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Video

Battle of Fromelles explained

Have you heard of the Battle of Fromelles? It was an important World War I battle for Australia for many reasons. Watch this video explainer to find out more about this battle and its significance to many Australians.

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ABC Rosh Hashanah: Tashlikh

Have you ever done something that you thought was wrong? If so, what did you do about it? Most religions teach about what they see as right behaviour and wrong behaviour. Many of these religions expect or suggest that their followers who have done wrong to do certain things that will help them become better people. Explore ...

Video

ABC Rosh Hashanah: The feast

Is there any day of the year when you and those in your community have a special meal, or feast? Australia has people from many countries, cultures and religions. That is why not all Australians have feast days on the same days. This clip explores the feast of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

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World’s first bakers?

When did humans begin grinding seeds to make flour? Many people believe bread-making began in Egypt or Mesopotamia as long as 17,000 years ago. Archaeologists have recently found evidence that Indigenous Australians were producing flour 65,000 years ago. Were they the world’s first bakers?

Video

Cambodian refugees

How do people become refugees? From the late 1960s, the small Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia was dragged into a war that was not of its making. Many thousands of its people suffered terribly when their country was caught up in the Vietnam War. Watch as ABC reporter Andrew Swanton covers the flight of refugees into the ...

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Five Australians: Charles Perkins fights for racial equality

Why is Charles Perkins remembered as a significant leader in the struggle for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples? In this clip, he looks back on two campaigns that brought him to public attention in the 1960s and were part of a wider struggle to end racial discrimination in Australia. This clip ...

Video

Archaeology unearths a mass-murder site

Discover a historic site that could reveal new evidence of the first recorded mass murder on Australian soil. The site is Beacon Island, a small island off the coast of Western Australia near present-day Geraldton. In this clip, reporter Mark Bennett visits the island with two members of a 1963 expedition that first investigated ...

Video

Four Corners: Not a place for the 'gentler sex'

Why weren't women allowed to drink in the public bars of Queensland hotels in the 1960s? What social beliefs and attitudes would justify such a prohibition? This clip presents responses from a bar attendant and two politicians to a famous protest against the ban in 1965. The clip is third in a series of three.

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Calls for recognition of Indigenous Australians

Discover why many Australians believe the time has come to change the Australian Constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories. This program from January 2012 examines the debate about how this change might be achieved. It looks at the growing call for our constitution to recognise and advance ...

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ABC Open: Observing a minute's silence on Anzac Day

Why do we observe a minute's silence during Anzac Day ceremonies? Remembrance on Anzac Day has been an important part of Australian culture since the first Anzac Day was observed in 1916. In this clip, residents of Queensland's Gold Coast were asked what they think about during the minute's silence.

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Life As a Female Convict: Cascades Female Factory

The Cascades Female Factory was both a prison and a factory for female convicts in early Hobart. It was a place where convict women were forced to undertake labour in slave-like conditions to support the fledgling colony. Learn what life at the Female Factory was like for the inmates. What sort of work did the women do? ...

Video

ABC Open: World War I: The dead man's penny

Imagine the feelings of a family when they learn of the death of a son during World War I. How might they react to receiving a giant penny for a life sacrificed? This ABC Open program explores the role of the 'dead man's penny', the token given by the British government to many families of British and Commonwealth troops ...

Video

Journey into Japan: Tokugawa shogunate is overthrown

How did Japan's Tokugawa shogunate come to an end? The entry of the US fleet into Tokyo Bay in 1853 and the events that followed exposed the shogunate's policy of isolation as a potential threat to the country. Western influence, and Japan's response to it, would have an enormous impact on the country's future. This clip ...

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Weekend Magazine: The modern office workplace, 1960s style

How different was the Australia workplace half a century ago? This Weekend Magazine program from the mid-1960s looks at work in what was then the new Commonwealth Centre in Sydney, where 2,000 Commonwealth public servants were employed. It provides a glimpse of a world that has changed beyond recognition. As you watch the ...

Online

Significant Individuals - Frank Hurley

In this learning activity, students explore the work of James Francis 'Frank' Hurley and his photographic documentation of historical events. These include the Antarctic expeditions of Mawson and Shackleton, World War I and World War II. Students use primary source material and their own research to prepare an interview ...

Online

World War I - the Western Front

In this learning activity students locate and sequence the places where Australians fought and describe the nature of warfare during the Gallipoli campaign. Students and teachers are provided with links to a rich collection of diaries, letters, maps, photographs, artworks, posters and newspapers on the Great War. Students ...

Text

Coming home: an investigation of the Armistice and repatriation

This online text (with downloadable PDF option) provides a series of investigations examining the impact of the war on those who served and those who welcomed them home. The online resource includes teaching activities that encourage students to investigate the roles the Repatriation Commission and the Soldier Settlement ...

Online

Chinese migrants and the Gold Rush

Throughout the 1800s Chinese migrated to colonial Australia to try their luck on the goldfields. This Look to Learn activity enables you to explore what life was like for the Chinese migrants through primary sources from this period.

Online

Chinese ANZACs - a missing history?

This learning sequence explores recent historical reconsiderations and popular representations of 'Chinese ANZACs'. After engaging with the topic, students analyse the case study of Billy Sing to develop questions that could lead to more significant historical inquiry.

Interactive

Kitchen gardens – sustainability action process (Years 3–6)

This resource guides students through an extended school-based or local investigation focussed on kitchen gardens using the five-step sustainability action process. The resource supports the investigation of a real-world issue or problem. Students develop and implement a chosen sustainability action and then evaluate and ...