colonial Australia | OpenSTEM Pty Ltd

This Week in HASS – term 3, week 6

This week all our students are hard at work examining the objects they are using for their research projects. For the younger students these are objects that will be used to generate a Class Museum. For the older students, the objects of study relate to their chosen topic in Australian History.

Foundation / Prep / Kindy to Year 3

Students in Foundation/Prep/Kindy (Unit F.3) are examining items from the past and completing their Scientific Report by drawing these items in the Method section of the report. We also ask students to analyse their Data by drawing a picture of how people would have used that item in the past. Students in combined Foundation/Prep/Kindy and Year 1 classes (Unit F-1.3), as well as students in Year 1 (Unit 1.3), 2 (Unit 2.3) and 3 (Unit 3.3) are also addressing the Method, Data and Analysis sections of their report by listing, describing and drawing the sources and information which the teacher has helped them to locate. The sources should include items which can be used to make a Class Museum, as well as old photographs, paintings, books, newspapers etc. Teachers can guide class discussions around how items were used in the past – which are familiar, and which are not and compare with the stories read in the first weeks of term.

Years 3 to 6

Older students are expected to analyse their Data in increasing detail relevant to their year-level, as well as listing sources in the Method section of their Scientific Reports. Students in Year 4 (Unit 4.3) are researching a topic from Australia at the time of contact with Europeans, which includes topics in Aboriginal and early colonial history. Students should consider each source and what information they can get from the source. In addition students should think about how objects, pictures and texts were used in the past and what inherent biases might be present. Students in Year 5 (Unit 5.3) are researching a topic from Australian colonial history. Teachers should guide students through the process of determining whether they are dealing with a primary or secondary source, as well as how to use that source to learn more about the past. Inherent bias in different sources should be discussed. Students in Year 6 (Unit 6.3) are researching a topic surrounding Federation and events in Australia in the early 20th century. Many of the sources available contain both primary and secondary information and students should be starting to develop an understanding of how to use, analyse and reference these sources. In preparation for the requirements of high school, teachers should guide these students through the process of building an interpretation of their analysis which is substantiated through reference to their sources (listed in the Bibliography of their report). Students should be able to show where they got their information and how they are interpreting that information. For students in Year 6, the Student Workbook is more of a guide for writing a complete Scientific Report, which they are expected to compile more or less independently.

This Week in HASS – term 3, week 5

This week students in all year levels are working on their research project for the term. Our youngest students are looking at items and pictures from the past, while our older students are collecting source material for their project on Australian history.

Foundation/Prep/Kindy to Year 3

The focus of this term is an investigation into the past and how we can find out about past events. For students in Foundation/Prep/Kindy (Units F.1 and F-1.3), Years 1 (Unit 1.3), 2 (Unit 2.3) and 3 (Unit 3.3) it is recommended that the teacher bring in sources of information about the past for the students to examine. Teachers can tailor these to suit a particular direction for their class. Examples of possible sources include old toys, old books, historic photographs, texts and items about local history (including the school itself), images of old paintings, old newspaper articles which can be accessed online etc. OpenSTEM provides resources which can be used for these investigations: e.g. Historic Photographs of Families, Modes of Transport 100 Years Ago, Brisbane Through the Years, Perth Through the Years, resources on floods in Brisbane and Gundagai, bush fires in Victoria, on the different colonies in Australia etc. Teachers can also use the national and state resources such as the State Library of Queensland, particularly their Picture Archive; the State Library of NSW; the State Library of South Australia, particularly their images collection; the National Archives of Australia; Trove, which archives old newspapers in Australia; Museums Victoria, and many similar sites. Students should also be encouraged to bring material from home, which can be built up into a Class Museum.

Years 3 to 6

As students in Years 3 (Unit 3.7), 4 (Unit 4.3), 5 (Unit 5.3) and 6 (Unit 6.3) move into the period of gathering information from sources to address their research question, teachers should guide them to consider the nature of each source and how to record it. Resources such as Primary and Secondary Sources and Historical Sources aid in understanding the context of different kinds of sources and teachers should assist students to record the details of each source for their Method section of their Scientific Report. Recording these sources in detail is also essential for being able to compile a Bibliography, which is required to accompany the report. OpenSTEM resources are listed for each research topic for these units, but students (and teachers) should feel free to complement these with any additional material such as online collections of images and newspaper articles (such as those listed in the paragraph above). These will help students to achieve a more unique presentation for their report and demonstrate the ability to collate a variety of information, thus earning a higher grade. Using a wide range of sources will also give students a wider appreciation for their chosen topic in Australian history.

