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What is
Storythread?
Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre
Copyright © The State of Queensland, Education Queensland 1994
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All rights reserved.
Third Edition
Printed
Revised
CONTENTS
The PEEC Storythread Pedagogy..................................................... 2
Storythread: Connecting Students to Self, Others and Natural Places............... 2
The Blanket Role: Engaging, Exciting and Empowering Students...................... 3
The Ten Essential Steps: Leading Students Deeper into the Blanket Role......... 4
Storythread and the Australian Curriculum..................................... 5
Key Concepts and Processes that Underpin Storythread............... 6
An Ethic of Care Towards Self, Others and Place............................................. 6
The Nesting Model.............................................................................................. 6
The Inner and Outer Work of Sustainability......................................................... 7
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Culture................................. 7
Experiential Teaching Tools that Underpin Storythread................... 8
Story, Drama, Games and Play........................................................................... 9
Attentiveness in Nature....................................................................................... 9
Deep Reflective Responding............................................................................. 10
Helpful Resources and References................................................ 11
Our Website:
www.pullenvaeec.eq.edu.au
The PEEC Storythread Pedagogy
Storythread : Connecting Students to Self, Others and Natural
Places
Storythread is a ‘pedagogy of place’ that uses a range of engaging stories and ‘blanket
roles’ to enable students to make deep connections to themselves, others and natural places.
We have discovered that if students are to develop a deep and authentic understanding of
the knowledge, values and practices needed to live sustainably in the world then making an
emotional reconnection with nature is a powerful place to begin.
STORY
Throughout the four chapters of each Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre (PEEC)
Storythread students and teachers are both audience and participants in environmental
stories (crafted by PEEC) about characters – real and fictional – living in harmony and in
conflict with their environment and each other.
THREAD – The PEEC ‘Blanket Roles’
Students begin their Storythread journey by receiving an invitation from the PEEC teachers
to take on a specified real-life ‘blanket role’ (shared persona) e.g. Inside/Outside Nature
Kid, Nature Detective, Environmental Advocate. The students’ unfolding journey as they
deepen their engagement with the ‘blanket role’ is the thread (of the Storythread). They
observe, inquire, predict, influence and subsequently reflect upon the PEEC stories and their
own experiences of place through scaffolded dialogues that shape their future knowledge,
values and actions.
Year
Storythread
Story
Thread - Blanket Role
Prep
Ramble ‘n’ Play
Harvey the PEEC Bear
Inside/Outside Nature Kid
1
Forest Kingdom
See that Tree? It’s a Bit Like
Me!
Nature Detective
2
Muddles
The Adventures of Mrs
Muddle-up, Mongo and Maddy
Wildlife Investigator
3
Mission Earth
Something Wrong in Hypertron Environmental Advisor
4
Bus ‘R’ Us
Jane Smyth’s Story
5
Hoodwinked!
The Bush Kids of Pullen Pullen
Bush Kid
Creek
5/6
Nyundar
The Story of Matthew and Kara Catchment Custodian
6/7
Wander the Way of
the Water
The Real-life Story of Bernice
Volz and Karawatha Forest
2
Entomologist-in-training
Environmental Advocate
What is Storythread?
The Blanket Role: Engaging, Exciting and Empowering Students
A ‘blanket role’ is a role shared by the whole class. At PEEC we have adapted this educational
drama convention so that we can expand its use beyond fictional story and drama situations.
Why? Because it works! We have found that taking on a real-life ‘blanket role’ in association
with our PEEC stories in order to solve a real-life environmental problem engages, excites and
empowers the students. By thinking deeply about the characters in the PEEC stories and how
they model what it means and doesn’t mean to embody the ‘blanket roles’, students reflect on
themselves as people and learners.
Taking on a real-life ‘blanket role’ does not, however, guarantee an automatic expert status.
We position the students in an empowering role that invites them, like the characters in our
stories, to become part of a shared learning journey that extends beyond the life of the PEEC
Storythread experience.
While there is a defined ‘blanket role’ for each of our programs, ultimately they are all different
facets of the single overarching PEEC ‘blanket role’ i.e. Connected Kid a life-long learner,
leader and active citizen who values and respects the connections between self, others and
place.
Connected Kid
Environmental
Advocate
(Year 7)
Catchment
Custodian
(Year 6)
Entomologist-in-training
(Year 4)
Wildlife
Investigator
(Year 2)
Inside/Outside
Nature Kid
(Prep)
What is Storythread?

