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Civics and citizenship / Year 7 / Civics and Citizenship Skills / Questioning and research

Curriculum content descriptions

Develop a range of questions to investigate Australia's political and legal systems (ACHCS054)

Elaborations
  • developing a key question such as ‘How does the law protect all individuals?’ and related questions to inform the investigation (for example, ‘What is the presumption of innocence?’)
  • considering current events to generate ideas for research
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,  Research questions,  Politics

Online

Australian Civics and Citizenship Curriculum Year 7 unit of work

This unit of work deals with key concepts relating to Australia's federal Parliament specifically the question 'How is Australia's system of democratic government shaped by the Constitution?' It contains lessons, differentiated activities, assessment items and a marking rubric.

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Teaching controversial issues

This guide explores the nature of controversial issues, reasons for teaching controversial issues and the value of a global citizenship education approach. It provides guidance and classroom strategies for handling and exploring controversial issues, and also engaging with the topic of “fake news”.

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Commerce 4 – Law, society and political involvement

In this learning sequence students investigate the role and structure of the legal system. They develop an understanding of how laws affect individuals and groups and regulate society, and how individuals and groups participate in the democratic process. Students examine various legal and political systems and learn how ...

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First Day Series 2

This resource contains five lessons which explore key themes in First Day series 2 including gender diversity, leadership, allyship, advocacy and media representation. Each lesson includes discussion starters, a relevant First Day clip to view and respond to, and suggested learning tasks to reinforce and demonstrate student ...

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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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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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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.

Interactive

Australian Parliament history timeline

This interactive timeline explores key milestones in the history of Australia's Parliament that led to federation and how the work of Parliament has influenced Australian democratic development since 1901. The timeline allows users to explore the milestones chronologically or follow thematic trails.

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Drug Crime and the Law

This sequence of four lesson ideas focuses on the concept that Australia's social wellbeing is enhanced when individuals understand the behaviours and laws associated with being responsible citizens, and report signs of illicit criminal drug activity to the appropriate authorities. This resource provides the opportunity ...

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Global citizenship in the classroom

This framework is designed to help teachers build the key elements of global citizenship into units of work on a wide range of topics. Find a wide range of teaching strategies to support creating questions, interrogating images, creating an issues tree, creating ‘mysteries’, an opinion continuum and others.

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Civic virtue

This resource has a collection of behaviours or expectations that show how effective citizens might demonstrate good civic virtue. Students match the behaviours/expectations with the three underlying elements of Rights and Liberties, Democratic Principles; and Australian Law.

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Teaching active citizenship guidance for teachers

Active citizenship is a teaching approach that uses active learning to equip students to take informed action aimed at making a positive difference in their communities. This guide has been co-constructed with British teachers and researchers to distil principles and practical advice about what constitutes an effective ...

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Civics and citizenship: posters and infographics

This webpage hosts a range of visual resources including posters about the Magna Carta, the separation of powers, various forms of government, check and balances and others.

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Secret Postcard Project

This lesson plan provides ideas for raising money for a local or national charity with a whole school arts project. Use it to support learning in Civics and Citizenship about how individuals and groups can make a positive difference in their community.

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Civics and Citizenship

This resource supports the National Assessment Program Civics and Citizenship (NAPCC) designed to explore student’s knowledge, skills and understanding of the civics and citizenship learning area. This document has been written by teachers to assist in preparation for assessment in the area of Civics and Citizenship. The ...

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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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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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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.

Video

Aboriginal Cultures, Ch 14: Identity, racism and connection

How do you identify yourself? For some of us our identity is linked to the way we look, but for many people, especially in a multicultural country like Australia, it is generally more complicated. Does the way you look inform how you identify yourself? Grace is a Yorta Yorta person, and her identity is linked to her connection ...