Ripper ii Educational resource for primary schools - Australian ...

TOPIC 3: WATER ON FARMS CONT...Continued from previous page.Teaching Strategies ACTIVITIES ResourcesActivity 3: IRRIGATION ON FARMS (if locally relevant)Keypoint: Some farms and rural properties are in areas where they can use water forirrigating their crops and pastures. Irrigators use water from rivers and canals so they cangrow thirstier crops / pastures in drier areas.Photo-baseddiscussionKnowledge andunderstandingIrrigationexperimentApplicationAnalysisCakedemonstrationand debateAnalysisEvaluationDisplay the pictures of water on farms and identify those showing irrigation.Discuss the principles involved.Children can either:• Make canals with sand and water in plastic containers.• Grow a bean or alfalfa “crop” in a sandbox, using irrigation.• Plant alfalfa / bean seeds in one corner,• Water daily by pouring water in the other corner and allowing a ‘channel’ or ‘hose’ to take it to the seed.• Contrast this with a sandbox that has no canal/ hose supplying water top the seeds• Imagine the sandbox was their farm. Does irrigation allow you to grow plants that wouldn’tnormally grow there?Irrigation helps farmers to grow crops / pastures where they normally wouldn’t grow.However, making sure everyone has a fair share of water is not always easy and peopleoften meet to work these problems out. To demonstrate these difficulties:• Bring in a “blue-iced cake” to represent “water in river / dam”• Cut the cake into slices for children, but not enough for everyone in the class• Ask the class to decide who will miss out or come up with ways to make distribution “fair”• How can we make sure everyone gets a share of the water, including the natural environment?What if people paid for large pieces of cake (water) Should they have that cake taken away?How would you feel and what would you do?Farm water andirrigation scenes(CD slides)Large, flat plasticcontainers, sand,water, seedsCake39