Enviro-Stories has been designed to link in with multiple elements of the year 3 to 6 Australian Curriculum outcomes. However, participation is not limited to these grade levels and we have had books prepared from preschool through to year 11 high school students.
By taking part in the story writing component of the program, teachers can achieve multiple outcomes with their students depending on how they incorporate Enviro-Stories into their lesson program.
Key Outcomes
Key outcomes include those in the English and Visual Arts subjects. Teachers can choose to use Enviro-Stories to develop students preparedness for NAPLAN (National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy) by studying persuasive texts or narratives.
English
Language
- Understand that paragraphs are a key organisational feature of written texts (ACELA1479).
- Understand that verbs represent different processes, for example doing, thinking, saying, and relating and that these processes are anchored in time through tense (ACELA1482).
- Identify the effect on audiences of techniques, for example shot size, vertical camera angle and layout in picture books, advertisements and film segments (ACELA1483).
Literature
- Draw connections between personal experiences and the worlds of texts, and share responses with others (ACELT1596).
- Develop criteria for establishing personal preferences for literature (ACELT1598).
- Discuss how language is used to describe the settings in texts, and explore how the settings shape the events and influence the mood of the narrative (ACELT1599).
- Create imaginative texts based on characters, settings and events from students’ own and other cultures using visual features, for example perspective, distance and angle (ACELT1601).
- Create texts that adapt language features and patterns encountered in literary texts, for example characterisation, rhyme, rhythm, mood, music, sound effects and dialogue (ACELT1791).
Literacy
- Identify the point of view in a text and suggest alternative points of view (ACELY1675).
- Identify the audience and purpose of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts (ACELY1678).
- Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features and selecting print,and multimodal elements appropriate to the audience and purpose (ACELY1682).
- Reread and edit texts for meaning, appropriate structure, grammatical choices and punctuation (ACELY1683).
- Use software including word processing programs with growing speed and efficiency to construct and edit texts featuring visual, print and audio elements (ACELY1685).
Language
- Understand differences between the language of opinion and feeling and the language of factual reporting or recording (ACELA1489).
- Recognise how quotation marks are used in texts to signal dialogue, titles and quoted (direct) speech (ACELA1492).
- Understand that the meaning of sentences can be enriched through the use of noun groups/phrases and verb groups/phrases and prepositional phrases (ACELA1493).
- Investigate how quoted (direct) and reported (indirect) speech work in different types of text (ACELA1494).
- Explore the effect of choices when framing an image, placement of elements in the image, and salience on composition of still and moving images in a range of types of texts (ACELA1496).
- Incorporate new vocabulary from a range of sources into students’ own texts including vocabulary encountered in research (ACELA1498).
Literature
- Discuss literary experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing a point of view (ACELT1603).
- Discuss how authors and illustrators make stories exciting, moving and absorbing and hold readers’ interest by using various techniques, for example character development and plot tension (ACELT1605).
- Create literary texts that explore students’ own experiences and imagining (ACELT1607).
- Create literary texts by developing storylines, characters and settings (ACELT1794).
Literacy
- Identify characteristic features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text (ACELY1690).
- Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts containing key information and supporting details for a widening range of audiences, demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features (ACELY1694).
- Reread and edit for meaning by adding, deleting or moving words or word groups to improve content and structure (ACELY1695).
- Use a range of software including word processing programs to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements (ACELY1697).
Language
- Understand how texts vary in purpose, structure and topic as well as the degree of formality (ACELA1504).
- Understand that the starting point of a sentence gives prominence to the message in the text and allows for prediction of how the text will unfold (ACELA1505).
- Understand how the grammatical category of possessives is signalled through apostrophes and how to use apostrophes with common and proper nouns (ACELA1506).
- Understand the difference between main and subordinate clauses and that a complex sentence involves at least one subordinate clause (ACELA1507).
- Understand how noun groups/phrases and adjective groups/phrases can be expanded in a variety of ways to provide a fuller description of the person, place, thing or idea (ACELA1508).
- Understand the use of vocabulary to express greater precision of meaning, and know that words can have different meanings in different contexts (ACELA1512).
Literature
- Recognise that ideas in literary texts can be conveyed from different viewpoints, which can lead to different kinds of interpretations and responses (ACELT1610).
- Understand, interpret and experiment with sound devices and imagery, including simile, metaphor and personification, in narratives, shape poetry, songs, anthems and odes (ACELT1611).
- Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings and characters that draw on the worlds represented in texts students have experienced (ACELT1612).
