Sam+Kellett

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The short BBC documentary clip about Lyre birds, narrated by David Attenborough, explicitly describes how the bird cleverly mimics the sounds of other birds, and the sounds of the forest, to impress female companions and survive in the forest environment. This relates to the intended science outcomes of exploring: how living things depend on other living things to survive, and that animals live in environments that supply their needs (BOS, 1993, p. 11). A class discussion about how the lyre bird is depending on other birds within their environment to attract a female partner, survive, and produce offspring, will deepen students’ understanding of these living things concepts. This re-enforces student’s understanding of the animal that they have been studying during the unit of work, as they get to compare how different animals use their unique strengths to survive in challenging environments.

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The video is also an inspiring model example of a multi-modal text (documentary) with a literary aspect (script), to scaffold the lesson on creating a documentary script. This correlates with the English outcomes: producing texts outcomes to write for a chosen audience, and contribute to joint text-construction activities (BOS, 2007, p. 37). David Attenborough is a world-renowned expert on living things and nature, and makes his knowledge very accessible through entertaining stories, informative commentary and amazing visuals. This allows students to see and hear how documentary’s provide factual information in an engaging way. The unit of work has built up their research skills, specialized knowledge, and awareness of text types and how they inter-relate, with the opportunity to put this all together in a multi-modal text (documentary) that they are now more familiar with as a result of watching, and discussing the documentary examples. ===== David Attenborough weaves entertaining anecdotes and metaphors into his commentary, for example, describing the lire bird clearing a space on the forest floor, as to //“serve as his concert platform”// (BBC, 2011). Students are asked to compare the information text type, which presents factual information in an objective way, and the documentary script, which also presents factual information, but in a purposefully engaging and creative way. This leads students to the awareness of how different text types have a different purpose that depends on the audience.

Other Resources
Useful example models of short animal/nature documentaries:

David Attenborough - Bird Sounds from the Lyre Bird

BBC - Penguins

The Surfing Scientist Videos

Graphic Organisers: This story board template has 6 visual boxes, with lines to write a script (voice over underneath)

This story board template has 3 visual boxes (per page), with other boxes dedicated to voice over text, sound/music, and notes.