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Australia and the Commonwealth Games

Australia has been doing exceptionally well at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, held at the Gold Coast, Queensland. We can be very proud of our athletes, not only for their sporting prowess, but also because of their friendly demeanour and wonderful examples of the spirit of sportsmanship. I’m sure we all felt proud when the Australian team waited 4 minutes on the track for the last runner, representing Lesotho, to finish the 10,000 m, after all the other athletes had left the track. Our team was at the finish line to congratulate their fellow athlete, Lineo Chaka, from the extremely poor, small African nation in the mountains of Southern Africa (it can be a good exercise in geography for students to locate Lesotho on a world map or globe). With a per capita GDP of only $2,450 (compared to Australia’s rate of almost $50,000) this tiny nation has almost no money to spend on sporting facilities or training for athletes. The challenges overcome by Lineo Chaka just to be present at the Games would have been enormous and it was a fitting acknowledgement of her efforts for the Aussies to be there to congratulate her at the finish. It is these moments that remind us what the true spirit of these Games should be about. Well done to all!

Empire Games Sydney, 1938 — Opening Ceremony Empire Games, Sydney Cricket Ground, 1938

The Commonwealth Games began as the British Empire Games in the early 20th century. The idea for a games competition for members of the British Empire was first proposed by John Astley Cooper in 1891 in an article in The Times newspaper. Committees were formed in many places around the world (including Australia) and these committees actually helped with the organisation of the first Olympic Games as well. In 1911 a Festival of the Empire was held at Crystal Palace in London, and athletics, boxing, wrestling and swimming events were also held. The Australian Harold Hardwick was undefeated in both the boxing and the swimming. Australia had become a Federation by then and proudly exhibited a 3/4 size scale model of Melbourne’s Parliament House at Crystal Palace. However, the first British Empire Games were not until 1930. They were held in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Australia was amongst the 11 teams competing in these games and won 8 medals, of which 3 were gold. England won the most medals that year, with 61, of which 25 were gold; followed by Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and then Australia. Scotland, Wales, British Guiana, Ireland, Bermuda and Newfoundland also competed.

The second British Empire Games were held in London in 1934 and the third in Sydney, Australia in 1938. They were timed to coincide with Sydney’s sesqui-centenary, celebrating 150 years since the First Fleet had arrived. Fifteen nations competed at the Sydney Cricket Ground in eight sports – athletics, boxing, cycling, lawn bowls, rowing, swimming, diving and wrestling. Australia won 66 medals, 25 of them gold, more than any other nation in the competition. War delayed the next Empire Games until 1950. These were held in Auckland, New Zealand.

Landy and Bannister 4 min mile — Landy and Bannister 1954 Commonwealth Games. Photo: Paul Joseph

By 1954 the name had started to change with the British Empire and Commonwealth Games being held in Vancouver, Canada. In those games, John Landy of Australia joined Roger Bannister of England in running a mile in less than 4 minutes, earning the race the title of the “Miracle Mile”. The event was also televised for the first time. In 1970 the games were called the British Commonwealth Games (the days of empire being truly over by then) and in 1978 they became known as just the Commonwealth Games, the name they retain today. In 1982 the Commonwealth Games were back in Australia, this time in Brisbane, Queensland and the opening event featured a giant model of a kangaroo. Forty-six nations competed and again, Australia topped the medal tally. The Commonwealth Games were back in Aus in 2006 in Melbourne, making Australia the country which has hosted the games the most number of times (5 times in all).

Today (15 April 2018) marks the closing of the Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast, which started with the arrival of the Queen’s Baton Relay at the Opening Ceremony on 4 April, 2018, having covered 230,000 km through Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia and Oceania in 388 days, the longest Queen’s Baton Relay so far. The 2018 Queen’s Baton is made from macadamia wood and recycled plastic sourced from the Gold Coast waterways. Australia has done extremely well, remaining at the top of the medal table.

It has also been wonderful to see the events for para-athletes taking place interspersed with the regular events, which has occurred since 2002. This means that para-athletes are part of the same teams and are cheered by the same crowds, giving them far more support than in segregated games. We salute all of the athletes for their hard work, dedication, wonderful spirit and sportsmanship and look forward to supporting them again in the future.

Celebration Time!

Here at OpenSTEM we have a saying “we have a resource on that” and we have yet to be caught out on that one! It is a festive time of year and if you’re looking for resources reflecting that theme, then here are some suggestions:

Celebrations in Australia – a resource covering the occasions we celebrate here in Australia

Celebrations Around the World – a resource comparing some familiar and some different celebrations around the world

Celebrations in the Past – sometimes students can gain a new approach on the past by seeing how familiar celebrations used to be commemorated. This resource looks at a range of celebrations (including Christmas) and has lots of historic photos and images to help students experience a different perspective.

