Case Study of Sarah Maddison - Years 5-6

Sarah Maddison from HV Plantations uses many digital systems in her work in the forestry industry. Watch our interview with Sarah to find out about what she does with drones and GIS in her work as a Planning Forester at OneFortyOne.

Interview with Sarah Maddison

Sarah uses many different types of digital technologies in her work, including UAVs (drones), LiDAR mapping and infrared technologies. Watch the video below to learn how her work is making a world of difference in growing sustainable healthy forests that provide us with a renewable resource.

1.    What is a Geographic Information System (GIS)?

2.    Explain how Sarah Maddison uses GIS to assist her in forestry.

3.    What is a UAV? Explain how Sarah Maddison uses UAVs to assist her in forestry.

4.    What is Sarah Maddison’s current project?

5.    How did Sarah get into forestry?

6.    What is Sarah’s favourite thing to do in the forest?

7.    What equipment does she use?

8.    What features does she like best about her drone? Why?

9.    What is Sarah’s biggest hazard when flying her drone?

10.  How does Sarah plan her drone flights?

11.  When does Sarah fly manually?

12.  What does the information from the drones help the foresters to do?

13.  What is stockpile analysis and why is it used?

14.  What is LiDAR and what is it used for?

15.  Sarah uses thermal infrared technologies. Why and why is this important?

16.  Why are top-down photos of trees so important?

17.  Sarah told us about her favourite project. What technologies were combined and why was this information useful for harvester operators?

18. Sarah told us that drones are used to access difficult to reach parts of the forest to keep workers safe. Explain why modern technologies help foresters to address competing considerations as they survey the forests.

Compile the answers to your questions in a biography to tell a story of a day in the life of Sarah Maddison, forestry worker. Develop further questions to help you locate any information you still need and research answers on the internet.

Find and create suitable maps (with compass direction included) and images of forests and digital systems to illustrate your story. Include tables to collate forest data as you describe where Sarah works and what she does.

You may present your biography as a slideshow, magazine feature article or narrated video with supporting imagery.

About the Resources

The Teaching and Learning resources consist of Australian Curriculum mapped lesson sequences with supporting resources and assessment rubrics. The unit has been designed in discrete modules to cater for equipment access, time constraints and curriculum requirements. The resources consist of:

• Lesson sequence with hyperlinks to supporting resources
• Australian Curriculum mapping document
• Assessment rubrics mapped to the Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards
• Student response booklets and activity sheets
• StoryMaps – interactive visual guides with embedded videos and maps.

These resources enable teachers to complete the curriculum-aligned activities in their classroom which cater to varied student ability and resource availability. All resources are provided free for teachers to access and download.

These resources have been developed in partnership with ForestLearning.

  Lesson Sequence  

 Case Study Student Response Booklet  

 Australian Curriculum Mapping  

  Assessment Rubrics