Close message Due to scheduled maintenance on Thursday 10th September 2026 between 5:00 pm until 7:00 pm AEST, Scootle may face a disruption in service. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Humanities and social sciences / Year 3 / Knowledge and Understanding / History

Curriculum content descriptions

How the community has changed and remained the same over time and the role that people of diverse backgrounds have played in the development and character of the local community (ACHASSK063)

Elaborations
  • exploring photographs, newspapers, oral histories, diaries and letters to investigate how an aspect of life in the local community (for example, transport, entertainment, the natural and built environment, technology) has changed over time (for example, from the time of European settlement to the present day)
  • comparing photographs from the past and present of a specific location to identify the change or continuity (similarities and differences over time) associated with people, events/developments, places or ecosystems
  • identifying individuals and groups from the past of diverse backgrounds (for example, gender, culture, ability, age, socioeconomic circumstance) who have contributed to the community’s development (for example, economic, social, cultural, civic or environmental contributions) and character (for example, culturally diverse, multi-faith, prosperous, helpful)
  • exploring how the contributions of individuals, groups and organisations are recognised (for example, parades, Australia Day Awards, monuments)
General capabilities
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
  • Intercultural understanding Intercultural understanding
  • Personal and social capability Personal and social capability
ScOT terms

Technology,  Social history,  Lifestyles,  Local history,  Education,  Recreation

Interactive

Botany of Kamay

This resource explores the plants of Kamay Botany Bay – their significance to the Aboriginal people of Kamay, and to the botanists on the Endeavour in 1770. This resource is one part of the 'Endeavour – eight days in Kamay' resource.

Video

Counted: Australian culture in the 1960s

What was Australia like in the 1960s? Why does reporter Stan Grant say that "change is coming" at this time, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? Choose one of the people mentioned in this video and do some research into their sporting, artistic or political achievements.

Video

Pocket Compass, Ep 5: An immigration nation

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull once described Australia as an 'immigration nation'. What do you think he meant by that? Do you agree? |Watch four very different people speak about their experiences as first- and second-generation migrants. What were some reasons they or their parents migrated to Australia?

Video

ABC News: Full-on Aussies

How do people celebrate Australia Day where you live? Watch how diverse groups of Melburnians spend Australia Day in 2013, and hear some people talk about why they chose to become Australian citizens.

Text

The Shop Train: Unit of work

This unit of work has been written to support the book The Shop Train. The book was inspired by the ‘Tea and Sugar’ train that provided supplies to people living in remote communities between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie. This unit includes practical ideas for using this book in your classroom.

Audio

Hey History Episode 1: The oldest classroom

How did First Nations people learn before books, school and the internet? What are some of the teaching places on Country? Can a cave or a beach be a classroom? What’s the role of rock art, like engravings, stencils and prints, in the ‘oldest classroom’? Students at La Perouse Primary School in Sydney tell us what they ...

Text

Focus on Japan: Cross Curriculum Connections in Primary Schools

Ideas and resources that connect the learning of Japanese language with other learning areas.

Text

Focus on China: Cross Curriculum Connections in Primary Schools

Ideas and resources that connect the learning of Chinese language with other learning areas.

Downloadable

Sustainability and Sydney Metro – Stage 2

This inquiry-based unit of work was created, trialled and peer reviewed as part of a professional learning program in inquiry-based learning for school teachers. The professional learning courses were part of a pilot partnership between the NSW Government’s Sydney Metro transport agency and Western Sydney University.

Downloadable

Sydney Metro – creating a website – Stage 2

This inquiry-based unit of work was created, trialled and peer reviewed as part of a professional learning program in inquiry-based learning for school teachers. The professional learning courses were part of a pilot partnership between the NSW Government’s Sydney Metro transport agency and Western Sydney University. Students ...

Interactive

Gold rush: level 1

Dig for gold on the Ballarat goldfields in 1865. Try your luck at alluvial or shaft mining. Buy a miner's permit, tools and enough supplies to last a month. Discover how hard life was on the goldfields. Explore a map showing the countries migrants left to join the gold rush in Australia. Find out which towns developed due ...

Image

Sled dogs at the South Pole, 1911

This is a 1911 black-and-white sepia-toned photograph, taken by Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) at the South Pole, of a dog team hitched to a loaded sled on the snow. A figure dressed in Arctic-style cold weather gear stands beside the sled and a Norwegian flag is stuck in the snow. Apart from three other dogs tethered behind ...

Image

'Southern Sun' above Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1931

This is a gelatin silver-toned composite photograph measuring 32 cm x 25.5 cm, created by E.W. Searle. The Avro-10 Southern Sun plane piloted by Charles Ulm celebrated the arrival in Sydney of aviatrix Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. Amy Johnson had crash landed in Brisbane and was flown ...

Image

Touring possible sites for the federal capital, 1902

This is a black-and-white photograph, measuring 18.8 cm x 24.0 cm, taken in 1902 during a tour of inspection by senators from the Federal Parliament of possible sites for the proposed federal capital. Having alighted from a horse-drawn stage coach, five members of the party en route to Tumut, New South Wales, are standing ...

Image

'Panorama of Challicum, No. II', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 16 cm x 24.5 cm showing the Victorian squatting runs Challicum and Yalla-y-poora from a south-south-westerly viewpoint. In the midground is the yellow grassland of the Fiery Creek plains, gum trees dot the countryside and the distant bluish mountain is Mount Weejort. Two emus are shown in ...

Image

'Sergeants Freehold Quartz Gold Mining Company's claim, Redan, Ballarat', 1881

This is a pen, ink and watercolour drawing, measuring 43.5 cm x 55 cm, of Sergeants Freehold Quartz Gold Mining Company's claim at Redan, Ballarat. It was drawn in 1881 by T G Moyle, a gold fields artist working in the 1880s and 1890s. Extensive mine buildings are spread over a wide area, but dwarfed by a huge pile of quartz. ...

Image

Ruins of the Model Prison, Port Arthur, 1911-15

This is a sepia-toned photograph measuring 8.2 cm x 13.2 cm. It shows the ruins of the Model Prison at Port Arthur, Tasmania. A semicircular brick wall has three barred doors that open to exercise yards. A fourth door is open, showing another brick wall with steps leading up to the closed door of a solitary confinement ...

Image

'Panorama of Challicum, No. VI', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 17.2 cm x 26.2 cm showing the twin peaks of Mount Langi Ghiran rising behind the smaller tip of Conical Hill. Two distant mountains on the right are Ben Nevis and Mount Buangor. A camp of Indigenous Djapwurrong people, consisting of two bark and wood dwellings, is situated on the edge of ...

Image

City railway terminus, Melbourne, 1854

This is a black-and-white lithograph measuring 12.5 cm x 20 cm, depicting the city terminus of the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company in Melbourne in 1854. An early type of steam locomotive is shown approaching a platform where passengers and freight are waiting. The drawing was made by Samuel Thomas Gill and his ...

Video

Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion, c1942 - item 1 of 2

This clip from a silent black-and-white home movie shows Torres Strait Islander servicemen undertaking army training drills on Thursday Island (Weiban) during the Second World War. It opens with a long shot of barefoot uniformed men marching in formation, and passing behind a squad of stationary men. It then cuts to shots ...