Aboriginal science tools: the morah stone

Educational value

• The article provides information useful for teachers in planning their implementation of the curriculum. It is relevant to numerous content descriptions across a range of year levels, including the content description in year 5 science about scientific understandings, discoveries and inventions being used to solve problems that directly affect peoples' lives. Discovering the complex process that removed the toxins from otherwise highly nutritious foods and developing the technologies to do it enabled Aboriginal peoples of the rainforest to survive and flourish.
• It is also relevant to content descriptions in year 2 science about Earth's resources (in this case sedimentary rocks) being used in various ways and in year 4 geography about the resources provided by the environment. It would also be useful for the study in year 3 history about the importance of Country to Aboriginal peoples who belong to a local area. Morah stones are an important artefact in the histories of Aboriginal people of the Queensland rainforest.
• The resource is especially valuable for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures cross-curriculum priority. It is particularly supportive of the priority's organising idea that Aboriginal peoples' ways of life are uniquely expressed through ways of being, knowing, thinking and doing. The use of morah stones is a unique Aboriginal knowledge built up over generations of careful observation and experimentation.

Year level

2; 3; 4; 5

Topics Aboriginal history Aboriginal technologies Land custodianship Decision making Tools Environmental management Sustainable development Minerals (Mineralogy) Attitudes Bush food Properties Problem solving Community development Local history Soil composition Natural resources Rock types Environmental stewardship Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples Sense of place Action projects