Bush Kid
(Year 5)
self
others
place
Environmental
Advisor
(Year 3)
Nature
Detective
(Year 1)
3
The Ten Essential Steps :
Leading Students Deeper into the ‘Blanket Role’
CHAPTER ONE
1. Enrol the Students in their ‘Blanket Role’
(PRE-EXCURSION)
2. Actively Engage the Students, in their ‘Blanket
Engage with the PEEC Story and
begin Training in the ‘Blanket
Role’
Role’, with the PEEC Story
3. Use the Story and the ‘Blanket Role’ to Teach
the Curriculum
4. Receive the Invitation to Visit PEEC and Step
into the Story in the ‘Blanket Role’
5. Prepare for the Excursion in the ‘Blanket Role’
CHAPTER TWO
6. Attend the Excursion in the ‘Blanket Role’
(EXCURSION)
Step into the PEEC Story and
Apply the Knowledge, Values and
Actions of the ‘Blanket Role’
CHAPTER THREE
(POST-EXCURSION)
7. Reflect with the Students on What Was Learnt
on the Excursion Day About the ‘Blanket Role’
Conclude the PEEC Story and
Reflect on the ‘Blanket Role’
8. Work Together to Communicate with a
CHAPTER FOUR
9. Lead the Students, in their ‘Blanket Role’, to
(CULMINATING ACTIVITIES)
Respond to the PEEC Story In the
‘Blanket Role’ and Take Action to
Make Life Better in Your Place
4
Character from the Story in the ‘Blanket Role’
Create a Plan for Their Place
10. Support the Students to Take Action for Their
Place in their ‘Blanket Role’
What is Storythread?
Storythread and the
Australian Curriculum
The ‘Blanket Role’ provides an excellent tool for teaching the content of the Australian
Curriculum in an authentic and purposeful way:
• Once the students are enrolled, the need to develop the knowledge (head),
values (heart) and actions (hands) of the ‘Blanket Role’ provide a context and
purpose for deep learning.
• Students, as they train in their ‘Blanket Role’, are inspired and guided by the
characters in each PEEC story to develop the knowledge, values and actions
they identify as essential to taking on their ‘Blanket Role’.
• The students’ growing understanding of what it means to take on the ‘Blanket
Role’ then becomes the reason for them to engage deeply with the curriculum.
Learning both inside and outside the classroom in the ‘Blanket Role’ enables
students to deepen and expand their understanding of curriculum content and ideas
(subjects, General Capabilities and Cross-curriculum Priorities), apply their learning to
real situations and places and continue growing as life-long learners, leaders and
active citizens.
In summary, Storythread supports teachers and schools in implementing the Australian
Curriculum by offering teachers:
1. Opportunities to deepen and personalise students’
understandings of the curriculum intent, ideas and processes
carried within the Australian Curriculum and C2C Units.
2. An imaginative way of focusing on the Cross-curriculum
Priorities of Sustainability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Histories and Cultures.
3. Access to a creative, values education process that supports
the development of the General Capabilities (specifically
critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability,
ethical understanding and intercultural understanding).
What is Storythread?
5
Key Concepts and Processes that
Underpin Storythread
An Ethic of Care Towards Self, Others and Place
Our primary goal in using the Storythread pedagogy is to help your students improve their
ability to understand and value themselves, others and the places around them so they
can live more respectful, sustainable and connected lives. To help us achieve this we
have created a simple values statement that underpins your Storythread experience and
everything we are attempting to accomplish together:
Speak and Act with Respect
Towards Self, Others and Place
We know, however, that for this statement to be
more than just words, students need multiple
opportunities to think about and practise this ethic
both inside and outside the classroom. Working
together in this way will allow us to make the
most of your Storythread experience.
The Nesting Model
The Nesting Model is a visual representation of the ‘nesting systems idea’ that underpins
systems theory and attempts to describe the way in which everything is connected.  As
such, it makes sense of the statement above and why it is important.
This model has been used successfully by many teachers over a number of years as a
reference point for knowledge and values discussions about how students are connected
to the people and places around them, and the impact of their behaviour and actions.
self
others
place
6
What is Storythread?
The Inner and Outer Work of Sustainability
All PEEC Storythreads draw on a range of powerful experiential teaching tools to explore
the inner and outer work of Sustainability (Senge, Laur, Schley and Smith, 2006) as a
way of enriching and extending the Cross-curriculum Priority of the Australian Curriculum.
The ‘inner work’ of sustainability is about slowing down in order to experience and
reflect on the connections between people and places. This emotional reconnection with
nature leads to new connected ways of thinking, valuing and acting.
The ‘outer work’ of sustainability is about living more lightly on the Earth by taking action
to reduce our ecological footprint in practical ways e.g. by conserving water or recycling.
Put simply, if we care about a place we will take action to protect it.
