How Indigenous ecological practices can help reduce emissions
Our resources cover a wide array of topic - not just history. For example, this Year 10 science resource provides a lesson plan that explores how First Nations approaches are being used in the fight against climate change.
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Key Dates
F-Y6 Australia Day Pride and Pain Timeline Activity
Through the Pride and Pain timeline, students engage with reasons behind differing perspectives on celebrating Australia Day on January 26, which commemorates the start of colonisation in 1788. Students think critically about our nation’s history and their own points of view. For more activity ideas, see the F–Y6 Australia Day Guide.
Teacher guide
F-Y6 Australia Day guide
This comprehensive selection of engaging activities and resources helps students to consider different perspectives on celebrating Australia Day on January 26, a date which commemorates the arrival of the British in 1788 and the start of colonisation. Students think critically about our nation’s history and their own points of view.
Teacher guide
Y7-10 Australia Day Pride and Pain Timeline Activity
Through the Pride and Pain timeline, students engage with reasons behind differing perspectives on celebrating Australia Day on January 26, which commemorates the start of colonisation in 1788. Students think critically about our nation’s history and their own points of view. For more activity ideas, see the Y7–Y10 Australia Day Guide.
Teacher guide
NAIDOC Week 2021
Invite your students to 'Heal Country, heal our nation' in NAIDOC Week 2021. This comprehensive resource offers rich primary and secondary activities and respectful ways to celebrate as a school. Activities are organised by learning areas, covering HASS, English, visual arts, music, science and the environment, for Foundation to Year 10.
Teacher guide
Foundation
Foundation Science & HASS – Caring for Country: how Indigenous scientific observation and cultural practices support ecosystems
This unit explores the special, reciprocal relationship First Nations Peoples have with Country. It investigates how Indigenous scientific knowledge, gained through observation of the environment, has informed cultural and land management practices for millennia enabling the land, sea, plants, animals and humans to survive and thrive.
ACHASSK016, ACSHE013
Teacher guide
PDF slideshow
Foundation English, Science & Visual Arts – Looking at and listening to our world
Students observe places and engage with art to develop scientific understandings of their own place and the continuity of seasons. They consider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and the limitations of applying European seasons in an Australian setting. The resource can be adapted to include local Indigenous knowledge.
ACELY1650, ASCSU004, ACAVAR109
Teacher guide
Foundation Science & Health and PE – Bush toys: investigating how size and shape affects movement
Students investigate and observe how the size and shape of Indigenous instructive toys influences their movement by making simple toys and engaging with indoor and outdoor games. Students also look at the role toys play in the cultural life and education of First Nations children.
ACSSU005, ACSHE013, ACPPS007
Teacher guide
Paper Propeller
Year 1
Y1 English, HASS & Drama – First Nations societies before colonisation: Dreaming, living, using waterways
Dreaming is reflected in stories and beyond to give meaning to the world. Students work with Dreaming stories, including creating tableaux in a drama activity. Students find evidence of pre-colonisation engineering, aquaculture and trade economies to learn about First Nations practices and to reflect on sustainability for a shared future.
ACHASSK031, ACHASSK033, ACELY1655, ACADRR0289
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y1 Science & Music – Exploring the science of sound with Indigenous instruments
Students explore how sounds are produced using Indigenous musical instruments and learn how First Nations people produce musical instruments using sustainable natural materials. Students demonstrate their learning by creating an instrument of their own using sustainable materials and sharing how the instrument produces sound.
ACSSU018, ACSSU020, ACSHE022
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y1 Science & HASS – Observing and living with the seasons
This unit guides learners to explore seasons, both Western and Indigenous, through observation, community research, hands-on activities and critical thinking. Indigenous seasonal knowledge was essential in the past for living well, and remains important today in order to live with and look after Country for future generations.
ACSHE021, ACHASSK032, ACSSU019, ACHASSI019
Teacher guide
Student handout
Year 2
Y2 Science & HASS – Living things: making connections with the world around us
This scientific investigation into living things explores reciprocity between Country and First Nations Peoples. Students learn about local plants and animals through observation, data collection and research; and unpack sophisticated belief, kinship and knowledge systems some First Nations people use to understand and care for Country.
ACSSU030, ACSIS037, ACSHE034, ACHASSK049
Teacher guide
PDF slideshow
Y2 English & HASS – Exploring texts by Indigenous authors
Students explore connection to Country and place through Indigenous stories, including Dreaming stories and those by contemporary Indigenous authors. Students use stories to explore the language features of texts and oral storytelling.
ACELA1460, ACELT1591, ACHASSI035, ACHASSI041, ACHASSK048
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y2 HASS & Science – Indigenous toys used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
Students learn about the types of toys used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, methods used in making them, and the push and pull forces involved in using them. Students design and make a toy boat using sustainable materials and race them to test their designs.
ACHASSK046, ACSSU031, ACSSU033
Teacher guide
Student handout
Year 3
Y3 Science & Design and Tech – Scientific knowledge helps people develop effective and sustainable products
Students explore the use of scientific knowledge for the development of effective and sustainable techniques and products in First Nations communities over thousands of years. Students learn how knowledge of the change in state between solid and liquid through heating is used to adapt materials when creating a range of products.
ACSSU046, ACSHE051, ACTDEP014
Teacher guide
Y3 HASS & Visual Arts – Where we live: mapping Country
Students are guided to see the different ways maps can represent place and learn conventions of mapping, such as BOLTSS. They identify boundaries and territories of geographical and political regions and First Nations language groups. Through the Ngurrara Canvas and other art, students also explore ways First Nations people map Country.