- Create literary texts that experiment with structures, ideas and stylistic features of selected authors (ACELT1798).
Literacy
- Identify and explain characteristic text structures and language features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text (ACELY1701).
- Use comprehension strategies to analyse information, integrating and linking ideas from a variety of print and digital sources(ACELY1703).
- Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive print and multimodal texts, choosing text structures, language features, images and sound appropriate to purpose and audience (ACELY1704).
- Reread and edit student’s own and others’ work using agreed criteria for text structures and language features (ACELY1705).
- Use a range of software including word processing programs with fluency to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements (ACELY1707).
Language
- Understand that cohesive links can be made in texts by omitting or replacing words (ACELA1520).
- Understand the uses of commas to separate clauses (ACELA1521).
- Investigate how complex sentences can be used in a variety of ways to elaborate, extend and explain ideas (ACELA1522).
- Understand how ideas can be expanded and sharpened through careful choice of verbs, elaborated tenses and a range of adverb groups/phrases (ACELA1523).
Literature
- Create literary texts that adapt or combine aspects of texts students have experienced in innovative ways (ACELT1618).
- Experiment with text structures and language features and their effects in creating literary texts, for example, using imagery, sentence variation, metaphor and word choice (ACELT1800).
Literacy
- Analyse strategies authors use to influence readers (ACELY1801).
- Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, choosing and experimenting with text structures, language features, images and digital resources appropriate to purpose and audience (ACELY1714).
- Reread and edit students’ own and others’ work using agreed criteria and explaining editing choices (ACELY1715).
- Use a range of software, including word processing programs, learning new functions as required to create texts (ACELY1717).
The Arts – Visual Arts
Explore ideas and artworks from different cultures and times, including artwork by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, to use as inspiration for their own representations (ACAVAM110)
Use materials, techniques and processes to explore visual conventions when making artworks (ACAVAM111)
Explore ideas and practices used by artists, including practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, to represent different views, beliefs and opinions (ACAVAM114)
Develop and apply techniques and processes when making their artworks (ACAVAM115)
Plan the display of artworks to enhance their meaning for an audience (ACAVAM116)
Other Outcomes
Other outcomes under Science, Humanities and Social Sciences and cross-curricular priorities can be achieved. These are dependant on the topic of the storybook and if excursion that explore the local area are undertaken. These additional outcomes are identified below.
Science
Science Understanding
- Living things can be grouped on the basis of observable features and can be distinguished from non-living things (ACSSU044).
Science as a Human Endeavour
- Science knowledge helps people to understand the effect of their actions (ACSHE051).
Science Understanding
- Living things have life cycles (ACSSU072).
- Living things, including plants and animals, depend on each other and the environment to survive (ACSSU073).
- Earth’s surface changes over time as a result of natural processes and human activity (ACSSU075).
Science as a Human Endeavour
- Science knowledge helps people to understand the effect of their actions (ACSHE062).
Science Understanding
- Living things have structural features and adaptations that help them to survive in their environment (ACSSU043).
Science as a Human Endeavour
- Scientific knowledge is used to inform personal and community decisions (ACSHE217).
Science Understanding
- The growth and survival of living things are affected by the physical conditions of their environment (ACSSU094).
Science as a Human Endeavour
- Important contributions to the advancement of science have been made by people from a range of cultures (ACSHE099).
- Scientific understandings, discoveries and inventions are used to solve problems that directly affect peoples’ lives (ACSHE100).
Humanities and Social Sciences
Knowledge and Understanding
- The importance of Country/Place to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples who belong to a local area (ACHASSK062).
Knowledge and Understanding
- The diversity of Australia’s first peoples and the long and continuous connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples to Country/Place (land, sea, waterways and skies) (ACHASSK083).
- The importance of environments, including natural vegetation, to animals and people (ACHASSK088).
- The custodial responsibility Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have for Country/Place, and how this influences views about sustainability (ACHASSK089).
- The use and management of natural resources and waste, and the different views on how to do this sustainably (ACHASSK090).
Knowledge and Understanding
- The influence of people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, on the environmental characteristics of Australian places (ACHASSK112).
- The environmental and human influences on the location and characteristics of a place and the management of spaces within them (ACHASSK113).
- The impact of bushfires or floods on environments and communities, and how people can respond (ACHASSK114).
Cross Curricula Priorities
Systems
- OI.1 The biosphere is a dynamic system providing conditions that sustain life on Earth.
- OI.2 All life forms, including human life, are connected through ecosystems on which they depend for their wellbeing and survival.
