Taking a Digital Photo: Birdwatching
Using Digital Devices in Authentic Contexts
Platform
Device with a digital camera
Digital Technologies Progress Outcomes
Cross-Curricular Links
Year Levels
Y1-2 (Directed)
Y3-4 (Guided)
Y5+
Duration
1+ lessons
Resources
Differentiation
Make this a group project, where learners have to work together to create a digital album of photos and present their work and learning journey.
Give learners different prompts to help guide their photography, such as what parts of school campus to photograph, or what plants or other aspects of the environment, while practising to capture local bird images.
Extension
Use the information slideshows on this page to support understanding and prompt discussion about digital cameras, images and photography.
Get to know the bird life in your area by learning more about the different species you find during the activity and their role in your local ecosystem.
Apply skills from this activity, in digital photography and manipulating digital images, to another subject matter relevant to your group.
About Activity
This activity is designed to help learners gain skills and confidence using a digital camera by guiding them to consider fundamental principles of photography and explore birds as their subject.
With permission and guidance, learners will practise using a digital camera effectively to observe and capture photos of birds in their local environment. Learners will first practise taking photos of still objects before turning towards the trees, experimenting with three fundamental elements of taking a ‘good’ photo, including light, composition and focus to evaluate and improve as they work.
Activity Guide
Further support your inquiry into digital images and digital cameras by checking out these discussion-based information slideshows:
Digital Photography: Digital Images (Slideshow)
This presentation introduces the basics of digital cameras and digital photographs, including pixels and RGB colour code.
Digital Photography: Visualising Scale (Slideshow)
This presentation introduces the concept of scale along with three other fundamental principles of photography, and includes an activity for recogonising and debugging with those principles.
