How do you relate to the Australian environment?
When you hear 'Australian environment', what are the first words that pop into your head? Perhaps 'unique', or 'drought-affected', or maybe just 'hot'?!
In Our Australian Environment students handle objects to aid in their investigation of the relationship between the Australian continent and its people. This program provides all students with the opportunity to use a digital camera and all photographs will be supplied for follow-up classroom activities.
Details
| Year levels | 5–12 (or 6–12 for Qld, WA and SA) |
| Group size | 80 |
| Duration | 2 hours |
| Cost | $6 per student |
| Availability | Tuesday–Friday at 10am, 12pm, 3pm |
| Curriculum links |
Australian History curriculum links to our programs (178kb PDF) |
Aims
- Enable students to investigate socio-environmental history.
- Encourage students to explore and interpret Museum galleries.
Structure
- Introductory activity – students are introduced to the concepts of sustainability and environmental change throughout Australia's history. They explore objects that relate to a variety of environmental themes and examine how these themes are interrelated.
- Gallery activity – working in groups, students explore the Old New Land gallery to identify and photograph objects that relate to an aspect of Australia's environmental history and the theme of sustainability.
- Reflection – students gather to discuss their selected images and how they might be used for further research and reflect on Australia's environmental history.
Exploring the Museum
You may like to allow extra time to visit other exhibitions and to explore other places in the Museum, such as Circa and Kspace. For everything you need to know about visiting, see Plan and book a visit.
Related resources
These activity ideas might be useful in your classroom.
You may also be interested in these teacher resources:
- Old New Land – a unit of work investigating our changing relationship with the Australian land
- Can we 'Drought-Proof' Australia? – a unit of work exploring the causes, effects and attempts to manage drought in Australia
- Fire in Australia – a unit of work exploring the role and impact of bushfires in Australia.
You can also see the full list of resources related to the Australian environment.