During Science in Term 3, the Year 9 students collaborated in teams to create engaging children’s storybooks, aimed at transferring important biological concepts in an accessible and fun way for their younger peers.

The storybooks, filled with vibrant illustrations, creative design elements and scientific concepts, explained intriguing aspects of plant life such as photosynthesis, pollination, and biodiversity. Each book was designed to captivate and educate, using characters and stories to bring plant science to life.

In the Senior School Library, the Year 5F students listened attentively to the books as they were read by the Year 9s, immersing themselves in the imaginative scientific tales. After engaging with each book, Year 5 students had the opportunity to use their evaluation skills to rate each story based on how engaging and suitable the books were for a Year 5 audience. This was achieved by allocating votes to their two favourite books using smiley face stickers.

The Year 5 feedback provided valuable insights for the Year 9 students, who were given another opportunity to reflect on their learning.

This storytelling opportunity between the Junior and Senior School students not only afforded our Year 9s an opportunity to exercise their Science communication skills, but also to explore their ability to engage and educate younger students through Science storytelling.

Thank you to Mr Furness and Year 5F for accepting our invitation to share our love of science and for engaging enthusiastically with our plant storybooks!

Ms Patrizia Luna
Teacher of Science

At the start of Term 4, our Year 9 Science class was lucky enough to have done a unit on plants and plant reproduction. Towards the
end of the unit, we were assigned a task to write a children’s storybook about what we have learnt. The process was super engaging, and we got to get really creative with what we wrote and designed.

After our books were handed in, our teacher Ms Luna took us to the Library to read the books to some of the Year 5students at Ivanhoe Girls’. The experience was really fun, and we got to connect with some students we normally wouldn’t have been able to.

I loved seeing the reactions to our books and how interested they all were in our topic. Overall, it was a great experience for us Year 9s and we hope the Year 5s had just as much fun as we did!

Anoushka
Year 9