‘Creating and Being the Spark’

Designing Deep Numeracy and Literacy Learning for Aboriginal students

Martine Turnbull 2019

‘Without engagement; high expectations just

won’t work!’

Quandong Trees and Emusan idea originating from Uncle Barney - Ngarrindjeri elder Renmark

https://gswatty.smugmug.com/Nonsporting/BirdsAnimals/Emus-in-the-orange-trees/i-cNFxg4b/A

‘What’s your spark?’

My Sparks;

Without any teeth, emus eat by "gulping and digesting" and have an appetite for tasty native foods like quandongs. This, combined with their long legs and fast pace, means that emus can disperse fruits that are palatable to humans over long distances. Emus are arguably the most important frugivore in the jarrah forest, their generalist diet and gut retention times of up to 100 days mean a large amount and variety of seeds can be deposited in a single scat.

By downloading GPS information as often as every 15 minutes, researcher Dr Philip Ladd was able to recognise distinct patterns in the emu's movements. "Certainly for some cases the emu may not retain the seeds for all that long, say a few hours only," he says."However, as they can walk quite fast this still can disperse the seeds quite a long way."Previous studies suggest emus are capable of travelling hundreds of kilometres over the course of a few months and Dr Ladd says this long-range mobility is essential for certain plant populations to remain genetically viable."They can move seeds a long way compared with other species," he says."We would predict that if emus disappeared then the plants might not have ways of getting their seeds dispersed."This would lead to seeds falling around their parent plants and thus inbreeding occurring,"

https://phys.org/news/2015-04-emu-movements-chronicled-seed-dispersal.html#jCp

SCIENCE - Seed Dispersal

Emu’s powerful legs give them great speed, some running up to 50km per hour. At full pace, an emu's stride can measure up to 3 metres. • How long is your stride? Can you

find out? How many of your strides will fit into 3 metres?

• How many strides would an emu take to cover a 100 metre race?

• How many strides would you take to cover a 100m race?

Test your theory

MATHEMATICS – Pace MeasurementIdeas for measurement, graphing, data, tables, ratios, fractions, percentages

• After being startled by a hunter, an emu runs for 6 minutes at 50 kph, then lies down in the scrub to rest. The hunter follows at a pace of 12 km per hour?. How long will it take before the hunter reaches the emu?

• Research was completed on Quandong seeds found in emu scat, obtaining the following results: 5, 14, 8, 5, 12, 10, 11, 0, 9, 7. Find the average number of Quandong seeds per scat as a mean, median, and mode. Which average should the researchers use to report their finding?

Emus were used as a source of food by indigenous Australians. Aboriginal people used a variety of techniques to catch the birds, including spearing them while they drank at waterholes, catching them in nets, and attracting them by imitating their calls or by arousing their curiosity with a ball of feathers and rags dangled from a tree. Aboriginal people only killed emus out of necessity, and frowned on anyone who hunted them for any other reason. Every part of the carcass had some use; the fat was harvested for its valuable, multiple-use oil, the bones were shaped into knives and tools, the feathers were used for body adornment and the tendons substituted for string.

The early European settlers killed emus to provide food and used their fat for fuelling lamps. They also tried to prevent them from interfering with farming or invading settlements in search of water during drought. An extreme example of this was the Emu War in Western Australia in 1932. Emus flocked to the Chandler and Walgoolan area during a dry spell, damaging rabbit fencing and devastating crops. An attempt to drive them off was mounted, with the army called in to dispatch them with machine guns; the emus largely avoided the hunters and won the battle.

HISTORY - Aboriginal Harmony with the Environment vs The European ‘Great Emu War’

Sessions with Chris Matthews

Circles

‘What’s your spark?’

