AUSTRALIA You’re Standing In IT
This is Australia, country of ancient lands, bold landscapes & stories that stretch across time.
Here you’ll find films, links & learning ideas that bring our continent alive,
from Indigenous Dreamtime to wheat fields, cities & surprising histories.
HISTORIC AUSTRALIA ON FILM
WATCH AUSTRALIA IN THE 1960S
Watch 1960s city life, post-war migration, and landscapes of change. Use these clips to spark discussion about how Australia was then vs now.The National Film and Sound Archive have a great series of films of Australia in the mid 1960s. The films cover each capital city. They are great to use in conjunction with history units based on past and present studies. The NFSA has a number of online films, a great resource. You might like to take a look at "I'm Going To School Today” 1971.
Made by The Commonwealth Film Unit 1966. Directed by Joe Scully. Episode 12 shows an idyllic picture of life in the New South Wales capital of Sydney in the mid 1960s. This series was made to encourage immigration to Australia and to highlight the various social activities, employment and educational opportunities and lifestyles of the various cities and regional centres throughout Australia.
AGRICULTURE & INDUSTRY
Australian Wheat Harvest 2023 QLD
If you like big machines and drone shots this is a great video.
See large-scale wheat harvesting, drone shots, and farming stories.
Perfect for STEM, geography & change over time comparisons.
Lock Valley Farms YouTube Channel has some great videos about farm life.
Shearing With Pia - My 4yo Surprised Me With Her Own Video!
Could It Be? Punching Wheat In Before It Possibly Rains | Wheat Seeding, Australia 2024
Also check out
2015 Harvest using a Phantom 3 Pro drone for the airborne footage and a Xiaomi YI camera for the on machinery footage of farms near Moonta & Kadina, South Australia.
This is a fascinating video!!! Great music ;). Large and straight fields in the Australian dry and hot climate. With a minimum moisture harvest is a joy :).
and The VT OUTBACK Webpage
WATCH
Watch Tourism Australia’s 360-Degree Videos Compare these tourism videos to the 1960’s videos above.
Includes Canberra, great Barrier Reef and Sydney Tasmania. Make sure you choose the HD video setting.
STRINE
"LET'S TALK STRINE"
Strine is the quirky, colourful world of Australian slang . The words Aussies toss around every day.
On this page you’ll find idioms kids love, real examples to bring Strine alive in your lessons.
Try the translation, you will have fun with this.
FAMOUS AUSTRALIANS
Sir Donald Bradman, dubbed ‘the boy from Bowral’, rose to acclaim during times of hardship, depression and recovery. He represented Australia for 20 years, playing 52 Tests from 1928/29-1948.
Famous Australians
Includes pioneers, explorers, Inventors, Engineers, Scientists and Artists etc.
MY PLACE
Rich educational material to support primary and lower-secondary teachers using the My Place TV series in the classroom. xplore background information, aligned with the My Place stories, on events and people significant to Australia's history. Download clips and stills from the TV series, as well as teaching activities and student activity sheets.
ABOUT AUSTRALIA
Australian Governement Site
Australian Government site Lots of information. Australian Stories, our government, indigenous culture etc. Facts are comprehensive but boring.
Floral Emblems of Australia. and there meanings.
Prime Ministers of Australia List of Australian Prime Ministers, includes images and biographies.
Parliamentary Education Office Information, virtual tours, links etc on Federal Parliament.
Australian Parliament The House of Representatives, The Senate, Educational materials, the Australian Constitution.
CIA
The World Factbook provides basic intelligence on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, environment, communications, transportation, military, terrorism, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.
Check out the Australian entry.
TROVE HISTORY
Trove Pictures of Australia from the NLA
Take a look at the Picture Australia site. This site will not be officially launched for a while yet. I provides a single point of access to over 450,000 digitized images from pictorial collections of many leading cultural heritage institutions. It's a fantastic resource.
BUSHRANGERS
Ned Kelly Would you like to learn what errors there are in the information you may have read about the Kelly gang?
Not Just Ned From the National Museum of Australia. Contains some great teaching resources as downloadable pdfs with images. Also includes a Biography of Dictionary of Bush Rangers. Well presented and easily navigated.
Watch the video BTN on Ned Kelly
EXPLORERS
Project Gutenberg - Australia This site is very comprehensive with many links and covers, a lot of primary source material for download. eBooks and excerpts - quite delightful. It is fantastic to have access to all this primary source material.
Australian Explorers - Trailblazers.
CONVICTS
Port Arthur Convict Site. Teaching resources.
Convict Records an interesting resource where you can research your convict past. Read colourful stories about convicts. There are a lot of lInks. Smith, Brown, William, Jones and Johnson are the 5 most common convict surnames
Convict Trials Once you have a convicts name you can search the proceedings of the Old Bailey in London, for a court trial transcript. You can also access convicts in alphabetical order. Please be selective here some reference to rape etc.
Claytons Convicts Fill in this dialogue box and makeup your own convict history.
CONVICTED
CONVICTED BY ANNA CLARK
Welcome to the unwonderful world of kids, crims, and other convict capers. Australia's convict history is so chocked with floggings, death, cannibalism, and very smelly feet and underpants that it's a wonder you ever wanted to read about anything else!
Mary Bryant Great series of videos about Mary Bryant a 17 year old convict - YouTube Video. Original Rating "M" Suitable for Senior Secondary only.
FIRST FLEET
First Fleet Fellowship Lists ships and convicts who were on board each ship, includes images and stories.
DRAW a first Fleet ship step by step guide.
Label the ships and add the list of at least 3 of the convicts transported on each one. Provide details each ship and the number of convicts on board.
Write your own Play - Watch the BTN report for on the First Fleet. Select some convicts to research a good one is:- John Hudson
NSW State Library is a fabulous resource here you can Talk like a convict - 6 lessons well resourced.
GOLD
Gold Rushes in Australia
Great videos and information from the National Museum of Australia Also Check out the Virtual Teacher Gold Page
FEDERATION
National Museum Australia Great resources including the Video “Defining moments:
Australian Federation
Benefits of Federation - Primary Source Parliamentary Education Office
Tenterfield Oration
“The Federation of Australia"
Federation BTN (4mins) includes transcript
ABORIGINAL STORIES
Australian dreamtime story - the world's biggest rock, Burringurrah, Mount Augustus Australia
Aboriginal Iconography
Contains info on Aboriginal Art, Art Lessons, Dreaming Stories and Art Symbols. Colourful and engaging site.
CHILDREN’S GAMES
Aboriginal Children's Games - great website, select a game. Each game is described, a background is given and the indigenous name is given.
Map Showing Aboriginal Tribal Boundaries across Australia
DREAMTIME
Aboriginal Dream-time story of Waatji Pulyeri (the Blue Wren) great Video.
I love this one - great for discussion
Video of Aboriginal artist John Turnbull(fabulous for K-2)
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What’s next…….
Strine
Strine is the quirky, colourful world of Australian slang . The words Aussies toss around every day.
On this page you’ll find idioms kids love, real examples to bring Strine alive in your lessons.
Gold
Find out all about GOLD. Where is it in Australia? Where are the large deposits around the world? Maybe you can be a gold miner!
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No unauthorised reproduction without written permission. Webmaster & Designer - Cathy L. Brown
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