wollongong.

Dr Chantal Huijbers, manager of ecoEd, attended the awards night on Wednesday, 22 May in Wollongong and said that despite not walking away with the award being recognised a finalist was a major achievement for a project still in its infancy.

“Although  ecoEd wasn’t selected as the winner in the category, which went to the Student Digital Workspace project by Griffith University, it was well deserved recognition of the work we’ve achieved in bringing Australia’s digital research infrastructures to the EcoScience community and educating and upskilling the next generation of environmental scientists and managers,” says Chantal.

“This is the perfect motivation and ecoEd will continue its work to enhance the integration of digital research infrastructures into undergraduate environmental science education.”

ecoEd provides a range of educational materials in ready-to-use lecture and workshop modules that can be easily adapted by academics and integrated in undergraduate courses. The program is uplifting the skills of students and their supervisors and providing a uniquely innovative perspective to integrating digital technologies in teaching and learning practices at Australian universities.

• ecoEd is a partnership between NCRIS capabilities the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), the Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory (BCCVL), ecocloud, the online platform for the ecosystem science community, and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), and industry partner the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES).
• For more information on ecoEd please visit the website or contact Dr Chantal Huijbers.
• Click here to download lecture and workshop materials for six key ecosystem science topics.

Back to ALA newsletter – June 2019

STARportal is a collaboration between the Office of the Chief Scientist, Engineers Australia, Telstra, AMSI, BHP Billiton and the Commonwealth Bank, in consultation with the Australian Government’s Department of Education to ensure all Australian families have access to any and all STEM outreach activities in their area and online.

Teachers, students and families can search the STARportal for STEM activities in their area. Information about citizen science projects taking place Australia is provided by the Australian Citizen Science Association and the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA).

You will find the ALA listed on STARportal with links to our education resources and classroom activities.

For more information about how to use the ALA in your classroom, please contact our Education Officer, Taryn Johnson.

The ALA is funded by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and is hosted by CSIRO.

What you need to do:

• Take images of plants, animals or fungi in your schoolyard

  

• Upload your images to the ALA using these instructions: How to log a sighting
• Be sure to add the teacher’s name and school name in the Attribution and Notes section

Prizes:

Each day of National Science Week we will choose the best image taken in a schoolyard to feature on our Atlas of Living Australia Facebook page. Each of these featured images will be in the running for an ALA prize package, including:

• ALA branded merchandise
• An ALA citizen science project page set up in your school’s name using BioCollect. BioCollect is the ALA’s field data capture tool that allows users to set up their own tailored pages suited to their specific needs. Whether you’re running a bug blitz, or counting and identifying birds, your school’s own citizen science project page will make adding your future sightings easier and will keep all sightings together in one data set. 

Benefits of using ALA in the classroom

Recording the biodiversity in your schoolyard is a great first step in helping students understand the importance of biodiversity in building healthy ecosystems and supporting resilient environments. 

This is also a great way to showcase the success of your school’s existing habitat development areas, like frog bogs, wildlife corridors or butterfly gardens, or to gather data to plan for something new in the future.   

So teachers! We are letting you know early so you can encourage your students to take images of plants, animals or fungi in the schoolyard. Any images uploaded by teachers between now and the start of National Science Week will be entered into the competition.

The competition rules are simple:

• The image must be taken in or close to the school yard and logged directly into the ALA by teachers (please don’t email us your photo – log in and do it yourself)
• No students can appear in the images if they can be recognised (hands holding (safely!) or pointing to something is fine)
• The teacher’s name and school name must be attached to the image (use the Attribution and Notes sections when you’re adding the image on Record your sighting)

Our School Biodiversity Image Competition will be running alongside our popular Australian species ‘Image per day’ Facebook promotion during National Science Week.

Using his experience working in remote communities in the Northern Territory, Geoff gave the classification activity a local Indigenous focus. This way, the activity fulfilled curriculum requirements for both science and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross curriculum priority – and made it more interesting for students.

Firstly, to learn about binomial classification, the students were asked to use the ALA to investigate, and identify to species level, at least 12 different plants in the school yard. They took a number of images and some plant samples were pressed and presented like authentic herbarium specimens.

With the guidance of Boonwurrung Elder, Auntie Fay Stewart-Muir, and researching the ALA and other online resources*, the students found local Indigenous names and traditional uses for many of the plants that they identified, as well as other plants that are indigenous to the area. They learned which of the trees in the school yard would be best for carving boomerangs and the useful properties of some grass species. They also learned that some flowers that grew nearby were used to make sweet drinks.

