Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes

Tune In: Exploring ecosystems

20 minutes

Find Out: Zooming in on native bees

20 minutes

Take Action: Caring for native bees

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students will:

explore the concept of ecosystems
investigate the basic needs of native bees.

Students can:

understand the elements of an ecosystem
explain the basic needs of living things, including native bees
take action to protect native bees.

Tune In: Exploring ecosystems

Step 1

Pose the question to your students: I wonder what an ecosystem is?

Invite students to suggest their ideas. Lead students to the following definition:

An ecosystem is like a community of living things in a particular area that work together with nonliving things in the same area. The living things can include the plants, animals, and people of an area, and the nonliving things can include water, sunlight, soil, and air.

Explain to students that this can be tricky to think about, but drawing it is a really good way to understand it.

Step 2

Students will now participate in a quick drawing task. They will create a drawing of an ecosystem by responding to a series of prompts read out by the teacher. Students could work independently, in pairs, or as a class to complete the drawing task.

Prompts:

Water isn’t alive, but all living things need water to survive. Draw a pond or creek.
Soil is a part of an ecosystem. Draw some soil.
Soil isn’t just dirt; it’s full of life. Ants, worms, beetles, spiders, wombats and bilbies live in the soil. Draw a worm living in the soil.
Plants are also living things that grow in the soil. There are many different types of plants, such as grasses, mosses, flowers, shrubs and trees. Draw some grass, a flower and a tree.
Rocks aren’t living but an important part of an ecosystem because they can provide shelter and a home for animals. Draw a rock.
We’ve already thought about some of the animals that live in the soil, but what about the animals that live above the ground, in the plants, under the rocks, in the water, in the sky or who walk around on the ground? Draw a lizard living near the rock, draw a fish in the water and draw a bee on the flower.
The sun is also part of the ecosystem. It provides warmth and light, helping plants grow and animals stay warm. Draw the sun.
Like us, many plants and animals in an ecosystem need to breathe air to stay alive. Draw some air. (This is a hard one to draw - how will you draw the air?)

Step 3

Once complete, take a moment to discuss student drawings and explain that most ecosystems are so full of living things it would be tough to include everything in a drawing. But all these living things need healthy ecosystems to survive. In the next part of the lesson, students will look at how we can keep our ecosystems healthy for one of these living things.

Remember to retain your students' drawings, as these will be used again later in this lesson.

Find Out: Zooming in on native bees

Step 1

Pose the following question to your students and invite them to suggest answers:

What do you know about bees?

Suggested responses:

Bees are insects
They have 6 legs and two pairs of wings
They have a stinger
They make honey
They collect pollen.

Step 2

Share the following image of a bee with your students. It is on slide one of the attached visual explainer.

Use the image to identify any bee body parts students have already mentioned in your discussion. To consolidate this knowledge, you can share the next slide, which shows an annotated image of the bee's body parts.

Step 3

Once complete, explain to your students that this image shows a European honey bee. These bees are not native to Australia. This means they aren’t a natural part of the ecosystem in Australia and were brought here to help grow food. How do they do this? Not with tiny spades and wheelbarrows but through pollination. Pollination is where bees (and other insects and animals) help spread pollen between plants so that the plants can reproduce (make baby plants). Bees like to eat nectar and collect pollen from flowers; they will take it back to the hive to feed baby bees (larvae). As they fly between flowers, a bit of their collected pollen is mixed with pollen from other flowers, which helps the plants pollinate.

Step 4

If your students need more explanation about this process, watch the video about pollination and the importance of bees for food production.

Flowers and Their Pollinators: A Perfect Match! | Spring is Here! - SciShow Kids (youtube.com/watch?v=pnBoM4idf1k)

Step 5

Now share this image on the next slide of the attached visual explainer and invite students to suggest what they think it is:

Explain to students that this is a native Australian bee called a Blue-banded bee. Instead of yellow and black stripes, it has blue and black stripes, and it is a natural part of the Australian ecosystem. Like European honey bees, it is an important pollinator, but because it is native, it is especially important for native plants. Native plants are like native pollinators! If we want to look after native ecosystems, we need to look at the plants and animals that live in them.

You might like to share the next few slides of the visual explainer with students. They feature a tiny selection of native bees in Australia.

Step 6

Pose the question:

I wonder what native bees need to be healthy and happy in an ecosystem.

Invite students to share their answers. All living things need food, water, air, and shelter. What might these look like for a native bee?

Step 7

Invite students to access their ecosystem drawings. They will add some new features to their drawings to help the bee in their drawings have everything it needs.

Food - Bees eat nectar and pollen from plants that have flowers. Is the bee in your drawing already eating from a flower? Can you draw some more plants with flowers for the bee to eat from?
Water - Like us, bees like a nice drink of fresh water. But bees aren't good swimmers, and to get to the water in a pond or creek, they need to land on a stick or a rock that is sticking out of or at the edge of the water. In your drawing, can you add a stick or rock to the creek or pond? Can you draw a bee standing on a stick or rock having a drink?
Air - Bees like fresh, clean air. Plants help to make this air by producing oxygen. Can you add some more plants to your drawing? These could be grasses, moss, shrubs and trees.
Shelter - All native bees need shelter to protect them from the hot, cold or wet weather. They also need shelter to lay their eggs and raise their young, but different types of native bees like different types of shelter. Some like to make nests in the soil in the ground, some like to use holes in dead trees, and some like to live in the stems of plants. Can you add some mud and dead trees in your drawing for the bees to shelter in? Can you include a drawing of a bee hiding in its shelter?

Take Action: Caring for native bees

Step 1

Pose the following question:

How could we help the native bees in our yard at school?

Invite students to make suggestions based on the second drawing task:

How can we provide food, water, air and shelter for native bees in the schoolyard?

Step 2

You could pursue several options based on the conditions of your schoolyard and the resources available to you. You could:

Research and plant native species to attract native bees
Create water sources for native bees close to plants that already attract native bees (make sure to add a stone or stick so the bees have somewhere safe to land when drinking)
Create one or more ‘bee hotels’ for your yard (see here -youtube.com/watch?v=EbFAKiP09s0))
Increase plantings of all types of plants to improve air quality
Turn your ecosystem drawings into posters (existing drawings could be embellished or recreated) to spread the word about native bees and how we can look after them.

Reflection

Through class discussion, invite students to share their responses to the following questions:

What is one thing that you found interesting or surprising about bees?
What questions do you still have about native bees? How could you find out the answers to these questions?

Hive-Five for Native Bees!

Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables

Hive-Five for Native Bees!

Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables