Classroom-ready modules that engage students in hands-on,
curiosity-driven learning about Australia’s ecosystems.
TERN Education resources support teachers and educators to engage students in
hands-on, curiosity-driven learning about Australia’s ecosystems. The classroom-ready
modules help students explore living and non-living things, plants, animals, soil, food systems,
ecosystems and environmental data through real scientific practices used by ecologists,
researchers and environmental managers across Australia. Activities are designed to be engaging,
age-appropriate, and aligned with the Australian Curriculum where appropriate, while introducing
students to the ways scientists observe, measure and care for the natural world.
Primary educators
TERN Primary modules invite students to become Junior Scientists,
Junior Botanists, Junior Ecologists, Junior Entomologists and Junior Soil Scientists as they
investigate their local environment through observation, sorting, measuring, mapping and
discussion. As students progress through year levels, learning deepens from simple sensory
exploration and classification to more complex ideas about ecosystems, climate, human impacts
and sustainability.
Primary modules3:2 · ~900×600
A teaching guide of classroom-ready lesson plans and activities for primary year levels.
TERN Junior and Senior Secondary modules support students to work as
emerging environmental scientists, building skills in field investigation, ecological
monitoring, data collection and analysis. Students engage with real-world scientific methods
used in national long-term monitoring programs.
Junior secondary3:2 · ~900×600
Extend your junior secondary classroom in their exploration of biodiversity in the classroom and school grounds.
A lesson plan module, data worksheet and Excel workbook covering species richness and
abundance in the classroom and school grounds.
Resources
PDFJunior secondary moduleAwaiting upload
DOCXBiodiversity data worksheetAwaiting upload
XLSXRichness & abundance workbookAwaiting upload
Senior secondary educators
Learning experiences designed to align with senior secondary science
curricula while developing scientific reasoning, data literacy and awareness of environmental
science pathways beyond school.
IA2 field methods3:2 · ~900×600
Field methods and data collection sheets comparing disturbed and undisturbed ecosystems.
Learn about different TERN Australia sites and compare the data you collected at school
for Experiment 2 (IA2) with a TERN site. Learn how you can upload your data to the TERN
portal and contribute to national datasets. As an extension activity, students can
visualise their ecological data in RStudio.
File roles to confirm: which file is the IA2 lesson plan vs the demonstration Excel with formulas, and where LongPocketBiodiversityPlotSurveys belongs.
Resources
PDFIA2 lesson plan & activities (file to confirm)Awaiting upload
DOCXIA2 data collection sheetsAwaiting upload
XLSXDemonstration workbook with formulas (file to confirm)Awaiting upload
DataIA2 student dataset (with Gerhard)Coming soon
RR code & explainer videoComing soon
Mt Glorious3:2 · ~900×600
A teaching resource using Australia’s Environment maps and environmental condition data for Mt Glorious.
This resource set is not in the web text. Confirm the audience page, the year level, and a description. Provisionally placed under senior secondary.
TERN tertiary modules support university educators to link TERN’s
national long-term monitoring datasets to student learning. Explore our student dashboard and
other modular, data-driven activities below.
TERN student dashboard
Explore real research datasets and discover the relationship between species richness, or
specific genera, and key environmental drivers such as precipitation, soil characteristics
and temperature. Two versions are available — a static showcase, and an interactive
app students can work in directly.
Explore TERN’s vegetation datasets and learn how to use them to aid protection of threatened arboreal mammals and birds such as the greater glider.
Workshop info and link still needed.
Resources
LinkWorkshop pageComing soon
Rangelands3:2 · ~900×600
Explore TERN’s extensive rangelands data and use a practical case study to identify the drivers of plant species richness across Australian rangelands.