For the final part of the activity, students learned about dichotomous keys, then constructed one to organise the 12 plants they identified. They took their dichotomous key to other classes to see if it could be followed to identify the plants successfully.

“This was an excellent activity to run in the classroom. The students learned a lot about how to describe various characteristics of the plant such as leaf shape and leaf arrangement.”

“Knowing the difference between simple and compound leaves is important to know when following keys that taxonomists use when identifying plants. They also learned that it is important to use characteristics other than flowers for identification,” said Geoff.

Another ALA classroom activity developed by Geoff is outlined in Using the ALA in the classroom to celebrate traditional knowledge and culture.

If you use the ALA in your classroom and would like to share your story, please contact Taryn Johnson, ALA’s Education Officer.

*references –

https://parksaustralia.gov.au/botanic-gardens/pub/aboriginal-plantuse.pdf

Got, B. & Nola, N. (1992). KOORIE PLANTS KOORIE PEOPLE: Traditional Aboriginal Food, Fibre and Healing Plants of Victoria. Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne, VIC.

Kuranga Native Nursery Pty Ltd. BUSH FOODS: Edible Plants from the Greater Melbourne Area.

Aboriginal Use Plants of the Greater Melbourne Area, David De Angelis La Trobe University Environment Collective 2005

When Geoff was teaching Science and Mathematics at a high school in Altona in Victoria, he frequently used the ALA in the classroom. One example is a game he developed for the students to play as part of the school’s annual celebration of Indigenous culture.

This game can be easily adapted for any classroom, anywhere in Australia. In this particular instance, the game was named after the traditional people and custodians of the land that encompasses Altona.

To develop the game, Geoff and his students used the ALA’s Explore your area feature to find out which native animals and plants had been recorded around their school. Then, with a local elder, the group chose a number of species that had cultural significance and learned the Indigenous names for those species.

Next, they made game cards for each species. Game cards consisted of an image of the animal or plant, its common, scientific and local Indigenous name, and additional Indigenous knowledge and cultural information about the species. The students researched all this information using the ALA species pages and other sources.

Geoff then placed numbers on a map of the school grounds and placed one game card at the location of each number. To play the game, students ran around the schoolyard, following the map to each of the numbers to find the game cards. They filled out a worksheet with the information on each game card.

While initially designed for his school’s Indigenous culture day, Geoff realised that participating in this type of activity addresses a number of requirements of the Australian Curriculum at various year levels.

“The ALA can help fulfil many areas of the science curriculum such as Classification and Adaptations, but it can also help illustrate maths and spatial reasoning and is excellent for incorporating the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures Cross-Curriculum Priority,” Geoff said.

Further case studies will outline some other examples of Geoff’s work using the ALA in the classroom.

Note: All Boonwurrung language references were given to Geoff Guymer, CSIRO, by Auntie Fay Stewart-Muir, Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages to be used as educational tools.

The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) was proud to be part of the STEM X Academy and ran a hands-on workshop for teachers to find out how they can incorporate the ALA in the classroom.

The STEM X Academy is a five-day residential teacher professional learning program open to Australian teachers across all sectors and levels of experience. Held in Canberra from 8-13 January, the event was a partnership between the Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA), Questacon and CSIRO.

The main focus of the program was the development of hands-on, enquiry-based lessons and activities using available materials, and adapting activities using methods to suit individual classrooms.

As a part of the busy program, teachers split into groups with educators and research scientists and worked on developing potential solutions to future global challenges using STEM. The ALA presentation was one of a number of skillset workshops provided to potentially assist the teachers with completing the tasks.

A couple of participants were even lucky enough to have a tour of CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection, guided by Bryan Lessard also known as (aka) Bry the Fly Guy.

For more information about STEM X, click here.  For more information about using the ALA in the classroom check out our Educational Resources.

29 January 2016, 0900 EDT Australia
Google+:https://plus.google.com/events/coiklff179p1r8jng8pbf1k9cok
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5_y6o9GVVs

As part of the BITC’s global online seminar series, Arthur Chapman, a key figure in both the history and the present of biodiversity informatics, will present the first in a multi-part series on the history of Biodiversity Informatics. The seminar will be entitled “History of Biodiversity Informatics — The Early Years of Innovation,” and will provide an overview of the beginnings of the field. Subsequent months’ seminars will treat more recent periods, with presentations from Jorge Soberon, John Wieczorek, and others.