This Week in HASS – term 3, week 2

This week older students start their research projects for the term, whilst younger students are doing the Timeline Activity. Our youngest students are thinking about the places where people live and can join together with older students as buddies to Build A Humpy together.

Foundation/Prep/Kindy to Year 3

Students in stand-alone Foundation/Prep/Kindy classes (Unit F.3), or those in classes integrated with Year 1 (Unit F-1.3) are considering different types of homes this week. They will think about where the people in the stories from last week live and compare that to their own houses. They can consider how homes were different in the past and how our homes help us meet our basic needs. There is an option this week for these students to buddy with older students, especially those in Years 4, 5 and 6, to undertake the Building A Humpy activity together. In this activity students collect materials to build a replica Aboriginal humpy or shelter outside. Many teachers find that both senior primary and the younger students get a lot of benefit from helping each other with activities, enriching the learning experience. The Building a Humpy activity is one where the older students can assist the younger students with the physical requirements of building a humpy, whilst each group considers aspects of the activity relevant to their own studies, and comparing past ways of life to their own.

Students in Years 1 (Unit 1.3), 2 (Unit 2.3) and 3 (Unit 3.3) are undertaking the Timeline Activity this week. This activity is designed to complement the concept of the number line from the Mathematics curriculum, whilst helping students to learn to visualise the abstract concepts of the past and different lengths of time between historical events and the present. In this activity students walk out a timeline, preferably across a large open space such as the school Oval, whilst attaching pieces of paper at intervals to a string. The pieces of paper refer to specific events in history (starting with their own birth years) and cover a wide range of events from the material covered this year. Teachers can choose from events in Australian and world history, covering 100s, 1000s and even millions of years, back to the dinosaurs. Teachers can also add their own events. Thus the details of the activity are able to be altered in different years to maintain student interest. Depending on the class, the issue of scale can be addressed in various ways. By physically moving their bodies, students will start to understand the lengths of time involved in examinations of History. This activity is repeated in increasing detail in higher years, to make sure that the fundamental concepts are absorbed by students over time.

Years 3 to 6

Students in Years 3 to 6 are starting their term research projects on Australian history this week. Students in Year 3 (Unit 3.7) concentrate on topics from the history of their capital city or local community. Suggested topics are included for Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, Perth and Canberra. Teachers can substitute their own topics for a local community study. Students will undertake a Scientific Investigation into an aspect of their chosen research project and will produce a Scientific Report. It is recommended that teachers supplement the resources provided with old photographs, books, newspapers etc, many of which can be accessed online, to provide the students with extra material for their investigation.

Students in Year 4 (Unit 4.3) will be focusing on Australia in the period up to and including the arrival of the First Fleet and the early colonial period. OpenSTEM’s Understanding Our World® program encompasses the whole Australian curriculum for HASS and thus does not simply rely on “flogging the First Fleet to death”! There are 7 research themes for Year 4 students: “Australia Before 1788”; “The First Fleet”; “Convicts and Settlers”; “Aboriginal People in Colonial Australia”; “Australia and Other Nations in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries”; “Colonial Children”; “Colonial Animals and their Impact”. These themes are allocated to groups of students and each student chooses an individual research topic within their groups themes. Suggested topics are given in the Teacher Handbook, as well as suggested resources.

Year 5 (Unit 5.3) students focus on the colonial period in Australia. There are 9 research themes for Year 5 students. These are: “The First Fleet”; “Convicts and Settlers”; “The 6 Colonies”; “Aboriginal People in Colonial Australia”; “Resistance to Colonial Authorities”; “Sugar in Queensland”; “Colonial Children”; “Colonial Explorers” and “Colonial Animals and their Impact”. As well as themes unique to Year 5, some overlap is provided to facilitate teaching in multi-year classes. The range of themes also allows for the possibility of teachers choosing different themes in different years. Once again individual topics and resources are suggested in the Teacher Handbook.

Year 6 (Unit 6.3) students will examine research themes around Federation and the early 20th century. There are 8 research themes for Year 6 students: “Federation and Sport”; “Women’s Suffrage”; “Aboriginal Rights in Australia”; “Henry Parkes and Federation”; “Edmund Barton and Federation”; “Federation and the Boer War”; “Samuel Griffith and the Constitution”; “Children in Australian History”. Individual research topics and resources are suggested in the Teachers Handbook. It is expected that students in Year 6 will be able to research largely independently, with weekly guidance from their teacher. OpenSTEM’s Understanding Our World® program is aimed at developing research skills in students progressively, especially over the upper primary years. If the program is followed throughout the primary years, students are well prepared for high school by the end of Year 6, having practised individual research skills for several years.

