Clogged waterways

Year level: Middle/Upper primary Learning outcome Students will analyse the impact of the water hyacinth weed on the lives of people and how a partnership addressed the problem. Read Waterways, weeds and weevils: The biological control of water hyacinth in Papua New Guinea Find the Sepik River in an atlas. Draw a diagram or create a digital presentation, with pictures if possible, showing the features of the Sepik River and how people depend on it for their daily needs. Draw a water hyacinth flower with its six petals. Write one of the problems the water hyacinth has presented to people living in the Sepik on each of its six petals. Display the flowers by mounting them over your windows. How does this affect your classroom? What insights does this give you to understanding the impact of the flower on the waterway? Act out what might happen in your life if the roads were blocked and you could not travel around. Draw a flow chart (you might use weevil shaped boxes) showing one of the problems, what was done about it and the outcome. Assessment task Create a web map showing how and why the various people involved contributed to clearing the waterways.