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Outback House: Building a sheep wash

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Men in period costume carry wooden door outside wooden shed
Outback House: Building a sheep wash

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  5–6


Watch the squatter and his station hands race against their deadline to construct a sheep wash in the creek.

Imagine leaving your home to travel back to a time over 150 years ago, to live and work on an outback farm. Sixteen Australians take part in a reality TV show about life on Oxley Downs, a sheep station built to look and work as a real station would have in the 1860s.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Have you ever designed and built something from scratch? Did it work? What problems did you face? How did you solve them? What skills did you need? The squatter and his workers need to build a ramp to stop the sheep slipping on the muddy bank as they climb out of the creek. How would you do this?
  2. 2.Why are the workers in a hurry to finish the ramp? Who do you think the commissioner is? Why is it important that the project is finished before the commissioner's visit? Look at the wooden pieces of ramp that have already been built. What is the problem with the design? How would you finish the job?
  3. 3.Find out how farming in Australian colonies changed the land. Do you think these changes improved the land? Why do you think this? How did the farming practices of the European settlers differ from the way Aboriginal peoples used the land at the same time? What do you think about this?
  4. 4.One station hand explains that squatters and station hands in the past would have had to solve problems through 'trial and error'. What does he mean? Do you agree? Research Australian inventions that helped colonial farmers make the land more productive. Use search terms such as 'inventions farming Australia 1800s'. Present your findings in an interesting way.



Production Date: 2005


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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