Among the gum trees

Developed with funding from Eucalypt Australia, Among the gum trees addresses AC Science Understanding ACSSU072 Living things have life cycles and ACSSU073 Living things depend on each other and the environment to survive, through the context of the interdependent relationship of eucalypt trees and animals.

Explore our new sequences for Year 4 aligned to AC V9

Among the gum trees provides students with hands-on opportunities to:

• investigate the conditions that affects the germination of eucalypt seeds
• explore the features of flowers, the lifecycle of honey bees and their interdependent relationship.
• consider the impacts some animals and eucalypts have on each other

Students apply their new learning by:

• planning and conducting an investigation to find out why eucalypts produce oil

Linking science with literacy

In the Primary Connections approach, students are supported to create representations that draw on and strengthen their literacy development. In Among the gum trees, students represent and explain their understanding about how living things have life cycles and that living things depend on each other and the environment to survive, by creating these representations:

• Annotated diagram
• Factual text
• Flow chart
• Labelled diagram
• Poster
• TWLH chart
• Word wall

An information text is available to support the implementation of Among the gum trees. It is a factual, multimodal text about eucalypts and the animals that depend on them. Click here for teaching notes about the information text.

Watch this video with your students. Designed to be implemented with the Among the gum trees unit, it brings to life the stories of scientists involved in building knowledge and awareness about eucalypts and their place in the Australian landscape.

This is a classic Primary Connections sequence aligned with the Australian Curriculum V8.4. It is only available as a downloadable package.

The Among the gum trees sequence package includes all the resources you need to teach this sequence, including:

• The Among the gum trees unit PDF
• Information text
• Equipment list
• Australian Curriculum v8.4 alignment
• Student eResource sheets
• Assessment resources:
  • Assessment rubrics
  • Work samples
  • Student self-assessment
  • Achievement standard class checklist

Teacher tools

Our new all-online sequence Sustain the chain shares a curriculum content descriptor with this sequence. Sustain the chain is aligned to the Australian Curriculum V9 and contains embedded professional learning and supplementary teacher advice.