The Easter Bilby needs your help! Australia is a huge country and we need to organise the delivery of all of the Easter eggs. In this video conference, the students will learn about some of the various native wildlife that could help deliver Easter eggs throughout Australia.

Each student will decide which native wildlife animal they believe would be the best for this important task. Students will have the opportunity to draw an Australian animal delivering Easter eggs.

We are a nation of adorable looking animals such as koalas, bilbies and possums. Bilbies may not give birth to huge litters of joeys – but they are certainly nocturnal, very cute and could get some Easter eggs in those pouches.

Monotremes, egg laying mammals found only in Australia, such as the famed and elusive Platypus and Echidna could certainly be Easter mascots. Easter Echidna sounds catchy.

Although the platypus would be more suited for a flooded Easter celebration.

Surely we can start to re-write the narrative of Easter to include some of our weird and wonderful Australian species – to create a culture of positive awareness around our native wildlife, including threatened species.

Conservationists can dedicate their entire lives to saving a species, but if we don’t realise they even exist – why will the next generation want to protect them? Let’s create some new customs to celebrate our unique Australian animals, especially those endangered species.

You will receive a teacher guide with follow-up activities. Images of Australian animals will be emailed out for teachers to print and use with their students during the video conference. This program will draw on the students’ imaginations and creative skills.

No prior knowledge is required.

In this program students will:

• Compare and contrast various Australian animals.
• Consider various habitats throughout Australia and which Australian animals live in those habitats.
• Consider the needs of those Australian animals – food (diet), water, shelter.
• Compare observations and make predictions with other students about which Australian animal would be most suitable to deliver Easter eggs.

In this video conference students will:

• Respond to and pose questions, and make predictions about suitable Australian animals to deliver Easter eggs.
• Participate in guided investigations, including making observations, using the senses, to explore and answer questions about suitable Australian animals to deliver Easter eggs.
• Discuss – how these Australian animals move, how these animals could carry the Easter eggs and what else the animals will need to complete the task.
• Draw & label an Australian animal carrying Easter eggs in their habitat.

Science: Science as a human endeavour

• Science is used by people in their daily lives, including asking questions and using patterns from observations of the world around them to make scientific predictions (VC2S2H02)

Science: Science understanding

• Plants and animals have observable features that can be used to group them in different ways (VC2S2U01)
• Plants and animals have external features that perform different functions to enable their survival; in plants these features include roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, bulbs, trunks and branches while different features in animals enable them to move, breathe, eat and respond to their environment (VC2S2U03)

Science Inquiry

• Experiences can be used as a basis for posing questions to explore observed patterns and relationships, and to make predictions (VC2S2I01
• Observations can be compared to predictions and the observations of others, which may lead to further questions being identified (VC2S2I05)
• Observations, findings and ideas can be shared with others by using everyday and some scientific vocabulary (VC2S2I06)

Critical and Creative Thinking: Questions and possibilities

• Different kinds of question stems for gathering information and ideas (VC2CC2Q01)
• Modification as a strategy to generate a new idea or possibility (VC2CC2Q03)

Critical and Creative Thinking: Metacognition

• Ways to make choices between alternative possibilities and propose a solution (VC2CC2M03)