GEOLOGIC WONDER, FROM MACRO TO MICRO: A SUPPLEMENTARY INTERACTIVE LESSON FOR NEW ZEALAND PRIMARY SCHOOL NATURAL SCIENCE STUDENTS

Research has shown that New Zealand primary school students are underperforming in science, with achievement in Years 5 through 8 especially lacking. Some suggest that this underperformance is due to a lack of resources for teachers seeking to engage students with natural science material. I have created two supplementary lesson presentations and lesson plans aimed at teaching geosciences to Year 7 classes through a combination of lecture and interactive demonstration in an effort to engage them both with overarching geoscientific concepts as well as the expressions of these on smaller scales in their home country of New Zealand. This "zooming-in" approach was achieved through initial pupil engagement with basic geologic concepts followed by interactive learning about New Zealand's Kaikoura Peninsula via in-class activities and photomicrograph examination. The lesson plans and presentations were created and their efficacy was tested on a group of approximately 100 Year 7 students at Cobham Intermediate over the course of two 45-minute-long lessons on two consecutive Thursdays. Feedback was collected via a Post-Lesson Survey and is presented and discussed. The lessons proved effective, and were then posted on the online lesson sharing platform sharemylesson.com (hosted by the American Federation of Teachers partnered with Britain’s Times Educational Support) so that they could be available at no cost to any educator who finds themselves in need of support when teaching geoscience.