So when you give a group of teenagers 15 hours and a bunch of pens and paper, the last thing you'd expect is for them to write and compose their own opera.

About 80 teenagers in regional Victoria were given exactly that task, staging their own modern classic.

In this report: Murray Dahm, Project director of Wot Opera, Opera Australia" explains the project!

"WotOpera is an opera education initiative that provides secondary students from participating schools with the opportunity of creating an original opera and being involved in all aspects of its creation from conception through to performance. In 2010 the program will expand to include Bendigo, Sydney and Launceston. Twenty students from each school will participate in; character development, plot creation, writing the libretto, composing the music, casting, painting the backdrop, and performance." (Source: website)

What a great WebQuest this could be!!! And yes students can based their Opera on a TV Soap Opera but to date with this program, students have come up with interesting, varied and real life scenarios!

Teachers - don't leave it up to Opera Australia - have a go at creating a WebQuest based on the premise of Wot Opera and send it into Opera Australia! They would love a quality educational resource!  This will also expand the program to include your students and school instead of leaving it to the select few!!!

Resources:

Introduce children and teenagers to Opera - this link contains a big listing of different Operas to introduce students to through DVDs.

Recently, I listened to an excellent radio report "Bullying and the Courts" (ABC, The Law Report). Go and have a look at the content of this program - it will astound you as teachers!

The reason I noted this program is that the contents would be a great scenario for a Professional Development WebQuest for Teachers by covering:

• Duty of Care by schools and teachers - within the school yard - even years after the students have left the school 
• Crimes compensation
• Cyber Bullying
• Laptop programs especially involving webcams

This "Law Report" would make a wonderful Introduction with the scenarios it portrays!

Last night I watched the ABC's Catalyst programme  and the segment "Southern Ocean Sentinel" I was fascinated - firstly as a Science Teacher but also because of the evidence given for Climate Change.

"As well as a thermostat regulating our planet's current climate, scientists believe the Southern Ocean can be a sentinel, an early warning system, of climate tipping points to come. The entire ocean is changing, from the surface to the depths. When seawater freezes it leaves the salt behind. The resulting brine is super-cold, denser, saltier, and sinks to the bottom. That's why it's known as Antarctic Bottom Water. It drives a global current system called the Overturning Circulation." (Source: website)...."At the University of Tasmania, Donna Roberts and her team are searching for signs of ocean acidification. This is what she's looking for — tiny planktonic snails called pteropods. With shells the size of sand grains, they float using their foot like a wing, and catch plankton in nets made of mucus. Dr Donna Roberts "There are millions and billions of tonnes of pteropods in the Southern Ocean and in some regions, particularly the Ross Sea area, there is more pteropods per cubic metre than krill." Pteropods have a really, really fragile shell. All shells are made out of calcium carbonate but not all calcium carbonate is created equal. There's two types and the scientific names are calcite and aragonite.

NARRATION
When CO2 dissolves, it reacts with water to form carbonic acid and carbonate ions, which decreases the pH. Aragonite is more soluble, so any change in pH will affect the growth of aragonite shells first.

Dr Donna Roberts
Now, aragonite is actually in the shells of pteropods and in corals. So corals and pteropods are going to be at risk first if the ocean health and the ocean chemistry changes and it's changing because we're putting carbon dioxide into the water. We weigh the shells individually. Each shell will be about fifteen micrograms.

Mark Horstman
Fifteen millionths of a gram?

Dr Donna Roberts
Yes. I've probably weighed about a couple of hundred thousand shells. We're actually comparing shells from ten years ago to shells from today and what we find is that the shells of today are thirty five percent smaller and more fragile than they were ten years ago.

NARRATION
That means the pteropods of the Southern Ocean, and the food chains they underpin, may be living on borrowed time. Donna can calculate the CO2 levels when they'll basically run out of shell.

