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Making a nation - unit of work

Teacher guide Making a nation - unit of work

TLF ID M009642

This is an extended unit of work about how people decide to form a federation, how a federated nation works, how federations can break apart and whether Australia should become a republic. It comes from the 'Discovering democracy' series of units and contains several case studies from Australian and United States history that are explored through sequences of learning containing student activities and assessment tasks. Teacher notes, assessment criteria and selected sources are included in the resource.

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Educational details

Educational value
  • This is a useful resource for history teaching and learning in year 9. Many of the unit's sequences of learning and student worksheets are directly relevant to the content description about key events and ideas in the development of Australian self-government in the elective depth study Making a nation.
  • This is one of the few digital resources currently available that compare the Australian and US constitutions. With some scaffolding, the unit's focus question 'How do you make a federation work?' and associated student activities could be most useful for the content description in year 6 history that calls for knowledge and understanding of the British and American influences on Australia's system of law and government.
  • The learning activities in the unit provide useful opportunities for students to develop and enhance their historical skills. These skills include comparing information from a range of sources in year 6 and processing and synthesising information from a range of sources for use as evidence in a historical argument in year 9.
Year level

6; 7; 8; 9

Topics Constitutions Civil wars Revolutions (Conflict) Democracy Federation Primary sources Significant people
Learning area
  • Humanities and social sciences
  • Civics and citizenship
  • History

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Copyright Holder
  • Name: Commonwealth of Australia
  • Organization: Commonwealth of Australia
  • Address: ACT, AUSTRALIA
  • Publisher
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organization: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Description: Publisher
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Name: The Department of Education\, Employment and Workplace Relations (DE
  • Organization: The Department of Education\, Employment and Workplace Relations (DE
  • Description: Publisher
  • Address: ACT, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.deewr.gov.au
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Unknown
Learning Resource Type
  • Online
Rights
  • © Commonwealth of Australia 2009. With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms and the DEEWR logo and copyright material that is owned by third parties, you may use the material in accordance with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC BY-SA) 3.0 Australia licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/au/ provided that appropriate acknowledgement is made, the material is not subjected to derogatory treatment and any derivative work attributes the original material and identifies the changes that have been made to it.