The Science of Cats

Ah, the comfortable cat! Most people agree that cats are experts at being comfortable and getting the best out of life, with the assistance of their human friends – but how did this come about? Geneticists and historians are continuing to study how cats and people came to live together and how cats came to organise themselves into such a good deal in their relationship with humans. Cats are often allowed liberties that few other animals, even domestic animals, can get away with – they are fed and usually pampered with comfortable beds (including human furniture), are kept warm, cuddled on demand; and, very often, are not even asked to provide anything except affection (on their terms!) in return. Often thought of as solitary animals, cats’ social behaviour is actually a lot more complex and recently further insights have been gained about how cats and humans came to enjoy the relationship that they have today.

Many people know that the Ancient Egyptians came to certain agreements with cats – cats are depicted in some of their art and mummified cats have been found. It is believed that cats may have been worshipped as representatives of the Cat Goddess, Bastet – interestingly enough, a goddess of war! Statues of cats from Ancient Egypt emphasise their regal bearing and tendency towards supercilious expressions. Cats were present in Egyptian art by 1950 B.C. and it was long thought that Egyptians were the first to domesticate the cat. However, in 2004 a cat was found buried with a human on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean 9,500 years ago, making it the earliest known cat associated with humans. This date was many thousands of years earlier than Egyptian cats. In 2008 a site in the Nile Valley was found which contained the remains of 6 cats – a male, a female and 4 kittens, which seemed to have been cared for by people about 6,000 years ago.

African Wild Cat, photo by Sonelle, CC-BY-SA

It is now fairly well accepted that cats domesticated people, rather than the other way round! Papers refer to cats as having “self-domesticated”, which sounds in line with cat behaviour. Genetically all modern cats are related to African (also called Near Eastern) wild cats 8,000 years ago. There was an attempt to domesticate leopard cats about 7,500 years ago in China, but none of these animals contributed to the genetic material of the world’s modern cat populations. As humans in the Near East developed agriculture and started to live in settled villages, after 10,000 years ago, cats were attracted to these ready sources of food and more. The steady supply of food from agriculture allowed people to live in permanent villages. Unfortunately, these villages, stocked with food, also attracted other animals, such as rats and mice, not as welcome and potential carriers of disease. The rats and mice were a source of food for the cats who probably arrived in the villages as independent, nocturnal hunters, rather than as deliberately being encouraged by people.

Once cats were living in close proximity to people, trust developed and soon cats were helping humans in the hunt, as is shown in this detail from an Egyptian tomb painting on the right. Over time, cats became pets and part of the family and followed farmers from Turkey across into Europe, as well as being painted sitting under dining tables in Egypt. People started to interfere with the breeding of cats and it is now thought that the Egyptians selected more social, rather than more territorial cats. Contrary to the popular belief that cats are innately solitary, in fact African Wild Cats have complex social behaviour, much of which has been inherited by the domestic cat. African wild cats live in loosely affiliated groups made up mostly of female cats who raise kittens together. There are some males associated with the group, but they tend to visit infrequently and have a larger range, visiting several of the groups of females and kittens. The female cats take turns at nursing, looking after the kittens and hunting. The adult females share food only with their own kittens and not with the other adults. Cats recognise who belongs to their group and who doesn’t and tend to be aggressive to those outside the group. Younger cats are more tolerant of strangers, until they form their own groups. Males are not usually social towards each other, but occasionally tolerate each other in loose ‘brotherhoods’.

In our homes we form the social group, which may include one or more cats. If there is more than one cat these may subdivide themselves into cliques or factions. Pairs of cats raised together often remain closely bonded and affectionate for life. Other cats (especially males) may isolate themselves from the group and do not want to interact with other cats. Cats that are happy on their own do not need other cats for company. It is more common to find stressed cats in multi-cat households. Cats will tolerate other cats best if they are introduced when young. After 2 years of age cats are less tolerant of newcomers to the group. Humans take the place of parents in their cats’ lives. Cats who grow up with humans retain some psychological traits from kittenhood and never achieve full psychological maturity.

At the time that humans were learning to manipulate the environment to their own advantage by domesticating plants and animals, cats started learning to manipulate us. They have now managed to achieve very comfortable and prosperous lives with humans and have followed humans around the planet. Cats arrived in Australia with the First Fleet, having found a very comfortable niche on sailing ships helping to control vermin. Matthew Flinders‘ cat, Trim, became famous as a result of the book Flinders wrote about him. However, cats have had a devastating effect on the native wildlife of Australia. They kill millions of native animals every year, possibly even millions each night. It is thought that they have been responsible for the extinction of numbers of native mice and small marsupial species. Cats are very efficient and deadly nocturnal hunters. It is recommended that all cats are kept restrained indoors or in runs, especially at night. We must not forget that our cuddly companions are still carnivorous predators.