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This Week in HASS – term 4, week 1

The last term of the school year – traditionally far too short and crowded with many events, both at and outside of school. OpenSTEM’s® Understanding Our World® program for HASS + Science ensures that not only are the students kept engaged with interesting material, but that teachers can relax, knowing that all curriculum-relevant material is covered by the middle of the term, ensuring enough time for marking and preparation of reports. Furthermore, following the OpenSTEM® Understanding Our World® program across an entire year guarantees that your students have met the curriculum requirements for all of History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship, Economics and Business (HASS) and Science for the whole year, matched to their year-level, even in multi-year level classes. This term our youngest students are reviewing some of the material covered earlier in the year and then preparing for a Play (with props and dress-ups) matched to this material. Students in Years 1 to 3 examine modern families around the world and then prepare a short presentation or dramatisation based on what they have learned. Older students are studying migrants and cultural identity and using the information to plan an end-of-year celebration of cultural diversity. These students also hold a class election, with preferential voting.

Foundation/Prep/Kindy to Year 3

Our youngest students – those in Foundation/Prep/Kindy (Unit F.4) and combined classes with Year 1 (Unit F-1.4) are start the term by reviewing Celebrations (this is a great time to grab that Class Calendar and look ahead to Christmas!). They then examine how people celebrated these occasions in the past. Students in Years 1 (Unit 1.4), 2 (Unit 2.4) and 3 (Unit 3.4) start looking at Modern Families Around the World. This resource includes stories about families in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. Teachers can choose from these stories to tailor the unit to the class’s needs and interests. Students are encouraged to consider family and community structures around the world and compare them to their own.

Years 3 to 6

Students in Years 3 (Unit 3.8), 4 (Unit 4.4), 5 (Unit 5.4) and 6 (Unit 6.4) start the year by examining their own Ancestry, prior to looking at Migration and Diversity. Students interact with the OpenSTEM® “Our World” map, in order to gain an understanding of the wide range of places around the world in which Australians have their ancestry. Students in Year 3 will be focusing on diversity in Australian society over the next few weeks and will choose a group of migrants to study in more detail. Resources on several migrant groups are available to complement this unit. Students in Year 4 will focus on Australia’s connections to other parts of the world through time and will study either a group of Aboriginal people, or members of other groups with whom Aboriginal people had early contact, such as Macassan traders, or Europeans. Students in Year 5 will focus on migrants from European countries, such as the Irish, Greek or Italian communities. Students in Year 6 will focus on migrants from Asian countries, such as the Chinese or Vietnamese communities.

Students in Years 3 to 6 will also grow a plant from a seed, as a Science experiment, linked to their HASS studies. Students have the option to choose a plant brought to Australia by the migrant group or other community which they are studying. They will investigate when this plant arrived in Australia, from where it came, what conditions it needs to thrive and what cultural importance it has for the group. The linking of these areas of focus helps add additional relevance and immediacy to the curriculum material for students.

Stone Axes and Aboriginal Stories from Victoria

In the most recent edition of Australian Archaeology, the journal of the Australian Archaeological Association, there is a paper examining the exchange of stone axes in Victoria and correlating these patterns of exchange with Aboriginal stories in the 19th century. This paper is particularly timely with the passing of legislation in the Victorian Parliament on 21 September 2017, concerning management of the Yarra River. This legislation, the first in Victorian state legislation to include phrases in an indigenous language (Woi-wurrung, the language of the Wurundjeri people – custodians of the Yarra River) recognises the connections between the river and local indigenous people. The Act contains a strategic plan for the river’s management and protection, and provides for a council (the Birrarung – a local indigenous name for the Yarra River – Council), which must include at least 2 traditional owners, to advise and advocate for the river.

