Civics and citizenship / Year 8 / Civics and Citizenship Skills / Questioning and research

Curriculum content descriptions

Develop a range of questions to investigate Australia's political and legal systems (ACHCS068)

Elaborations
  • developing complex and open-ended questions to explore a civics or citizenship topic such as ‘freedoms’ (for example, ‘What do our freedoms mean in practice?’ and ‘What do you consider to be the most important freedom?’)
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
  • Intercultural understanding Intercultural understanding
  • Personal and social capability Personal and social capability
  • Ethical understanding Ethical understanding
ScOT terms

Law,  Politics

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Western Australia: A Centenary of Change 1918 - 2018

This resource has been developed to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the conclusion of World War I. The resource aims to support teachers from Foundation through to Year 10 in integrating 100 years of West Australian history into the HASS curriculum.

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Respectful Civil Discourse: Post-Referendum (Years 7 and 8)

This set of resources about civil discourse education uses the Uluru Statement from the Heart and other resources as the basis for students in Years 7 and 8 to discuss the types of debates that occurred during the 2023 referendum for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The focus is ...

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Queensland Parliament: Classroom activities

This webpage includes resources specific to the Queensland context as well as more generic resources applicable to a broad range of Australian classrooms. Find role plays about how Bills are made, about how Parliamentary Committees function and a template for a Parliamentary Inquiry role play.

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Contemporary issues in Civics and Citizenship

This resource is designed to help teachers to think about their own practices and explore a number of common approaches to the discussion of contemporary issues. The resource includes six professional learning modules, with pre-readings, group activities, discussion questions and prompts, plus other resources. Module themes ...

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Voting in Australia

The representatives elected to federal Parliament make decisions that affect many aspects of Australian life including tax, marriage, the environment, trade and immigration. This 28 page PDF document explains the history of Australia’s electoral system and how it works, Australia’s system of government and the role citizens ...

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Ministers and shadow ministers

This fact sheet investigates the work of ministers (members of the Australian Government with special responsibilities) and shadow ministers (members of the opposition who closely examine the work of the government).

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Government

This fact sheet explores the role and functions of the Australian Government, including who is in the government, how it is formed, minority government and the principle of responsible government.

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Separation of powers

The principle of the separation of powers distributes the power to govern between the Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary. This fact sheet examines the role of each group and the related principle of responsible government.

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Make a law: House of Representatives

Discover how bills—proposed laws—are introduced, debated and voted on in the House of Representatives by turning your class into a Parliament and doing it yourself! This lesson plan outlines the steps to run a role play in the classroom and includes a video illustrating the process, teacher notes, class preparation and ...

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Cabinet

Cabinet is the top-level decision-making group within the Australian Government. Find out more about who is in Cabinet and how it works with this fact sheet.

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Make a law: Senate

Discover how bills—proposed laws—are introduced, debated and voted on in the Senate by turning your class into a Parliament and doing it yourself! This lesson plan outlines the steps to run a role play in the classroom and includes a video illustrating the process, teacher notes, class preparation and plans for making the ...

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Three levels of government: governing Australia

In Australia the three levels of government work together to provide us with the services we need. This webpage provides a detailed explanation of the roles and responsibilities of each level, how they raise money and how they work together. Case studies show how the powers of the Australian Parliament have expanded.

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Year 8: democracy and law in action

This collection of resource sheets for students and teachers support investigations of the types of law in Australian and how laws are made through parliament and the courts. Activities introduce the concept of customary law and different perspectives about Australia's national identity. The resources are designed to provide ...

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Australian Constitution online

Browse the complete text of the Australian Constitution with this easy-to use website. It includes a detailed overview by the Australian Government Solicitor and a 2:26 min video snapshot about the Constitution and its role in the governance of the Australian nation.

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Australian Constitution in focus

The Australian Constitution is the legal framework for how Australia is governed. This article explores in detail the history of the Constitution, its key features and the High Court’s role in interpreting it. The page describes processes for amending the Constitution including through referendum as well as two case studies ...

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Making a Nation: changing the Constitution

This interactive resource looks at the creation of the Australian Constitution and then explores the process used to change it - referendum. Information on several referendums is presented (1910, 1937, 1967, 1984) but, in a case study, students investigate the 1951 anti-communism referendum in more detail. The seven activities ...

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State, territory and Australian parliaments

This website is about the parliaments of the states and territories of Australia, as well as the Australian Parliament. It describes the different origins of the colonies and their movement to self-government during the 19th century, and subsequent federation into one nation in 1901. The resource describes the structures, ...

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Australian reported crime victims since 2010 - dataset

This is a dataset that provides statistics about crimes reported by victims from 2010 to the latest year of available data. It is periodically updated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The dataset is in MS Excel format.

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Sensory Experience

This is a website about how the treatment and mainstream understanding of deaf and blind people has changed overtime. The resource has three sections: Introductory information; Story Objects; and Story Education Resources. There are 16 Story Objects that tell the stories of individuals, events and artefacts of deaf and ...

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Magna Carta: The story of our freedom

This is a resource about the Magna Carta (Great Charter) agreed between King John and his rebellious barons in 1215 and its influence on the development of human rights and democratic freedoms to the present day. The resource consists of: an animated infographic ‘Tell the story’ with hyperlinks to further information; an ...