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Listed under:  History  >  Social history
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New Gold Mountain. Chinese on the goldfields

This resource provides teaching and learning activities exploring the history and contribution of the Chinese on the Australian goldfields in 19th century Australia. The PDF booklet provides teacher's notes, historical background and reproducible student activities which focus on the gold rushes and the Victorian goldfields. ...

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School in the 1940s

Imagine going to school in the 'olden days' (the 1940s). Find out what morning assembly looked like. Discover the things that children kept in their desks and what they used to do their writing. This clip shows you what school was like in the past as two adults (actors Terry Norris and Carmel Millhouse) remember what they ...

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Chequerboard: Bell's gone!

School finishes for the day and parents are waiting to take their children home. Find out what school pickup time looked like in 1974.

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This Day Tonight: Playgrounds, billycarts and hot rods

Discover what school holidays were like for children in the past. In this black-and-white clip, a reporter asks some school children how they feel about holidays. Find out what kinds of things children did on their holidays when your parents and grandparents were your age.

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Looking after the land

This is a resource about the environmental, climatic, natural disaster and pest challenges faced during settlement in Australia. It includes details about land management techniques; extreme and unique weather conditions, including floods and droughts; bushfires; animal and plant pests; and water management. Text, images, ...

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ABC News: Full-on Aussies

How do people celebrate Australia Day where you live? Watch how diverse groups of Melburnians spend Australia Day in 2013, and hear some people talk about why they chose to become Australian citizens.

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Landmarks: people and places across Australia

This resource features the Landmarks gallery, which traces a broad history of Australia since British colonisation in the late 18th century. The exhibition explores ten big themes in the country's past through the stories of Australian places and the people who have lived there. It examines how people have engaged with ...

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Welcome to Bonegilla Migrant Camp

Following World War II, the Australian government was eager to increase the country’s population. The war reminded Australians that their small population would not withstand an enemy invasion. Further, a larger workforce was needed to develop the postwar economy. European people, many displaced by the war and the spread ...

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The 'inauguration' of Lake Burley Griffin

Do most Australians think Canberra is a great city and that water makes a city 'great'? Former prime minister Sir Robert Menzies certainly thought so. When the American architect Walter Burley Griffin submitted his design for Australia's new capital city in 1911, it included damming a river to create a lake. Listen to Menzies' ...

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Tour of NSW Government House

This resource is a YouTube playlist containing a series of videos taken as a group of senior high school students are given a guided tour of NSW Government House in 2010. The tour covers primary sources such as architecture, furniture and images significant to the history of Australia and NSW.

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Race, rights & rivalries

This resource explores the history of Broome and the rich multicultural community that supported its pearling industry. The site features a virtual museum providing a range of primary source material including photographs, newspaper extracts, historical documents, video and audio recordings. The site explores the history ...

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Journeys to Australia

This unit presents a learning sequence for Year 6 students to develop their historical inquiry skills by investigating the key immigration policies and programs Australia has implemented, identifying a range of reasons for migration, highlighting key events from post Federation to present day.

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Commemorating the ANZAC legend

This integrated lesson sequence will allow students to explore how and why people choose to remember significant events of the past, specifically Anzac Day and the Legend of the ANZACs.

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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 ...

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ABC National TV Service: Opening night, 1956

Can you imagine life before television? How different would it have been? This clip is taken from the opening moments of the first ABC television broadcast in 1956. As you watch it, see how the presenter describes the event and try to imagine the impact such first broadcasts would have had on Australians more than half ...

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Four Corners: TV killed the radio star

Can you imagine a time when, instead of watching dramas at home on a screen, people listened to them on the radio - a time when the most popular of those dramas were made in Australia? This Four Corners program from 1964 examines the reasons for the death of Australian radio serials, the role played by television in their ...

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Journey into Japan: Japan's shoguns keep everyone in their places

What was the status of each social class in shogunate Japan? During the period from around 1600 to 1868, Japan was a feudal society. As in medieval Europe, each group had its place in a strict social order. Watch this clip to discover the roles of each group during the age when the Tokugawa shoguns ruled the country. This ...

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Weekend Magazine: A tour of the nation's capital

In the years following World War II, Australia sought to develop a new identity, one that honoured the past while embracing technological advances and increased political stability. As this clip shows, for many people during this period, Canberra - the nation's capital - served as a metaphor for the sort of place Australia ...

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Outback House: Preparing for a wedding

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. Discover how the station prepares for a wedding.

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Building the Sydney Opera House

Construction of the Sydney Opera House began in 1959. The Opera House was intended to be more than a building; it was meant to be a landmark that would put Sydney on the world map as a centre of culture. In this short, silent clip, discover some of the work that went into constructing this huge, unique and very complex building.