Dr Donna Roberts
The tipping point for pteropods in the southern ocean is four hundred and fifty parts per million and we are currently at three hundred and eighty eight so we're heading there rapidly and we, we think from models that we're going to get there in about the winter of 2030." (Source: website)

This would be a terrific report for students in Years 8 - 12 studying Ecology and Climate Change to view and would be a great resource for a scientist role within Climate Change WebQuest.

Have you heard of the Atlantica Expeditions?

What a great WebQuest this project would be!!!

The Atlantica Expedition is hoping to have an underwater human colony by 2015 - yes least than 5 years away! There are even members who are only 10 years old registered!!!

Future Tense (ABC Radio National - 29th April - "The League of New Worlds and the Atlantica Expedition") explored the topic with one of the crew for the first mission of the group - to live underwater for 90 days.

This information could be used for a WebQuest based on the environments of the planets and exploration.

The big questions could be: "Should the Atlantica Expedition go ahead?" Or "New Utopia underwater - is this possible?"  

In the news over the past few days has been the proposal for Australia to sell uranium to Russia.

This would make an excellent WebQuest topic! It is authentic and current!

There have been headlines like:

Sydney Morning Herald: Can Russia be trusted with our uranium?

Jewish paper Haaretz.com (Oct.2009) had a heading: Russia confirms plans to help Iran enrich uranium

The Nuclear Threat Initiative: Russsia: Uranium Mining and Milling Overview gives their slant on the production of enriched uranium!

What diversity of opinions! There also seems to be a wealth of information on the Internet for teachers to find resources!

Have a go at creating a WebQuest around this issue! Let me know how you go!

Yesterday, the news headline "Bluefin tuna trade ban blocked" [ABC, 19th March 2010], attracted my attention.

The perspectives are

1. Conservationists who wanted the ban on the Atlantic bluefin tuna trade because of a massive decline in their numbers due to overfishing;

2. Japanese lobbists who apparently wined and dined delegates to say no to the banning.

3. European Commission who are concerned about the species becoming extinct.

4. Greenpeace who condemned Australia (although Australia voted YES to the ban) and other countries for their failure to stop the export.

It could also incorporate the fate of the Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT)

The map below shows the SBT's fishing areas.

The big question could be: Should the fate of the Alantic Bluefin Tuna be left to politicians?"

This issue is a "Hot" topic within the news at the moment and provides teachers with an outstanding start to a WebQuest.

The Commission for the Conservation of the Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT) 2008 Advice as cited by Dr. Campbell Davies CSIRO (ABC Oct 16 Fishing puts southern bluefin tuna on the brink)  "The 2008 advice from the CCSBT Scientific Committee (Commission of Conservation for Southern Bluefin Tuna) is that spawning biomass of SBT is likely to be less than 10 per cent of the unfished level. This level is below the level of many nationally and internationally recognised limit reference points for fisheries management." Commission is made up of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and other Asian countries with an interest in the fish. About 90 per cent of Australia's SBT comes from Port Lincoln in South Australia.

Safe Climate Australia has been recently launched. This organisation is a non-profit organisation with numerous scientists and others involved in renewable energy being the founding members. This type of organisation would be a good one to introduce students to especially in the Conclusion of a WebQuest where Real World Feedback is sometimes required. Getting students to contact real scientists with their own views, solutions or ideas helps students to recognise that their own work is important!

WebQuest Direct has over 75 WebQuests on Global Warming and Climate Change.

Here is a 5 Star (the best) WebQuest about Global Warming!

Global Warming: Can you feel the heat?

Rating: Key Learning Areas: HSIE / SOSE / Social Studies; Science Key Competencies: Collecting, analysing and organising information; Communicating Ideas and information; Planning and organising activities; Solving problems; Using technology; Working in a team Tasks: Analytical; Compilation; Creative Product; Journalistic; Persuasion; Research; Science Grade Levels: Secondary / High School Country: Australia Language: English  Author: Kerrie Malcolm (2008)