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Humanities and social sciences / Year 2 / Inquiry and skills / Questioning

Curriculum content descriptions

Pose questions about past and present objects, people, places and events (ACHASSI034)

Elaborations
  • developing how, when, where, why questions at the start of and during an investigation and then revisiting the questions to check if they have been answered
  • developing inquiry questions about a historical site (for example, ‘What does it look like now?’, ‘What condition is it in?’, ‘What was its purpose?’, ‘How might its use have changed?’, ‘How was it built/created?’, ‘Who built it?’, ‘How is it now used?’, ‘Why is it important?’)
  • developing inquiry questions about places (for example, ‘What are the features of the place?’, ‘How far away is it?’, ‘How easy is it to get to?’, ‘How am I connected to it?’)
  • posing questions using the stems, ‘How do I feel about …’, ’What would it be like to …’ and ‘What effect …’
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
ScOT terms

Artefacts,  Geographic location

Assessment

Year 2 history assessment - Investigating changes in technology: The past in the present

This is an assessment package that uses the Year 2 Australian Curriculum history achievement standard to gather evidence about how well students have demonstrated what they know, what they understand and what they can do in relation to the topic 'The Past in the Present'. Children compare sources from the past and the present ...

Video

For the Juniors: Visit a restored 19th-century cottage

Take a trip back in time to discover what some Australian homes looked like in the past. Visit an old miner's cottage that was built long ago. Explore the kitchen, the living room and the outdoor toilet. Imagine what your life would be like if you grew up in this home.

Interactive

Meeting at Kamay

This resource explores the perspectives of the Aboriginal people of Kamay Botany Bay and the men aboard the HMB Endeavour upon their meeting in 1770. It aims to help students understand the history of Australia's Aboriginal peoples and why stories of the past are important to all of us. This resource is one part of the ...

Video

This Day Tonight: Playgrounds, billycarts and hot rods

Discover what school holidays were like for children in the past. In this black-and-white clip, a reporter asks some school children how they feel about holidays. Find out what kinds of things children did on their holidays when your parents and grandparents were your age.

Text

Little history: Toys and games

This unit of work uses toys and games to provide opportunities for students to explore concepts of change and continuity by making comparisons of the toys children have played with over time. Structured around a series of inquiry questions students can use images from the museum collection to create a timeline of toys. ...

Video

For the Juniors: Candles, cards and carols: Christmas in 1983

How do people celebrate Christmas now? This clip shows some of the ways Christmas was celebrated in 1983. People sent cards, gave presents and sang carols. Have things changed?

Online

Farms have distinctive features

This resource is a 32 page pdf integrated inquiry unit, for junior primary students, exploring how the distinctive qualities of a farm space influence farming practice. This unit uses the five stage inquiry model to sequence activities. Topics explored include: how do weather patterns and seasons affect farms?; Why are ...

Online

Farms and people's connections to them

This is a teacher resource containing a sequence of activities for investigating farms and the connections that diverse groups of people have to them. It contains material to assist planning, implementing and assessing a study of different Australian farms, the primary resources that come from farms, and connections that ...

Video

Chequerboard: Twinkle, twinkle, little ducks

A class of children join in a singing lesson on their first day of school in 1974. Watch and see how school has changed, and stayed the same, over time.

Video

For the Juniors: Cooking food in the past and present

How might your family cook without electricity or gas? See what some kitchens of people from long ago looked like. Discover ways that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people cook some food.

Online

GeogSpace: year 2 - exemplar

This is a web page consisting of an overview and two illustrations of practice on the GeogSpace website, a resource for teachers. The focus is on a student's understanding of the earth, as represented by a world map and a globe. Illustration 1 is a set of activities using a globe of the world as a model of the earth. Illustration ...

Online

How times change

This resource is a website supporting teachers and students of the Australian Curriculum: History in Year 1. Includes teacher support, curriculum connections and ready-to-use digital resources about the present, past and future and about differences between their own lives and those of people in the past.

Video

Say hello in Dharug

Watch this video to learn how to greet someone in the Dharug language, spoken by the Indigenous people of the Sydney Basin area. How do you say 'hello, how are you?' in Dharug? And what are the words for good and bad? Practise these phrases with Jacinta Tobin and then teach them to a friend or family member.

Video

What is a meat safe?

Before fridges were invented, people used meat safes to keep their food cool. But what is a meat safe? Watch this clip to find out! What was the meat safe made out of? How was it designed to keep bugs out? And how did the meat safe actually keep food cool? Think about the way we keep food cool today. How do the fridges ...

Video

An olden day toilet

In the olden days, there were no toilets inside the house. Why do you think that was? Instead there was a "potty" for the children and a commode chair for the parents. Would you be brave enough to help empty the potty in the morning? How did people in the olden days wash their hands if there was no tap? Buckingham House ...

Video

Ironing clothes in the olden days

How do your parents get all the wrinkles out of your clothes? Do you sometimes see your parents using an iron? In the olden days there was no electricity, so the iron had to be heated up on a fire. In this video, Buckingham House volunteer Jeannie Green shows us some old-fashioned irons and explains how people used them. ...

Online

We Remember Anzac: primary resource

Developed to commemorate the centenary of Anzac, this book provides an an Order of Service and step-by-step instructions to assist teachers and community groups to organise a respectful commemorative event. A series of four inquiry-based investigation supported by primary and secondary source material support students to ...

Interactive

Environmental and Zoo Education Centres – primary school resources

A collection of digital resources for primary school teachers and students to support teaching and learning from home, with a particular focus on geography, science and history. The resources were developed by Department of Education teachers from 25 Environmental and Zoo Education Centres in NSW and include Google Sites, ...

Video

Virtual reality and the stereoscope

Do you know what virtual reality (VR) is? VR is something you can experience if you put on a VR headset. The headset lets you see and hear things that make you feel like you're in a completely different place. Perhaps you've seen people using VR headsets or even tried one out yourself. In this video, Margot shows us an ...

Online

Features of places - Beaches

In this sequence of 6 activities, students explore the natural and human features of beaches and develop an understanding of the way coastal areas are used for leisure, recreation and sport.