History / Year 10 / Historical Knowledge and Understanding

Curriculum content descriptions

Significant events and campaigns that contributed to popular awareness of environmental issues, such as the campaign to prevent the damming of Australia’s Gordon River, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl and the Jabiluka mine controversy in 1998 (ACDSEH127)

Elaborations
  • investigating a range of environmental impacts (for example, the flooding of Lake Pedder in Tasmania, deforestation in Indonesia, the decline of the Aral Sea, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the whaling industry)
  • explaining the struggle over French nuclear weapon testing in the Pacific 1966–1996 (for example, the sinking of the ship, the Rainbow Warrior, in 1985)
General capabilities
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
  • Intercultural understanding Intercultural understanding
  • Ethical understanding Ethical understanding
Cross-curriculum priorities
ScOT terms

Activism,  Environmental management,  Conservation (Environment)

Video

ABC News: The fight to save Kelly's Bush, 1971

Discover why a determined group of residents in one of Sydney's wealthier suburbs stood up to their local council, the New South Wales government and a big property developer. This ABC report explores the controversy surrounding the planned development of Kelly's Bush, situated beside Sydney Harbour at Woolwich, and the ...

Video

Four Corners: Coal-waste conflict, 1973

Watch this confrontation between a conservationist group and a coal-mining executive in 1973. The coal mine in Coalcliff was given the all-clear from the State Planning Authority to dump coal-mining waste on the Illawarra escarpment. This happened before a planned official inquiry into the issue.

Video

This Day Tonight: Fighting for Lake Pedder, 1972

How far would you be prepared to go in defence of a principle you felt strongly about? Enter a tent on the shores of doomed Lake Pedder in 1972 and listen to three determined people explain why they are protesting against the plan to flood Tasmania's Lake Pedder. The clip includes environmental activist Brenda Hean who ...

Video

This Day Tonight: Lake Pedder's future, 1972

How do you measure the worth of a beautiful natural site - in terms of the hydro-electric power it can produce or the beauty, stillness and grandeur that it affords people who visit? This 1972 clip from 'This Day Tonight' focuses on the physical and aesthetic attributes of Tasmania's Lake Pedder. Reporter Peter Ross stands ...

Interactive

Discovering democracy: getting things done

Interact with a slideshow of images and text to explore how change can be bought about by people taking action and putting pressure on their elected representatives. The issue of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania is used as a case study. Complete a related task.

Video

Nationwide: Franklin River campaign

How important is the environment in an election campaign? In this clip, explore the issue that changed Australia's conservation landscape forever: the fight to save the Franklin River. Watch how the Tasmanian Wilderness Society used political and media strategies to influence the outcome of the 1983 federal election in ...

Online

Creating an Indigenous plant-use garden: resources from the bush

For thousands of years, First Nations peoples across Australia have been using plants for many different purposes. Plants are used for food, fibre, shelter, medicine, tools and utensils, hunting, music and ceremony. Everything they needed to survive comes from the land. Outcomes of this learning activity are for learners ...

Online

Bollywood spices up Aussie filmmaking

This learning sequence explores the global popularity of Bollywood, and how it has been incorporated in films by two Australian directors. Through analysis of two famous Bollywood films with ties to Australia, students refine their understanding of the genre's characteristics and develop an historic argument using the primary ...

Video

The Drum: Encouraging an angry desire for self-determination

The Freedom Riders travelled through regional NSW in February 1965, challenging racist attitudes and practices they encountered. In this clip from the ABC current affairs program 'The Drum', original Freedom Rider Hall Greenland reflects on events in Moree and expresses his hopes for what students recreating the Freedom ...

Interactive

Resistance

This resource is a virtual tour of the Resistance exhibition at The National Museum of Australia showing different responses by Aboriginal people to British colonisation. See videos and enlarged views of objects and texts in the exhibition.

Interactive

Sites2See: Reconciliation

This resource is a one-page guide to the people, processes, information and events around reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and other Australians, with links to music, video and digital resources and activities.

Online

Heritage Council Victoria: resources for teachers and students

This is a collection of resources exploring Victoria’s history and heritage. There are four main sections. The Victoria's Framework of Historical Themes section includes a downloadable teacher guide and lesson starters, it is organised in historical themes. The Vic-Heritage App section provides search functionality to find ...

Interactive

Sites2See: Australia and the Vietnam War

These are online resources for the topic Australia in the Vietnam War Era, including music, images and links to archival video clips from Australian Screen with teachers' notes.

Video

Stateline TAS: Aunty Ida West: Tasmanian Aboriginal Elder, 1995

Imagine being told not to speak your own language to your family and friends. Even worse, imagine being told that your whole culture had vanished, when you know it has not. These challenges were faced by Aboriginal people in the 20th century. In this clip, discover how Aunty Ida West's background and life experiences forged ...

Video

Four Corners: Surf culture hits Australia in the 1960s

How did surf culture change Australian popular culture? Rock music and the concept of the 'teenager' had arrived in Australia in the 1950s but in the 1960s the surfboard gave rise to a new youth subculture. This clip from 1964 explores conflict in the water and cultural changes that came with the rise of the 'surfie'.

Video

Four Corners: Native title: 200 years in the making

What do you know about the struggle for native title in Australia? On 3 June 1992 the High Court of Australia handed down a landmark ruling that acknowledged that the Meriam people of the Torres Strait had the right to hold native title over their islands (Murray, or Mer, Dauar and Waier). Find out more about this critical ...

Video

Four Corners: Native title: How to free your heart

Since the original Mabo decision was handed down by the High Court of Australia in 1992, acknowledging that the Meriam people of the Torres Strait had the right to hold native title over the Murray Islands, society's attitudes towards Native Title has evolved. In this clip, listen to the opinions of key players in the struggle ...

Video

Reflections on ending the White Australia policy

Why was the abolition of the White Australia policy so important? Steps taken by the Whitlam Labor government in 1973 signalled the end of the legislation behind the policy. Find out which event first led to the new multiracial policy being put into practice. In this clip, you will hear from former prime ministers and ministers ...

Video

Paul Keating's 1992 Redfern speech

On 10 December 1992, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating delivered a speech in Redfern, Sydney at a celebration of the International Year of the World's Indigenous People. The speech addressed many of the injustices suffered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the previous 200 years. Today, it is regarded ...

Video

ABC Open: Aunty Dorrie and the 'dog licence'

Have you ever heard of the 'dog licence'? This was a Certificate of Exemption, issued by the Aboriginal Welfare Board, that allowed Indigenous Australians to live as part of white Australian society. In order to get one of these, Aboriginal people effectively had to renounce their culture and prove that they were 'respectable'. ...