Lessons And Units

Cotton Australia resources - Primary

Cotton Activities for Primary School Students

Who: 1-6

What: This set of six activities are all hands-on STEM-inspired projects that can be carried out at home or in the classroom. Projects target the three primary school stages and include a cotton hunt, design and make, scientific investigation and deconstructing a plant to study its features.

Australian Curriculum: Stage 1 focuses on representing data with objects and drawings in the first project and then investigating living things. Stage 2 focuses on biological sciences and distinguishing living from non-living things and life cycles. Stage 3 focuses on design and technology in the first activity and science inquiry skills in the science investigation project.

Publisher: Cotton Australia

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Introduction to Cotton (K-2)

Who: K-2

What: This lesson is a great introduction to cotton from growth to end product with least emphasis on spinning and weaving. This lesson looks at how the cotton plant grows, the needs of the plant (e.g. sunlight, water, nutrients) and helps students understand how their daily needs are being met.

Australian Curriculum: This lesson helps identify how people design and produce familiar products and consider sustainability to meet personal and community needs. It allows students to explore how plants and animals are grown for food, clothing and shelter and how clothing is created sustainably for year 2 design and technologies. It also helps students understand how living things grow, change and have offspring in a variety of ways in the biological sciences whilst enabling students to understand the connections of people in Australia to other places in Australia and the world in geography.

Publisher: Cotton Australia

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Introduction to Cotton (3-6)

Who: 3-6

What: This lesson is a great introduction to cotton from growth to end product with least emphasis on spinning and weaving. The lesson touches on how the natural environment has been modified to suit our needs (e.g.land cleared, channels dug to divert water, laser levelling), environmentally friendly practices (e.g. water use recycling) and the end use for a variety of cotton products. There are worksheets and extension activities.

Australian Curriculum: Design and Technology, Geography, Science

Publisher: Cotton Australia

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Australian cotton plant adaptations

Who: Stage 3. Year 5

What: This 40-50 minute lesson enables students to discover some of the structural features and adaptations of the cotton plant that helps it to survive and thrive in Australia.

Australian Curriculum: Science Understanding / Biological sciences / ACSSU043

Publisher: Cotton Australia 2017

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Cotton farmers love ladybirds

Who: Years 1-2

What: This five lesson mini-unit uses ladybirds for students to gain an understanding about beneficial insects and their vital role on a cotton farm. Once prior learning is identified, students focus on the insects lifecycle and anatomy, habitat where their needs are met and to end the unit, look at how farmers use science in their daily lives which include caring for their environment and living things.

Australian Curriculum: Science

Publisher: Cotton Australia

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Water and irrigation technology on a cotton farm in Central Queensland

Who: Years 1 – 6

What: A presentation for primary school students about water use on cotton farms in Australia. It includes information and images about what water is used for, where the water comes from, how the water is stored and how it is used to water the cotton crop. It also features a comparison of how water is conserved in schools and on cotton farms and a video link showing how to start a syphon.

Australian Curriculum: Design and Technology, Geography, Science

Publisher: Cotton Australia

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From Seed to Sock

Who: Year 6

What: These activities focus on the need for water sharing within the cotton industry and involve students in a range of engaging activities, including concept cartoons, circles of concern, multimedia clips and games.

Australian Curriculum: Science - Stage 3. The growth and survival of living things are affected by physical conditions of their environment (ACSSU094). Sudden geological changes and extreme weather events can affect

Earth’s surface (ACSSU096).

Publisher: Cotton Australia & Primary Industries Education Foundation Australia

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All About Cotton Maths Challenge

Who: Years 3-4

What: Australian Curriculum: Represent money values in multiple ways and count the change required for simple transactions to the nearest five cents (ACMNA059). Collect data, organise into categories and create displays using lists, tables, picture graphs and simple column graphs, with and without the use of digital technologies (ACMNA069). Solve problems involving purchases and the calculation of change to the nearest five cents with and without digital technologies (ACMNA050). Construct suitable data displays, with and without the use of digital technologies, from given or collected data. Include tables, column graphs and picture graphs where one picture can represent many data values (ACMSP096).