Port Phillip 10000 yrs ago — Port Phillip during the Ice Age

The Yarra River runs south-west from the Australian Alps and enters Port Phillip Bay in the city of Melbourne. During the Ice Age, when global sea levels were lower, the river drained directly into Bass Strait (see image to right). Port Phillip bay was flooded by rising sea levels at the end of the Ice Age, reaching its present extent about 8,000 years ago. The bay was briefly drained when the entrance was blocked by a sand bar between 800 and 1,000 CE (about 1,000 years ago). Aboriginal stories recall this well: in 1846, the colonial magistrate, William Hull recorded that local Aboriginal people told him that they:

“recollected when Hobson’s Bay [Port Phillip Bay] was a kangaroo ground; they say, “Plenty catch kangaroo, and plenty catch opossum there;” and [an informant] assured me that the passage up the bay, through which the ships came, is the River Yarra, and that river once went out at the heads, but that the sea broke in, and that Hobson’s Bay, which was once hunting ground, became what it is“

This detailed knowledge of the now submerged area shows the depth of Aboriginal oral traditions, passed down in stories and lore, as part of their ongoing management of the Australian landscape. Many of these stories had intricate myths, which nevertheless included information on how to manage the environment. It appears that the exchange of axes, initially of stone, and later of iron, was part of these stories. The best raw material for making stone axes (and thus the best stone axes) came from the stone quarry at Mount William, near Lancefield about 78 km north of Melbourne. The local Wurundjeri people made very fine greenstone axes, which were traded over huge distances, some as far as 1,000 km, in the period before Europeans arrived in Australia.

In 1803, the British tried to start a convict settlement on Port Phillip Bay, near modern Sorrento, but within a few months the convicts were moved to Tasmania when a lack of water and conflict with local Aboriginal groups made the settlement unviable. During the upheavals, some convicts escaped, one of whom was William Buckley, who then lived with local Aboriginal people, the Wadawurrung, for the next 32 years. After Melbourne was settled and Buckley had rejoined European society, he worked as a translator for the missionary George Langhorne, who wrote down some of Buckley’s stories. One of these mentioned axes (or “tomahawks”):

“There are… two imaginary Beings whom [the Wadawurrung] treat with a certain degree of respect. One of these is supposed to reside in a certain marsh and to be the author of all the Songs which he makes known to them through his Sons. The other is supposed to have charge of the Pole or Pillar by which the Sky is propped. Just before the Europeans came to Port Phillip this personage was the subject of general conversation it was reported among them that he had sent a message to the Tribes to send a certain number of Tomahawks to enable him to prepare a new prop for the Sky as the other had become rotten and their destruction was inevitable should the sky fall on them to prevent this and to supply as great a number of iron Tomahawks as possible ”

Very similar stories are repeated in a range of sources, including the records of A.W. Howitt, a 19th century anthropologist, who interviewed William Barak, a senior clan head of the Woiwurrung, who had been about 11 years old (and a witness to events) when John Batman signed his treaty with clan leaders. Barak’s uncle was custodian of the Mount William stone axe quarry, a title which Barak later inherited. Howitt recorded:

“They believed too that the sky was propped up by poles where it rested on the mountains in the north-east. Before the “white men came to Melbourne” a message was passed from tribe to tribe, until it reached the Wurunjerri, that the props were becoming rotten, and that unless tomahawks were at once sent up to cut new ones, the sky would fall and burst, and all the people would be drowned“

Aboriginal stone axe — Aboriginal ground stone axe

A similar story was recorded by Ethel Shaw, the daughter of the station manager at Yelta Station (also a mission) on the Murray River, about 500km north-west of Melbourne, home of the Marawara people, as having been told to her father in the late 19th century. These stories were linked to the flood stories, which are very common in Aboriginal traditions, and relate in great detail which areas were flooded. Various mythological reasons are given for these inundations, including that the sky fell, causing the clouds to burst open when they hit the ground and release all the rainwater in huge floods.

Stories also record the efforts of ancestors to manage the water flow down from the mountains, by cutting channels for water to flow – an activity which is described as “using up too many stone axes”. As custodians of the land, each Aboriginal group had responsibilities related to managing the environment and trying to ensure that it remained healthy and stable. It appears that the need for stone axes in the mountains, some distance from the Mount William quarry, was articulated in stories, which ensured that stone axes were supplied to the mountains, thus helping maintain exchange networks over long distances and ensuring equitable access to resources.

