Where do frogs live? What adaptations help them survive there? Exploring these questions is a great backdrop to conversations on the effect of environmental changes on frog populations. Designing a frog-friendly habitat encourages students to aid frogs’ survival in their own backyard.
These activities use digital applications such as Melbourne Water’s Frog Census app and CSIRO’s Atlas of Living Australia to develop students’ ICT skills.
The Frog Census app is a powerful citizen science tool that enables students, their families and the wider community to contribute to understand the biology and distribution of frog species in Melbourne. This information helps us to develop effective policy and management strategies to conserve and enhance these populations.
Download the lesson plan
This lesson plan contains modules explicitly linked to the Victorian Curriculum, as well as meaningful and effective extension activities for frog conservation. To receive free hard copy classroom resources and additional support, email [email protected].
Activities
Activity 1: Who’s who in the water?
You may be able to hear frogs but you need to be quiet to distinguish one species from another. In this activity, students use field guides to identify frog calls: a skill that will be useful on a field trip or excursion.
Activity 2: Adaptations
How have frogs adapted to where they live? What helps a frog survive in a changing environment? Students will explore these and other questions during this activity.
Activity 3: Find your local frogs online
In this activity, students research the frogs that have been recorded in their local area. They use CSIRO’s online biodiversity portal, Atlas of Living Australia, to access frog species data recorded nearby.
Activity 4: Whose wetland is it?
In this activity, students explore different points of view about a proposed residential development. It demonstrates that environmental decisions are complex but there are useful strategies that can assist in making effective decisions.
Activity 5: Make a frog habitat
In this classroom or at-home activity, students design a frog-friendly habitat and build a model using plasticine or Lego.
Activity 6: Conducting a frog census in our local area
In this evening excursion or at-home activity, students and their families have the opportunity to be citizen scientists: collecting meaningful and useful frog call data from local wetlands to support the Frog Census, an initiative managed by Melbourne Water.
Victorian curriculum links
- VCSSU073: Scientific understandings, discoveries and inventions are used to inform personal and community decisions and to solve problems that directly affect people’s lives
Science > Science understanding > Science as a human endeavour - VCSSU074: Living things have structural features and adaptations that help them to survive in their environment
Science > Science understanding > Biological sciences - VCSSU075: The growth and survival of living things are affected by the physical conditions of their environment
Science > Science understanding > Biological sciences - VCGGC089: Represent the location of places and other types of geographical data and information in different forms including diagrams, field sketches and large-scale and small-scale maps that conform to cartographic conventions of border, scale, legend, title, north point and source; using digital and spatial technologies as appropriate
Geography > Geographical concepts and skills > Data and information - VCGGK096: Environmental and human influences on the location and characteristics of places and the management of spaces within them
Geography > Geographical knowledge > Factors that shape places and influence interconnections - VCDTDI028: Acquire, store and validate different types of data and use a range of software to interpret and visualise data to create information
Digital technologies > Data and information - VCDSTC037: Investigate characteristics an properties of a range of materials, systems, components, tools and equipment and evaluate the impact of their use
Design and technologies > Technologies contexts > Materials and technologies specialisations
Resources
Frog Census app
Get involved in our community frog monitoring program, and collect data to help us manage frog populations and raise awareness of waterway health issues with our Frog Census app.
Frog activity and colouring sheets
Download frog-themed colouring and activity sheets, and more.