My Sparks;• Aboriginal students teach students in their own classes and children in the Middle Primary classes• Students investigate circles and round shapes within the environment• Students look at circles in Aboriginal art and research the meanings of these symbols• Create paintings (with Daniel, secondary ASETO) to create a mural on an outside wall at the High

School – discuss meaning and symbolism of circles and dots• The Art of String Theory

- Gabrielle Quakawoot• Cos, sin, tan

The Art of String Theory Gabrielle Quakawoot 0404788357theartofstringtheory.com

Honey Ants

Margaret James, publisher and author, nanna and music teacher, worked with several

Aboriginal translators in different parts of Central Australia to complete six translations of the first three books in The Honey Ant Readers series.

All 18 books are now complete and will be published early 2013. The languages include: Western Arrernte, Luritja, Pitjantjatjara, Yankuntkatjara, Central Arrernte and

Warlpiri.

‘What’s your spark?’

MATHEMATICS -

• Maths at lower primary level• Trusting the Count• Number lines• Problematised Situations

Ann Baker – Natural Maths

Honey ants are ants that have been gorged with food by worker ants, so much so that their abdomens swell. The ants are fed by the collected honeydew made by the Red Mulga tree.

The honey ants dig deep underground tunnels and chambers where they live. The women search for the drill holes under the trees and using their wooden digging sticks, or shovels and metal bars, the women dig down, following the honey ants tunnels (nyinantu), until they find the ants, which are collected in the coolamons.

Uncle BarneyThe Goanna and the Black Snake

‘What’s your spark?’

My Sparks;

MATHEMATICS - Dance and Algebra

Idea acknowledgement: Kargun Fogarty, Dr Chris Matthews, Tamika Black and Bryce Cawte.

I would not previously have given year 2 students a maths problem such as;(3h + 4d + 2P) X4, and yet they created that themselves. They could create it, critically think about it, perform it, change it and explain it's mathematical meaning. This shows clear understanding. Dr Matthews, Tamia and Bryce's activity has had a huge impact at our school and will continue to, now that they have opened my eyes to the possibilities and links. It is probably the first time in my life that I have really understood what algebra is all about.

NGARRINDJERI DictionaryGoanna, big Goanna: thuyaniBlack Snake: gnumundi or kikinummi

Galah: tjiwuri-wuraKangaroo: wanggamiWallably: pargiDingo: merkani kel

Bilby (bandicoot): wirapi or puthayiHawk, small hawk: wawkati or munkeriEagle Hawk: wuldiPossum: miluriScorpion: kathariKookaburra: kerkowataEmu: pindjali or pinggaliemu(female) – prekiemu (male) – yarli Reference: Ngarrindjeri Dictionary

READING and VOCABULARY

Hot and Cold ReadIdea sourced form Velma Beaglehole

AET conference 2015

READING and WRITINGDictogloss

Idea sourced form ‘Literacy for learning’ teacher development course Government of SA

A dictogloss is a writing activity in which students attempt to reconstruct a short piece of text which the teacher will read aloud to them. On the first reading, they simply listen to the text. On the second reading, they take down key words and phrases and then, with a partner or group, try to reproduce the text they have just heard, negotiating the meaning of the text together along the way.When completed, they compare their text with the original in the hope that they are as close to the register of the text as possible.The subject should be familiar, but the text should be challenging.

Goannas are large lizards found in all regions of Australia, and feature in Aboriginal paintings from many locations. They are well adapted to the Australian climate and ecology and can survive well in desert conditions by burrowing underground. Goannas are an important food source for Aboriginal groups, especially in desert areas where larger animals are rare. Desert people are expert trackers and can see their tracks and recognise how recently the tracks were made. By following tracks and seeing the most recent signs of movements they can track to the underground burrows where they have to dig out the animals. Goannas are respected as a food resource and their existence is written into the Dreamtime stories that account for how the world was created. Goanna Ancestors are part of the Creation mythology of the desert landscape.https://japingkaaboriginalart.com/collections/aboriginal-art-goanna/

Adrian Eagle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmhWnApKns

‘What’s your spark?’