We now know that ground stone axes date back 65,000 years to the earliest evidence of Aboriginal settlement in Australia. Over the millennia, especially following the huge climate changes at the end of the Ice Age, Aboriginal people developed ways of managing the environment and exchanging resources. The framework for these activities was a rich tradition of stories and mythology, which helped people to relate to their world and their role within it. We are still learning to interpret all the information within these stories.

What Makes Humans Different From Most Other Mammals?

Well, there are several things that makes us different from other mammals – although perhaps fewer than one might think. We are not unique in using tools, in fact we discover more animals that use tools all the time – even fish! We pride ourselves on being a “moral animal”, however fairness, reciprocity, empathy and cooperation have been demonstrated in apes and monkeys. Genetically we differ by only 1.09% from gorillas, 1.14% from chimpanzees, 2.46% from Old World monkeys and we share 50% of our DNA with bananas!

Recent research has demonstrated one of the ways that we are unique and this research is being used to help us to understand our human lineage, as well as giving us new insights into some diseases, such as cancer. The key to this discussion is a set of complex sugar chains (or carbohydrates), called glycans, which occur on the surface of cells. In particular, a glycan called Neu5Gc. It seems that at some point in the distant past, the malaria parasite used this glycan to anchor itself to the cells of primates and infect them with malaria, and human ancestors responded by losing the glycan, thus becoming immune to malaria. Unfortunately for us, a new type of malaria found a new glycan to attach itself to (this one is called Neu5Ac), which meant that humans could catch the new strain of malaria. This explains why humans are immune to the strains of malaria which affect great apes, such as chimpanzees, but are susceptible to strains of malaria which don’t affect the apes.

Humans became almost unique amongst mammals in not having the glycan Neu5Gc. It is thought that this mutation occurred between 2 and 3 million years ago and might have contributed to humans developing their own distinct lineage. Part of the glycan also becomes integrated as a molecule in bone, which gave researches hope that they might be able to find traces of the molecule from Neu5Gc in fossil bones. Whilst we have been successful in extracting ancient DNA from Neanderthal bones as old as 430,000 years and from horse bones as old as 700,000 years, fossils that are millions of years old have not been able to yield enough viable DNA using current techniques.

So researcher Ajit Varki, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, started with 50,000 year old bones from a cave bear, from which they were able to extract the molecule. Varki then approached Maeve Leakey, Director of Field Research at the Turkana Basin Institute, who gave them a fragment of bone from a 4 million year old buffalo-like animal, found in the same layer as some hominin fossils. Once again the researchers were able to extract the molecule left in the bone by Nue5Gc. It is now hoped that they will be able to test fossil hominid bones in order to see which ones lacked Neu5Gc (and are thus likely to be our direct ancestors) and which ones had it.

Modern humans usually do have trace amounts of Neu5Gc, thought to enter our bodies from eating the meat of animals which have the glycan. Our bodies produce a slight immune response to the glycan, which might aggravate diseases such as cancer, opening new avenues for research and proving how research in one area of science, such as paleoanthropology, can have effects in other areas, such as medicine. It might therefore also be possible to see how much meat our ancestors included in their diets – always a controversial topic.

Those Dirty Peasants!

'Mudlarks' in the Thames — ‘Mudlarks’ in the Thames

It is fairly well known that many Europeans in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries did not follow the same routines of hygiene as we do today. There are anecdotal and historical accounts of people being dirty, smelly and generally unhealthy. This was particularly true of the poorer sections of society. The epithet “those dirty peasants” was meant quite literally. We often think that the lack of hygiene was related to the poverty and that people were too poor to be able to wash regularly – either themselves or their clothes. Being poor was certainly part of the equation, but in a more complex way than expected, as it was in fact government policy and taxes in 17th century England which exacerbated the situation and led to the English poor being particularly ‘dirty’.

