This lesson plan explores the calls of local frogs and stages of their life cycle.
Many types of frogs living in Melbourne’s waterways can be identified by their distinctive calls. The diversity of frog species in a waterway is a good indicator of its ecological health. Learning to identify frog calls will help students understand which frogs are in their local area and the importance of frogs to the waterway. Students will also explore the different stages of a frog’s life cycle.
These activities use digital applications such as Melbourne Water’s Frog Census app 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: Listen to the music
Students listen to frog calls to understand that each type of frog sounds different. First, they will listen to a chorus of frog calls as they sound in nature and then to each frog call separately.
Activity 2: Frog call treasure hunt
Students learn to identify a variety of frog calls heard in your local area, by going on a treasure hunt to match pictures of frogs with their calls.
Activity 3: Growing and changing
Students build models to demonstrate the different stages in a frog’s life cycle.
Activity 4: Conducting a frog census in your backyard
In this at-home activity, students and their families have the opportunity to be citizen scientists: collecting meaningful and useful frog call data from their backyards to support the Frog Census, an initiative managed by Melbourne Water.
Victorian curriculum links
- VCSSU041: People use science in their daily lives
Science > Science understanding > Science as a human endeavour - VCSSU042: Living things have a variety of external features and live in different places where their basic needs, including food, water and shelter, are met
Science > Science understanding > Biological sciences - VCSSU043: Living things grow, change and have offspring similar to themselves
Science > Science understanding > Biological sciences - VCDTDS013: Identify and explore digital systems (hardware and software components) for a purpose
Digital technologies > Digital systems - VCDTDI014: Recognise and explore patterns in data and represent data as pictures, symbols and diagrams
Digital technologies > Data and information
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.