- OI.3 Sustainable patterns of living rely on the interdependence of healthy social, economic and ecological systems.
Futures
- OI.6 The sustainability of ecological, social and economic systems is achieved through informed individual and community action that values local and global equity and fairness across generations into the future.
- OI.7 Actions for a more sustainable future reflect values of care, respect and responsibility, and require us to explore and understand environments.
- OI.9 Sustainable futures result from actions designed to preserve and/or restore the quality and uniqueness of environments.
Country/Place
- OI.2 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities maintain a special connection to and responsibility for Country/Place throughout all of Australia.
- OI.3 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have unique belief systems and are spiritually connected to the land, sea, sky and waterways.
Culture
- OI.4 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies have many Language Groups.
- OI.6 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have lived in Australia for tens of thousands of years and experiences can be viewed through historical, social and political lenses.
People
- OI.7 The broader Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies encompass a diversity of nations across Australia.
- OI.8 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have sophisticated family and kinship structures.
General Capabilities
Level 3 – Typically by the end of year 4 students:
- navigate, read and view different types of texts with illustrations and more detailed graphics
- compose and edit a range of learning area texts
- use pair, group and class discussions about learning area topics as learning tools to explore and represent ideas and relationships, test possibilities and to prepare for creating texts
- use growing knowledge of the structure and features of learning area texts to comprehend and compose an increasing number and range of texts
- use knowledge of how texts are made cohesive through linking words and phrases, for example ‘so’, ‘therefore’, ‘then’, ‘in addition’, and the correct use of pronouns to comprehend and compose texts
- use simple, compound and complex sentence structures to describe, explain, report and make connections between ideas and events
- recognise and use adverbs and prepositional phrases that provide detailed descriptions in the learning areas
- differentiate between the language of opinion and feeling and the language of factual reporting or recording
- identify the effects of choices in the construction of images, including framing and composition
Level 4 – Typically by the end of year 6 students:
- navigate, read and view subject-specific texts with some challenging features and a range of graphic representations
- interpret and analyse information and ideas, comparing texts on similar topics or themes using comprehension strategies
- compose and edit learning area texts
- use pair, group and class discussions and informal debates as learning tools to explore ideas and relationships, test possibilities, compare solutions and to prepare for creating texts
- use developing knowledge of the structure and features of learning area texts to comprehend and compose a range of more complex texts for identified purposes
- use knowledge of how cohesive links can be made in texts through omitting and replacing words
- use simple, compound and complex sentence structures to record, explain, question, describe and elaborate ideas and events
- expand and sharpen ideas through careful choice of verbs and phrases and elaborated tenses
- use subjective, objective and evaluative language, and identify bias
- explain how analytical images such as figures, diagrams, tables, maps and graphs contribute to understanding of factual information in texts
Level 3 – Typically by the end of year 4 students:
- acknowledge when they use digital products created by someone else, and start to indicate the source
- independently apply standard guidelines and techniques for particular digital systems to secure digital information
- use ICT to plan an information search or generation of information, recognising some pattern within the information
- locate, retrieve or generate information from a range of digital sources
- use ICT to generate ideas and plan solutions
- identify and independently operate a range of devices, software, functions and commands, taking into consideration ergonomics when operating appropriate ICT systems, and seek solutions when encountering a problem
Level 4 – Typically by the end of year 6 students:
- identify the legal obligations regarding the ownership and use of digital products and apply some referencing conventions
- independently apply strategies for determining and protecting the security of digital information and assess the risks associated with online environments
- use a range of ICT to identify and represent patterns in sets of information and to pose questions to guide searching for, or generating, further information
- locate, retrieve or generate information using search engines and simple search functions and classify information in meaningful ways
- select and use appropriate ICT tools safely to share and exchange information and to safely collaborate with others
- select from, and safely operate, a range of devices to undertake specific tasks and use basic troubleshooting procedures to solve routine malfunctions
Level 3 – Typically by the end of year 4 students:
- pose questions to expand their knowledge about the world
- identify main ideas and select and clarify information from a range of sources
- expand on known ideas to create new and imaginative combinations
- explore situations using creative thinking strategies to propose a range of alternatives
- identify and apply appropriate reasoning and thinking strategies for particular outcomes
Level 4 – Typically by the end of year 6 students:
- identify and clarify relevant information and prioritise ideas
- analyse, condense and combine relevant information from multiple sources
- combine ideas in a variety of ways and from a range of sources to create new possibilities
- assess whether there is adequate reasoning and evidence to justify a claim, conclusion or outcome