Prior to 1642, Parliaments in England were temporary, appointed to advise the monarch for short periods. In 1642 the English Civil War broke out between the Roundheads (supporters of Parliament) and the Cavaliers (supporters of royalty). Wars are expensive and civil wars doubly so, so in 1643 the Parliamentarian, John Pym, introduced a series of taxes on staple items in order to raise funds for the war. One of the items taxed, along with beer, meat, salt, hats, tin, iron and wood, was soap. This tax on soap steadily raised the price of tax so that only the very wealthy could afford it. The king, Charles I, also granted a patent for soap (essentially producing a monopoly) to one small group of soap-makers. It was as a result of this use of patents to create monopolies that not long after laws were introduced restricting patents to new inventions only.

A few decades later, during the reign of Mary II and her Dutch husband, William of Orange, who ruled as joint sovereigns of England, the tax on soap was extended. Not only was soap taxed, but the production of soap was heavily controlled. Soap is relatively simple to make at home, even with very basic technologies, and so the only way that a tax on soap could work was if the government also controlled its production. Revenue officials ensured that soap was never produced in quantities smaller than one imperial ton and that soap-making equipment was locked up when not in use. It was illegal to produce soap for home use!

These laws and taxes lasted until 1853, meaning that for about 200 years soap was prohibitively expensive and illegal to make at home, severely limiting the hygiene of any but the very wealthy! So the peasants never really stood a chance and one can only imagine the disease and suffering that must have resulted from these harmful laws.

Guess the Artefact #3

This week’s Guess the Artefact challenge centres around an artefact used by generations of school children. There are some adults who may even have used these themselves when they were at school. It is interesting to see if modern students can recognise this object and work out how it was used. The picture below comes from the Victorian Collections website, managed by Museums Australia (Victoria). This website is a great source of images and texts from bygone days.

This object is rectangular and made of a relatively thin piece of black stone,measuring 25 x 17.5 cm, surrounded by 4 pieces of wood, which are a couple of centimetres wide. The corners of the wooden pieces have been rounded. There are several sets of faint parallel lines from left to right across the front of the stone, each pair of lines separated by a small gap. The back is plain, without parallel lines. The surface of the stone is slightly scratched. The letters “O.F” have been written and slightly incised into the topmost strip of wood. There is a small hole in between these two letters.

The dark stone is a fine-grained argillaceous (clayey) rock, called slate, which breaks naturally into thin slabs. In Australia, this rock was mined in South Australia, NSW and Tasmania in the 19th century. The dark surface of the stone reminds one of an object which was common in classrooms until fairly recently. Can you guess which one? They have been mostly replaced by whiteboards in modern classrooms. Yes, it does look similar to a blackboard, but much smaller.

The spacing of the lines is also important and might look familiar. Can you think of a familiar object, also used in classrooms, that has similar lines? Especially the ones used by younger students have similar lines. Yes, pre-ruled exercise books, with spacing for upper and lower case letters have very similar lines.

So it seems that we have a small blackboard-type object marked with lines for learning to write letters. In fact, that is exactly what this is! These objects were called “slates” (I’m sure you can work out why) and were used in place of exercise books by students in schools from the time that Australia was first settled by Europeans, throughout the colonial period in the 19th century and even into the 20th century. Some schools in Queensland continued to use them into the 1960s, but in most places exercise books were used from the 1920s or 1930s.

Children with slates in classroom, Queensland, 1940.

The slates marked with parallel lines were used by younger students learning to write and form their letters correctly, but they were also used for all lessons in many classes. In fact, younger children often struggled to manage the correct use of a slate pencil. The reverse side (with no lines) was used for writing Maths sums and drawing. Until the 1930s, when the bulk manufacture of paper from pulp made from eucalypt trees made paper more readily available, paper was relatively expensive. Thus, where books were provided to students, they were only given to older students, whom, it was hoped, would make less mistakes and would therefore waste less paper. Students used a pencil made from a softer kind of slate, which made white marks on the dark slate, or chalk, to write on the slate. The slate pencil was tied onto the slate using string or ribbon, tied through the hole in the top of the frame. A damp sponge was used to erase the work. Sometimes ‘books’ of 2 or 3 slates were tied together, but usually students would have to write down their lesson, have it checked by the teacher, memorise it and then erase what they had written. This would have meant that they had no notes and had to rely entirely on what they could remember when they wrote their exams!