If you’re looking for activities to keep spirits alive in the final weeks of term, or ways of keeping excited young people entertained, then we have some resources which may help:

Games from the Past – students can play a variety of games from around the world and through time. Some of these are good for running around in open spaces and some can be done in the classroom. All of the them tie in to themes that students have covered in HASS subjects through the year.

Food in the Past – if you’re looking for ideas for a class party or other celebration, this resource contains recipes for celebratory foods from around the world and through time – students can experience the past through their taste buds!

If you’re looking for stories – Living in the Past and Children In the Past contain tales of fictional children in realistic historic settings around the world, including Australia.

These are just some of our resources that can be used to brighten up the final weeks of the year and keep students engaged. If you have a subscription, now might be a good time to browse through the site checking for new or updated resources or grabbing that resource that you saw earlier and thought looked interesting.

However you celebrate, all of us at OpenSTEM wish you a very Merry Festive Season and a wonderful start to 2018! We look forward to catching up in the New Year!

This Week in HASS – term 1, week 3

This is a global week in HASS for primary students. Our youngest students are marking countries around the world where they have family members, slightly older students are examining the Mayan calendar, while older students get nearer to Australia, examining how people reached Australia and encountered its unique wildlife.

Foundation to Year 3

Foundation students doing the Me and My Global Family unit (F.1) are working with the world map this week, marking countries where they have family members with coloured sticky dots. Those doing the My Global Family unit (F.6), and students in Years 1 to 3 (Units 1.1; 2.1 and 3.1), are examining the Mayan calendar this week. The Mayan calendar is a good example of an alternative type of calendar, because it is made up of different parts, some of which do not track the seasons, and is cyclical, based on nested circles. The students learn about the 2 main calendars used by the Mayans – a secular and a celebratory sacred calendar, as well as how the Mayans divided time into circles running at different scales – from the day to the millennium and beyond. And no, in case anyone is still wondering – they did not predict the end of the world in 2012, merely the end of one particular long-range cycle, and hence, the beginning of a new one…

Years 3 to 6

Lake Mungo, where people lived at least 40,000 years ago.

Students doing the Exploring Climates unit (3.6), and those in Years 4 to 6 (Units 4.1, 5.1 and 6.1), are examining how people reached Australia during the Ice Age, and what Australia was like when they arrived. People had to cross at least 90 km of open sea to reach Australia, even during the height of the Ice Age, and this sea gap led to the relative isolation of animals in Australia from others in Asia. This phenomenon was first recorded by Alfred Wallace, who drew a line on a map marking the change in fauna. This line became known as the Wallace line, as a result. Students will also examine the archaeological evidence, and sites of the first people in Australia, ancestors of Aboriginal people. The range of sites across Australia, with increasingly early dates, amply demonstrate the depth of antiquity of Aboriginal knowledge and experience in Australia.

Australia moves fast: North-West actually

This story is about the tectonic plate on which we reside. Tectonic plates move, and so continents shift over time. They generally go pretty slow though.

What about Australia? It appears that every year, we move 11 centimetres West and 7 centimetres North. For a tectonic plate, that’s very fast.

The last time scientists marked our location on the globe was in 1994, with the Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994 (GDA1994) – generally called GDA94 in geo-spatial tools (such as QGIS). So that datum came into force 22 years ago. Since then, we’ve moved an astonishing 1.5 metres! You may not think much of this, but right now it actually means that if you use a GPS in Australia to get coordinates, and plot it onto a map that doesn’t correct for this, you’re currently going to be off by 1.5 metres. Depending on what you’re measuring/marking, you’ll appreciate this can be very significant and cause problems.

Bear in mind that, within Australia, GDA94 is not wrong as such, as its coordinates are relative to points within Australia. However, the positioning of Australia in relation to the rest of the globe is now outdated. Positioning technologies have also improved. So there’s a new datum planned for Australia, GDA2020. By the time it comes into force, we’ll have shifted by 1.8 metres relative to GDA94.

We can have some fun with all this:

If you stand and stretch both your arms out, the tips of your fingers are about 1.5 metres apart – of course this depends a bit on the length of your arms, but it’ll give you a rough idea. Now imagine a pipe or cable in the ground at a particular GPS position, move 1.5 metres. You could clean miss that pipe or cable… oops! Unless your GPS is configured to use a datum that gets updated, such as WGS84. However, if you had the pipe or cable plotted on a map that’s in GDA94, it becomes messy again.
If you use a tool such as Google Earth, where is Australia actually? That is, will a point be plotted accurately, or be 1.5 metres out, or somewhere in between?
Well, that would depend on when the most recent broad scale photos were taken, and what corrections the Google Earth team possibly applies during processing of its data (for example, Google Earth uses a different datum – WGS 84 for its calculations).
Interesting question, isn’t it…
Now for a little science/maths challenge. The Northern most tip of Australia, Cape York, is just 150km South of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Presuming our plate maintains its present course and speed, roughly how many years until the visible bits (above sea level) of Australia and PNG collide? Post your answer with working/reasoning in a comment to this post! Think about this carefully and do your research. Good luck!