Land Issues

1. Local Area Investigation

2. Local Land Use Issue

3. Drama or Role Play

4. Case Studies on the CD ROM: Making Connections and Land Issues Sections

5. Persuasive Language

6. Case Study: Looking After The Sea And The Coastlines

7. Making Comparisons

8. Worth Saving: World Heritage Listings in Australia

9. Rich Descriptions

10. Aboriginal Place Names

11. Signing Up

12. Threatened Species

13. Top Ten

2. Local Land Use Issue

Investigate a local land use issue related to environmental degradation. To do this, prepare an explanation about how and why people have used the land and the environmental or social problems that have developed. Research and present the solutions and conservation actions achieved or proposed by individuals groups or government agencies.

Causes of land degradation (some examples are provided below to help you get started on researching a topic)	Effects on environment/ social problems	Suggested conservation actions and their predicted outcomes for improvement
Large areas of forest and wetland have been cleared for agriculture
Native grasses have been replaced by new crops
Roads and houses have been built in towns and cities
Many animals and plants have been introduced from other countries
Mining is carried out in parts of Australia
Reduced water quality of streams
Increasing waste products
Increasing salinity of soils/water

Students could present their work (research) as a poster/ concept map/ flow chart/ diagram to show connections between cause and effect relationships.

Students could email/ input their final products to share with others on the website.

Discussion points: students could ask students from other schools, questions about the issues presented on the website.

3. Drama or Role Play

The value of a structured role play as a form of response to a local land use issue lies in its capacity to allow us to develop a human perspective on the physical changes to that environment. In a sense, the effects of large scale changes on the lives of the various people involved in the situation are not always explicit yet we can work through and identify possible consequences and responses if we focus on the point of view of those involved. Role play allows us to do this. Good visual stimulus that follows this theme include:

The Changing Countryside ( Jorg Muller)

My Place (Wheatley 1987), Window (Baker 1991),

i/ Then simulate a local issue: an old farm house and surrounding two hectares of bushland are to be sold to a developer who has the aim of establishing a large drive in takeaway outlet and carpark.To begin with, some of the characters in the pictures need to be identified. You could do this yourself or you might wish to involve the students in this process. Some of the characters are quite explicit (the illustrator, the family who own the big house and farm the land) and others need to be flushed out (a property developer, a government official, business and industry leaders, church leaders, migrant workers etc.) You may need to return to the pictures for this purpose.

Identify about five characters who will be involved in discussions about the future of the community. This works best when there is a fixed topic which can be identified in the pictures. eg. A proposal to demolish the old house to construct a new shopping complex. On the chalkboard, list the characters involved in the meeting and give each a number

1. Real Estate Agent

2. Property Developer

3. Current Member of Family Living in House

4. Traditional Indigenous Owners

5. Local Conservation Activist

ii/ Set the classroom furniture up to accommodate the number of roles chosen (5). The next stage is the allocation of roles to the students. There are many ways of doing this from random allocation by giving every student a number from 1-5, to allowing some individual or group choice. Random allocation is sometimes helpful in that it may force students to adopt a point of view with which they may not be in personal agreement. Tell the class that each of them will have a role to play at a meeting which is to be held soon.

iii/ Place all of the participants in their role (expert) groups. All of the house owners meet together, as do all of the property developers etc. Set a manageable time limit for this activity (15-20 minutes, depending on the class). Each group then considers the situation or proposal together from the point of view of the role they have allocated. Some teacher assistance may be needed in situations where the work or interests of the particular role are not well understood (eg. A Property Developer.). You may prefer to provide some lead time for students to investigate the nature of their roles. A collective response is then generated within each group based on the perceived interests of the person/s they represent. Ask one of the groups to take responsibility for chairing the meeting.

iv/ Students then move into their meeting groups so that each role is represented in each meeting. In a class of 30 there will be six meetings of five people going on simultaneously.

v/ Set a realistic time limit which will provide an opportunity for all points of view to be presented (15 minutes) and give directions if you want a decision to be taken by vote or some other outcome or action plan.

vi/ Conduct a debriefing session so that students shed their respective roles. Discuss how they felt about the role they allocated, which points of view surprised them, what decision they made and why etc.

vii/ At the conclusion ask the students to identify the main ideas which were represented in the art work. You might wish to record these yourself or ask some students to record these for future reference.