Search results

Online

Making history

This resource supports students, individuals and community groups to research, produce and share a short digital history about a person or event.

Online

We come to Australia

This learning sequence explores digital migrant stories of Australians of Asian heritage. Students analyse these stories and reflect on those who come to Australia seeking better lives.

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

The gold rush

This collection of 5 activities explores life on the NSW and Victorian goldfields in the 1850's. Using primary sources from the State Library of NSW's collection (diaries, artwork and a satirical cartoon), students investigate the everyday activities of the gold sush. Read an eyewitness account of the first gold escort ...

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

Who was Quong Tart?

In this sequence of two activities, students learn about Quong Tart's contribution to Australian life by examining photographs and responding to questions. Based on Quong Tart's tea house, students redesign their classroom to create their own tea house experience.

Online

Celebration and Satire

This lesson plan guides students to compare and contrast different perspectives of the French Revolution as depicted in two works of art. They will discuss the use of satire and caricature to comment on historical and current events and will create satirical cartoons based on contemporary issues.

Online

Yulunga: chuboochuboo

A chuboochuboo is a wallaby skin stuffed with grass and about the size of a football. Men, women and children played the game. The game generated a great deal of fun and enjoyment and never any arguments. It was observed being played in parts of South Australia. The Aboriginal people of the Lower Murray and surrounding ...

Online

Yulunga: kai wed

In this game from the Torres Strait Islands, a number of players stood in a circle and sang the kai wed (ball song) as they hit a ball up in the air with the palm of their hands. The game was often played using the thick, oval, deep-red fruit of the kai tree, which is quite light when dry. This game was apparently introduced ...

Online

Yulunga: ngor-go

A form of spin-ball was played among the lower Tully River people. The spinner was made out of a gourd of the Benincasa vacua. This game was played by women more often than men. It was known among the Mallanpara people of north Queensland as ngor-go, after the name of the gourd used. This activity comprises making and playing ...

Online

Yulunga: luka-pul pul

Finding-the-object games were played in many parts of Australia as well as the Torres Strait. The objects to be found were usually the eye lens of a fish or other animal. The hidden article would often be the lens, obtained after cooking, from the eye of a fish, possum, rat or wallaby. The usual method of hiding the lens ...

Online

Yulunga: kamai

Using a length of twine, adult women and young children of both genders often amused themselves for hours at a time with cat’s cradle (string-figure games). These were played almost everywhere throughout Australia and also in the Torres Strait. In some areas older boys and adult men also played these games. Elaborate figures ...

Online

Yulunga: battendi

A spear game was played by Aboriginal people in the Lake Murray, Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert areas of southern Australia. A prize such as a newly made shield was offered to the winner. The contest was in two parts: distance throwing and target throwing. This is a distance-and-accuracy throwing contest using a woomera ...

Online

Yulunga: meetcha kambong

A wrestling game of the Noongar people of the southwest of Western Australia was called meetcha kambong (‘nut game’) or boojur kombang (‘ground game’). In the Swan district it was called boojoor-eleeja. A team beaten at this game might resume the contest in a month or so. A ‘wrestling’ game where attacking players attempt ...

Interactive

Bound for South Australia 1836

This is a website rich in primary and secondary sources tracing the voyages of nine ships from Britain bound for the newly created province of South Australia between February and December 1836, and the experiences of those on board. The website contains extensive historical background, information about a range of topics ...

Online

Archives ACT: find of the month

This topic-based collection of primary source material provides a rich and varied source of official documents, guides and background information on the civic history of Canberra and the Australian Capital Territory. Produced monthly, this eclectic collection covers topics including the history of monuments, architecture, ...

Online

The Conversation: human rights

This resource contains a series of articles that examine the legal and ethical issues around human rights in Australia and internationally, including recent practical examples. The resource can be used to provide examples of human rights in Australia and the international community, including discussions of its relationship ...

Online

Royal Australian Mint: units of work

This suite of teaching and learning units of work related to Australian currencies for middle and upper primary students. The units explore the role coins play in commemoration and the history of Australian currency from colonial times to post Federation. Lessons are supplemented with a range of cross-curriculum lesson ideas.

Text

The Invisible War: A tale on two scales

The Invisible War is a graphic novel set on the Western Front in 1916. The novel is an interdisciplinary text that includes a large science-history reference section (hyper-linked within the novel). Told from two points of view – human and microbial – the story describes a deadly infection by dysentery-causing Shigella ...

Online

The world of Mickey of Ulladulla

This series of learning activities is based on a past State Library of NSW exhibition, Mari Nawi: Aboriginal Odysseys containing links to video content and collection items including artworks by Mickey of Ulladulla, letters, journals and official documents. Activity 1, explores how life for the Aboriginal people changed ...