SUBJECTS: History
YEARS: 5–6
Imagine leaving your home to travel back to a time over 150 years ago, to live and work on an outback farm.
Sixteen Australians take part in a reality TV show about life on Oxley Downs, a sheep station built to look and work as a real station would have in the 1860s.
Join them as the cook prepares her first meal in the homestead kitchen.
Things to think about
- 1.Who usually prepares the evening meal at your home? How is it prepared? How is preparing meals different when people go camping? How would cooking a family meal have been different in the 1860s, without running water, gas, electricity or any shops nearby?
- 2.What are the shepherds eating for their meal? How is it prepared? What foods and equipment are used to prepare the evening meal at the homestead? How does the kitchen maid, Danielle, feel about her job? How does she do the washing up? What does the squatter say he must do the next day? Why is this important?
- 3.The narrator says the cook, Carolina, has made a 'huge difference'? What does this mean? Why is this important? Everyone at the homestead seems happy except for Danielle, the kitchen maid. How do you think a maid would have felt about her job in the 1860s? Would she have complained? Why do you think this?
- 4.Find out what foods were available to colonial settlers in the 1860s. For one day, keep a list of the things you eat that the squatter's family could not have eaten. Make a daily menu for the 1860s homestead. Try to eat only foods from this menu for one day. How do you feel about this?
Production Date: 2005
Copyright
Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).