ACHASSK066, ACHASSI057, ACAVAM110
Teacher guide
Year 4
Y4 Science, HASS & Design and Tech – Properties of materials
Students investigate properties of natural materials through investigation, experiments and research. They learn how First Nations Peoples apply scientific knowledges to create tools, clothing and artworks. Students learn how the diversity of Australia’s materials defines the design of everyday items.
ACSSU074, ACHASSK083, ACTDEK010, ACTDEK011, ACTDEK013
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y4 Maths & HASS – Enough for me, enough for Country: sustainability using fractions and Indigenous lore
Students investigate fractions, mixed numbers and counting by halves and thirds. They develop geographical understandings about Indigenous custodial responsibility and sustainable resource use. This leads to reflection on our shared responsibility for the present and future and connects numeracy to human wellbeing.
ACMNA078, ACHASSK089
Teacher guide
Student handout
Year 5
Y5 Science & HASS – Sustainable solutions: how Indigenous knowledge can lead to better land and water management in Australia
Students explore sustainable Indigenous resource management practices. Students engage with perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples about how relationship to Country shapes decision-making, and they examine a geographical site to show how the environment was altered to sustain ways of living.
ACSHE083, ACHASSK120, ACHASSK112
Teacher guide
Student handout
Year 7
Y7 Geography – Place and liveability
This resource explores what Country means to First Nations Peoples, and how all that Country encompasses relates to liveability. Students examine case studies and elements of Country. And, through geographic inquiry and investigation, they apply these elements to their own places and spaces to improve liveability.
ACHGK043, ACHGK046, ACHGK047, ACHGS048
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y7 Science – Biological sciences: Indigenous classification and understanding food webs
Students compare and contrast First Nations Peoples’ different approaches to classifying organisms and the Western scientific approach known as the Linnaean system. They explore how different classification systems might inform our knowledge of the ecological interactions between organisms, including food chains and food webs.
ACSSU111, ACSSU112, ACSHE119, ACSHE223, ACSHE121, ACSIS125
Teacher guide
Student handout
Year 8
Y8 Science – Fire management and sustainability practices of First Nations Peoples
Students investigate how First Nations Peoples’ land and fire management techniques assist to maintain biodiversity, reduce the severity of bushfires and reduce carbon emissions. Students explore the use of renewable energies used by First Nations people in remote communities.
ACSSU155, ACSHE226, ACHSE135, ACSHE136
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y8 Geography – Indigenous land management and its cultural value
Students will develop an understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ diverse connections to and knowledge of Australia’s landscapes and landforms. Students will also explore the role Songlines play in knowing the land, and research Indigenous land-management techniques. Resource combines ACHGK049 & ACHGK052.
ACHGK049, ACHGK052
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y8 Science – Investigating First Nations people’s science knowledges in the production of pigments and dyes
Students investigate how First Nations people use geological knowledge and sophisticated mining techniques to extract ochre, and the chemical processes employed to make pigments and dyes. Students analyse how the colonisation of Australia impacts the sharing of Indigenous sciences and disrupts First Nations people’s connection to Country.
ACSSU225, ACSSU153, ACSHE226
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y8 Geography – Indigenous cultural landscapes and landforms – degradation and its effects
Using Uluru as a case study, students research different ways a landscape or landform, especially one with cultural significance, can be impacted by human actions, such as vandalism, tourism or pollution. They examine the effect that the degradation, both physical and spiritual, of a cultural heritage site has on First Nations people.
ACHGK051
Teacher guide
Student handout
Year 9
Y9 Science – Protecting Australian ecosystems
In this biological science unit, students explore the relationship humans have with ecosystems, focusing on the ways First Nations people have used and continue to use scientific knowledge to maintain ecosystems. Students investigate the use of fire to regulate biotic and abiotic factors in ecosystems, and as a land management technique.
ACSSU176, ACSHE157, ACSHE160, ACSIS164, ACSIS170
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y9 Geography – Traditional food sources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
This topic examines the significant disruption to Australian biomes by European colonisation. Native flora and fauna have struggled to compete with introduced species. Alterations in diet have negatively impacted many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Students suggest ways native food sources can be developed and promoted.
ACHGK063
Teacher guide
Student handout
Year 10
Y10 Science – How Indigenous ecological practices can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Students learn how traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of First Nations Peoples is passed on through generations, and how collaboration with governments on climate change can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Students investigate the different fire management strategies and the reinstatement of TEK to protect Australian biodiversity.
ACSSU189, ACSHE192, ACSHE194
Teacher guide
Student handout
Y10 Geography – Geographic information systems and conservation management
Students examine ways in which contemporary technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS) are providing support to Indigenous communities to sustainably manage and benefit from their lands. Students are encouraged to explore further examples of the use of GIS by Indigenous communities.
ACHGS078
Teacher guide
Student handout
Australians Together Learning Framework
Our resources follow a framework that’s designed to reshape a new narrative for all Australians. Each key idea is a section in the resource filled with activities to take students on a transformational learning journey. For more information follow the links below.
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The resources are designed to be flexible and modular, working around how you like to teach. You can use the resources exactly as they’re designed, or as a starting point from which to build your own lessons. Make them your own and use them to help you feel more confident in class.
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Change takes time and we’re here to provide the support you need over the long term. We’re constantly building new resources and we love to hear from educators like you. Feel free to reach out at any point and we can see how we can help. Together we can build a brighter future and a more united Australia for everyone.
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Teachers love our resources as they it saves them time when lesson planning and they’re packed full of activities that really engage students. - Authentic learning
Teachers are following our resources’ responsive framework to confidently teach about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and perspectives.
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