INNER
OUTER
Knowledge
(Head)
Actions
What you know and how
you think
Values
(Heart)
What you
believe and how
you feel
(Hands)
Y
Your actions as a result of
how you think and feel
eg: Become more attentive
to people and place, reduce,
reuse and recycle, conserve
water, plant trees, change
light bulbs, use less energy,
communicate understandings
with others
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Culture
At PEEC all Storythreads promote the key organising ideas of Country, Place, People
and Culture that underpin the Cross-curriculum priority area of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander histories and culture in the Australian Curriculum. PEEC’s focus on
understanding and maintaining respectful connections between Self, Others and Place
supports this Indigenous Vision.
PEEC has been committed to maintaining and stregthening respectful connections
to Indigenous thinking and history through dialogue with key
Indigenous mentors over many years. Some of these mentors
include:
The Jaragill Community (1991); Mary Graham (1992); Erin
McDonald with the EATSIPS process (2011), Uncle Ernie Mal
Collinge, Auntie Lurlene Henderson and Uncle Bert Button
(2012). Ideas drawn from each of these inspiring individuals
have influenced and impacted on our stories and teaching.
Reference: Senge, P., Laur, J., Schley, S., and Smith, B. (2006) Learning for Sustainability, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Society for Organizational Learning.
What is Storythread?
7
Experiential Teaching Tools that
Underpin Storythread
Research by the University of Queensland into the role and impact of Outdoor and
Environmental Education Centres identified a powerful form of place-based pedagogy
(‘Pedagogy of Place’) that delivers learning for sustainability through Experiential
Teaching.
The Key Elements of this pedagogy are:
• Being in the Natural Environment
• Full Sensory, Mind & Body Engagement
• Learning By Doing
• Life Learning in Real Places
• Exploring Local Contexts & Places
• Adventure & Challenge
The key Experiential Teaching Tools are:
• Investigations
• Story and drama
• Attentiveness
• Deep reflective responding
• Creative response
• Games and play
• Interpreted walks and journeys into nature
While all of these Experiential Teaching Tools are used by PEEC staff throughout our
excursion days, those that transfer most easily to a school setting and are used to structure
our Teacher Resource Booklets are listed below and explained further on the following
pages. Chapter One activities are centred around these teaching tools and are designed
to engage the students’ minds, emotions and bodies in the belief that all learning is mindbody and emotions are critical to learning (Lackney, 2006).
• Story, Drama, Games and Play
Activities assist students to think deeply about the ‘Blanket Role’, promote development
of the General Capabilities (specifically critical and creative thinking, personal and
social capability, ethical understanding and intercultural understanding) and address
the Cross-curriculum Priority of Sustainability.
• Attentiveness in Nature
Attentiveness is a key skill of each ‘Blanket Role’, and a skill that is either demonstrated
or needs to be developed by the PEEC story characters. It is also a skill that is
essential for engaging with the curriculum inside and outside the classroom.
• Deep Reflective Responding
Activities across all four chapters of each PEEC Storythread encourage students
to reflect deeply and meta-cognitively on their thinking, learning, actions and future
directions with regard to their ‘Blanket Role’ and the curriculum.
References:
Lackney, J.A. (2006) 12 design principles based on brain-based learning research, available at www.designshare.com/Research/
BrainBasedLearn98.htm.
Learning for Sustainability – The role and impact of O&EECs. Roy Ballantyne and Jan Packer, 2008 - ARC UQ Project
8
What is Storythread?
Story, Drama, Games and Play
The story form is a cultural universal; everyone, everywhere
enjoys stories. The story, then, is not just some casual
entertainment; it reflects a basic and powerful form in which we
make sense of the world and experience (Egan, 1988, p.2).
Woven through each PEEC Storythread is a STORY (either fiction or non-fiction)
that introduces and carries the environmental issues, ideas or themes.
The story is a powerful medium that can excite and engage students both intellectually
and emotionally. It provides opportunities to explore environmental themes and issues
through the characters’ perspectives and encourages deep thinking and discussion.
Engaging with the characters in an environmental narrative and reflecting on the impact of
their choices and actions on the environment, gives students a vehicle for discussing and
reviewing their ‘Blanket Role’ and their own environmental values and understandings.
Significantly, students are then able to transfer learnings from the story experience to their
own contexts.
The DRAMA component of Storythread is essential as it can transform your PEEC
story, breathing life into it and bringing it off the page and into the classroom.
Through active engagement in drama activities such as those outlined in our Teacher
Resource Booklets, students are encouraged to explore their ‘Blanket Role’ by working
together, thinking deeply and creatively, discussing ideas and solving problems. This
hands-on, embodied learning enhances the students’ connection to the story and the
characters, as well as their ability to reflect on the actions and values of both the characters
and themselves in their ‘Blanket Role’. It is also a fun, interesting way to learn!
