Year 7 Science · Unit 4 · Lesson 12
Master Worksheet
Learning Goals
1. (a) How is the Emu in the Sky different from a constellation made by joining stars, and where is its head? (b) Give the Wiradjuri name for the Emu, and where the Wiradjuri people live.
Find the error
Jai’s summary
(1) The Seven Sisters is a single very bright star. (2) Many Nations use the time of year the Seven Sisters appears to mark a change of season. (3) Stars twinkle most when the air is calm. (4) Tagai is pictured as a figure standing in a canoe. (5) All Nations share one single set of sky knowledge. (6) Seeing a star and a flowering plant together once is enough to make a reliable calendar.
2. Four of Jai’s six sentences contain an error. For each wrong sentence, give its number and rewrite it correctly.
3. Imagine you live on Country and have noticed that a certain plant blooms a few weeks after a particular star returns to the morning sky. Explain how you would turn this into knowledge others could trust.
Read the data: a star and the wet season
Scenario
For six years, a class in northern Australia recorded the date a bright star (called Star B here) was first seen before dawn, and the date of the first heavy rain of the wet season.
| Year | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Star B first seen | 3 Oct | 4 Oct | 3 Oct | 3 Oct | 4 Oct | 3 Oct |
| First heavy rain | 20 Oct | 2 Nov | 14 Oct | 27 Oct | 9 Nov | 22 Oct |
Source: made-up sample record, not from any one Nation. October has 31 days.
4. (a) By how many days did the date Star B was first seen vary over the six years? (b) Find the range of the dates of the first heavy rain, in days. Show your working.
(b) Range days
5. A visitor says: “Star B is useless, because the rain never comes on the same day.” Evaluate this, using Table 1. Say what Star B can and cannot tell people.
6. Extended response. Evaluate this statement: “Knowledge passed down in story and song cannot be real science.” Refer to how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander astronomical Knowledges were tested over thousands of years, using two examples from the lesson.
Question 1
(a) It is a shape made by the dark, dusty clouds of the Milky Way, not by bright stars (1); its head is near the Southern Cross (1). (b) Gugurmin; the Wiradjuri people of central New South Wales (1). [3 marks]
Find the error
2. (1) The Seven Sisters (the Pleiades) is a small cluster of stars (1). (3) Stars twinkle most when the air is unsettled; calm air gives steadier light (1). (5) Many Nations each hold their own Cultural Knowledges, tied to their own Country (1). (6) A link must be observed again and again, over many years, before it is reliable (1). [4 marks]
Question 3
Record the star date and the flowering date every year (1). Check that the link repeats over many years, so it is not chance (1). Once reliable, pass it on (e.g. in story, song and Lore) so others can predict with it (1). [3 marks]
Read the data: a star and the wet season
4. (a) Only 1 day (3 or 4 October) (1). (b) 14 October to 9 November: 17 + 9 = 26 days (1). [2 marks]
5. Wrong (1). Every year the rain came after Star B, within 11 to 36 days, so it reliably signals the wet season is near (1). It cannot give the exact day: rain varied by 26 days (1). [3 marks]
Question 6
Marking guide: 1 position (wrong); 1 science = observing, repeating, predicting; 1 example, e.g. the Emu in the Sky matched to emu nesting year after year; 1 example matching modern science, e.g. twinkling as a weather sign (scintillation, turbulent air); 1 story, song and Lore record and pass it on, as writing does; 1 a pattern holding for thousands of years is well tested, respected as science. [6 marks]
Model answer: The statement is wrong: science is knowledge built by observing, repeating and predicting. The Emu in the Sky’s changing position was matched to emu nesting and checked over many generations. Reading twinkling stars as a weather sign matches modern science, which calls it scintillation. Story, song and Lore record what is tested, as writing does elsewhere, and a pattern holding for thousands of years is very well tested.
Common error: treating how knowledge is recorded (writing or song) as what makes it scientific.