Publisher: Cotton Australia & Primary Industries Education Foundation Australia

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Cotton Australia resources - Secondary

Wrapped in Cotton: Resource Set 1

Who: Fashion Applied Senior Syllabus and Textiles & Design. Value to students across all design and creative industries.

What: Wrapped in Cotton provides actionable resources to help you navigate your students into the circular fashion economy as fashion users and designers. Explore sustainable fashion design processes from fibre to fashion. Make conscious choices at each stage by planning for garment durability and end of life, so that garments can feed back into regenerative systems. Wrapped in Cotton includes dynamic resources such as video, websites, research, and case studies.

Australian Curriculum: Aligned with Fashion Applied Senior Syllabus and Textiles & Design

Publisher: Emma Bond for Cotton Australia

Wrapped in Cotton: Resource Set 2

Australian Cotton: Following the thread (NSW)

Who: NSW Technology Mandatory Years 7-8

What: The aim of this unit is to help teachers and students in secondary schools investigate how cotton is produced in managed environments and source information and resources about how the characteristics and properties of cotton and cottonseed determine how these products can be used. Students develop knowledge and understandings about how cotton is grown, produced and processed in managed environments. Students also investigate and explain how both cotton and cottonseed oil have certain characteristics and properties that determine how they can be used. Using ‘design and production skills’ students design either a cotton muslin bag or an infused cottonseed oil with a detailed label design that educates consumers about how it was produced.

NSW Curriculum: Agriculture and food technologies

Publisher: FutureGen Education for Cotton Australia

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Australian Cotton: Following the thread (National)

Who: Years 7-8

What: The aim of this unit is to help teachers and students in secondary schools investigate how cotton is produced in managed environments and source information and resources about how the characteristics and properties of cotton and cottonseed determine how these products can be used. Students develop knowledge and understandings about how cotton is grown, produced and processed in managed environments. Students also investigate and explain how both cotton and cottonseed oil have certain characteristics and properties that determine how they can be used. Using ‘design and production skills’ students design either a cotton muslin bag or an infused cottonseed oil with a detailed label design that educates consumers about how it was produced.

Australian Curriculum: Food and fibre production and food specialisations

Publisher: FutureGen Education for Cotton Australia

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Career Q&A Sessions – Digital Learning Kit

Who: Year 7-10 Career Advisors, Agricultural Technology & Agriculture

What: This resource includes three case study videos, each highlighting a different cotton career for students to better understand the diverse mix of opportunities in our industry. Students will hear from an Extension Officer at CottonInfo, a cotton grower and a grower service manager at Queensland Cotton. The videos are produced so you can easily pause them between questions to allow time to discuss with students what they are learning. After viewing either together or independently, there is a worksheet for students to demonstrate their understanding and then create a job description for a role and research each career in greater detail.

Australian Curriculum: 8.4 & 9.0

Publisher: Primary Industry Education Foundation Australia & Storm and Flood Industry Recovery Program (SFIRP) in conjunction Cotton Australia VIEW ONLINE

Research case study - A Comparison of Arthropod Communities in Transgenic Bt and Conventional Cotton in Australia

Who: Year 11 and 12 HSC Ag

What: This research case study (PDF) allows HSC students and teachers of stage 6 agriculture to analyse a research study of the development and/or implementation of one agricultural biotechnology in terms of: design of the study, methodology of the study, collection of data for the study, presentation of data, analysis of the data , conclusions and recommendations. It is useful for the Farming for the 21st century Elective 1 research study on the implement.

NSW Syllabus: Agriculture Stage 6 syllabus H 4.1 Applies appropriate experimental techniques, technologies, research methods, data presentation and analysis in relation to agricultural problems and situations.

Author: This was written by Cotton Australia in 2013 for schools . The original research upon which this is based is by Louise Lawrence, Mary Whitehouse, Lewis Wilson and Gary Fitt and published in Outlooks on Pest Management in October, 2005. The article is reproduced in this document by permission of Research Information Ltd.

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Primezone - Secondary

Other resources - Primary

Other resources - Secondary