Attentiveness in Nature
What is attentiveness?
Anyone who is trying to understand the world, such as scientists, artists, architects,
historians and researchers uses the skill of attentiveness all the time. It means
Taking the time to pay attention and really observe in detail what is
actually going on around you by listening with your ears, but also
with your eyes, nose, skin, heart, mind and imagination.
It is a great way to think deeply, and really get to know and understand yourself, others
and the places around you.
Attentiveness is not a new idea. Indigenous cultures from around the world have used
this skill for thousands of years. At Pullenvale EEC we have been deeply influenced by
Aboriginal ideas about ‘deep listening’ in nature and the ideas of the biologist Mary Clarke
who talks about ‘profound attentiveness’.
Reference:
Clarke, M. (1st May 2004) Falling in love again, ABC Radio National Science Show interview by Alexandra de Blas
Egan, K. (1988) Teaching as storytelling, London: Routledge
What is Storythread?
9
We focus on two main kinds of attentiveness:
1. Active exploring - occurs when students are moving around discovering
and investigating.
2. Deep listening - requires stillness and allows students to notice the minute
details they can easily miss.
Why is developing the skill of attentiveness important to your students?
• It allows students to experience their schoolgrounds and local area as a powerful,
engaging outdoor classroom.
• Learning outside the classroom through attentiveness enables students to apply the
curriculum to real situations and places, and therefore deepens and expands their
concrete (embodied) understanding of curriculum content and ideas.
• Meaningful activities centred around attentiveness engage the students’ minds,
emotions and bodies as part of an integrated learning experience.
• Attentiveness is a key skill of each ‘Blanket Role’ as demonstrated by the PEEC
story characters.
• If we are going to reconnect our children with the natural places around them, it is
essential that students are given the opportunity to develop the skill of attentiveness.
When we care enough about life to learn about our place, we understand
more about our neighbours. We create the potential to nurture
compassion for all beings. (Thomashow, 1996 p. 197)
Deep Reflective Responding
Across all four chapters of PEEC Storythreads, teaching and learning focuses on
more than remembering, recounting or reproducing knowledge and facts. Students
are encouraged to demonstrate the ability to reflect deeply and meta-cognitively on
thinking, learning, actions and future directions with regard to their ‘Blanket Role’ and the
curriculum.
At the higher levels of reflection students will make inferences and draw conclusions
regarding the relationship between the concepts explored and their own life experiences,
thoughts, behaviours and insights. They will demonstrate the ability to transform their
ideas in order to formulate personal theories and make effective suggestions regarding
the application of their learning in other areas of their lives both now and in the future.
Throughout our Teacher Resource Booklets and on our Storythread excursion days,
Deep Reflective Responding is encouraged through discussion, writing and drawing,
drama strategies and thinking tools.
We have also found that Philosophy in the Classroom strategies work well within the
Storythread framework as they promote deep thinking, reflection and discussion about
the world as well as respect for others and their ideas.
References:
Thomashow, M. (1996) Ecological Identity, Cambridge: MIT Press.
10
What is Storythread?
Helpful Resources and References
Picture books
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Armstrong, S (2002) If the world were a village,NSW: Allen & Unwin
Baker, J. (1992) Window, London: Random House Children’s Books.
Baker, J (2004) Belonging, London: Walker Books
Base, G. (2006) Uno’s garden, Camberwell, Victoria: Penguin Group.
Child, L. (2008) Look after your planet, London: Puffin.
Cheng, C. (1997) One child, Flinders Park, South Australia: ERA Publications.
Cook, J and Crosby-Fairall, M ( 2011) My little world, South Australia: Omnibus Books
French, J. (2010) The tomorrow book, Australia : HarperCollins Publishers
Howes, J. and Harvey, R. (1998) Islands in my garden, Port Melbourne: Roland Harvey
Books.
Mathews, P. (2009) Something about water, Australia: Scholastic
Metzger, S. (2007) We’re going on a nature hunt, New York: Scholastic Inc.
Morgan, S., Kwaymullina, E. and Bancroft, B. (2009) Sam’s bush journey, Surry Hills,
N.S.W. : Little Hare Books.
Oktober, T. (1991) Bush song, Rydalmere, NSW: Hodder and Stoughton.
Randall, B. and Hogan, M. (2008) Nyuntu ninti (what you should know), Sydney : ABC
Books.
Seuss, Dr. (1971) The lorax, London: Collins
Silverstein, S. (1964) The giving tree, London : Snake Eye Music
Strauss, R. (2007) One well: The story of water on Earth, Sydney: ABC Books..