In practise, sponges would get lost or dirty and students would spit on the slate and rub it out with their sleeves. The wear and tear on clothes led to complaints from parents. Students would also suck on the pencils, as they worked better when damp. Concerns were made about hygiene when using slates. In 1909, a School Medical Officer in the UK managed to culture the bacteria that causes diphtheria off the slate pencils in one particular class, and there were calls for the use of school slates to be discontinued. However, it was also noted that slates were easier to disinfect than paper.

Slates were also used in homes – for writing shopping lists and the like. Archaeological excavations of houses and schools from the 19th century have shown that slate pencils and writing slates were common. However, slate was also used for roofing tiles, which does confuse the evidence sometimes. Writing slates could be used over and over, unlike paper, which could only be written on once. This made slates significantly cheaper than paper for a long time.

Can you make a list of the Pros and Cons of using slates in classrooms? What would be different if you used slates today? How do you think using slates influenced the way lessons were taught in schools? Think about what could be taught and what could not…

This Week in HASS – term 3, week 9

OpenSTEM’s ® Understanding Our World® Units are designed to cover 9 weeks of the term, because we understand that life happens. Sports carnivals, excursions and other special events are also necessary parts of the school year and even if the calendar runs according to plan, having a little bit of breathing space at the end of term can be essential for teachers and students alike. We have many suggestions for activities that can keep the students engaged and learning if there is extra time at the end of term.

So this week is the last week of scheduled lessons in our term 3 units. This week our younger students are ending the term on a high note with a class party! Older students are completing their Reflections on the term’s Scientific Report and engaging in a discussion on the role of Science in our society – always topical.

Foundation/Prep/Kindy to Year 3

The second half of the year can be tough for younger students – they are often starting to get tired and attention may be flagging at this stage. In order to liven things up, the units for Foundation/Prep/Kindy (Unit F.3), Year 1 (Unit 1.3), Year 2 (Unit 2.3), Year 3 (Unit 3.3) and combined Foundation/Prep/Kindy and Year 1 (Unit F-1.3) have a class party scheduled for this week. A range of options are discussed in the Teacher Handbooks – building on year level appropriate material covered during the term. Our Food In the Past resource is always popular and even contains recipes tailored to match the stories covered by students earlier in the term. However, sometimes food is not practical in the classroom, in which case dress-ups, decorations and games can promote the party atmosphere! Our Games From the Past resource has a range of activities both new and familiar, which students love. These games are also matched to the places from the stories covered in the beginning of the term, allowing the teacher to provide a coherent theme for the term.

Years 3 to 6

The older students have finished or are finishing off their Scientific Reports. This week there is an opportunity for them to reflect on what they have learnt during the term. The Student Workbook guides the students through the task of looking back at their work for the term, naming the enjoyable aspects of their projects, as well as any challenges encountered. Students are encouraged to think about alternate ways they could have approached their work, as well as recapping what they have learnt (an important step in integrating their knowledge). These skills of re-evaluating their own work and the processes they used are critical in the development of independent thinking and in teaching them how to manage their work, not only as they go on towards high school, but also for work habits in later life. In addition, we suggest a class discussion on the perspectives Science provides on issues in the world. How do modern perspectives differ from historical ones and what role has Science played in changing our understanding of these issues. The discussion of these points also addresses key parts of the curriculum. Students in Year 3 (Unit 3.7) will consider how their capital city or local community has changed over time. Those in Year 4 (Unit 4.3) can discuss our understanding of Australia before Europeans arrived and around the time of the First Fleet – how has our understanding of Aboriginal Australia changed over time? Year 5 (Unit 5.3) classes can compare colonial Australia to modern Australia and Year 6 (Unit 6.3) students will consider how Australia has changed since Federation.