Toft, K.M. (2005) The world that we want, St Lucia, Queensland: University of
Queensland Press.
Tonkin, R. (2006) Leaf litter: Exploring the mysteries of a hidden world, Pymble, NSW:
HarperCollins.
Wheatley, N. and Searle, K. (2007) Going bush, Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Wheatley, N. and Rawlins, D. (1987) My place, Melbourne: Collins Dove.
Wheatley, N. (2011) Playground, NSW: Allen & Unwin
Zed, B. (1997) Mr Green’s garden, Flinders Park, South Australia: Era Publications.
Reference texts
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Atkinson, L. (1993) Life in a rotten log, St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin
Bone, E. and Pratt, L. (2009) Recycling things to make and do, London: Usborne Publishing
Ltd.
Crook, S and Farmer, B (2004) Just imagine: Creative play experiences for children under
six , Australia; Tertiary press
Crook, S. (2004) Just improvise! Innovative play ideas for children under 8, Australia:
Tertiary Press.
Egan, K. (1988) Teaching as storytelling, London: Routledge.
Long, J. (1957) The big picture book of environments, NSW: Allen & Unwin
Queensland Museum. (2007) Wildlife of Greater Brisbane
Young, T. and Elliot, S. (2003) Just discover! Connecting young children with the natural
world, Croydon, Victoria: Tertiary Press.
Storythread
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Tooth, R. and Gulikers, S. (2006) The Pullenvale storythread: Education for sustainability
through arts based inquiry learning, Pullenvale, QLD: Pullenvale Environmental
Education Centre.
Tooth, R. (2007). Growing a Sense of Place: Storythread and the transformation of a
school. Doctorate Thesis, University of Queensland, Brisbane.
What is Storythread?
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Tooth, R. (2008) The storythread values project. A case study report to the Curriculum
Corporation. Funded by the Federal Department of Education, Employment and
Workplace Relations.
Tooth, R. & Renshaw, P. (2009). Reflections on pedagogy and place: A journey into
learning for sustainability through environmental narrative and deep attentive reflection.
Australian Journal of Environmental Education, vol. 25, 2009.
Tooth and Renshaw (2012). Storythread pedagogy for environmental education. In T.
Wrigley, P. Thomson & B. Lingard (Eds.), Changing Schools (pp. 113-127): Routledge.
Environmental Education
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Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative – www.deh.gov.au/aussi
Broda, H.W. (2007) Schoolyard-enhanced learning: Using the outdoors as an
instructional tool, K-8, Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.
Children and Nature Network – www.childrenandnature.org
CitySmart, Brisbane City Council – greenheartcitysmart.com
Kids’ Place Maps – www.kidsplacemaps.wa.edu.au
Littledyke, M., Taylor, N. and Eames, C. (eds) (2009) Education for sustainability in
primary curriculum: A guide for teachers, South Yarra, Victoria: Palgrave Macmillan.
Louv, R. (2008) Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature deficit
disorder, 2nd edition, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Special forever: An environmental communications project - specialforever.org.au
Thomashow, M. (1996) Ecological identity, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Drama in the Classroom
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Cusworth, R.A. and Simons, J. (1997) Beyond the script: Drama in the classroom,
Marrickville, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association.
Ewing, R.A. and Simons, J. (2004) Beyond the script: Take 2: Drama in the classroom,
Newtown, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association.
Neelands, J. (2000) Structuring drama work: A handbook of available forms in theatre
and drama, 2nd edition, Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.
O’Toole, J. and Dunn, J. (2002) Pretending to learn: Helping children learn through
drama, Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education.
Thinking Tools
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Wilson, J. and Wing, J. (2008) Smart thinking: Developing reflection and
metacognition, Carlton, South Victoria: Curriculum Corporation.
The Thinking Toolbox CD – www.tmela.com.au
Websites
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Atlas of Living Australia - ala.org.au
ABC - http://www.abc.net.au/science/
Australian Native Plant Societyhttp://anpsa.org.au/
Brisbane Catchments network - www.brisbanecatchments.net.au
CSIRO - http://www.csiro.au/en/Portals/Education.aspx
Gould League Environmental Education - http://www.gould.edu.au/
Land Art for Kids - http://landartforkids.com/
Planet Ark - www.planetark.org.au
What is Storythread?
NOTES
What is Storythread?
13
Living and Learning for
Sustainabiity
Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre
250 Grandview Road • Pullenvale 4069
Phone: 3374 1002 • Fax: 3374 2857
email: [email protected]
web: www.pullenvaeec.eq.edu.au