Activity 1: Our Australian nation (30 min)
1a Conduct a whole-class discussion to discover what is known about Australia as a federal nation of states and territories with local, state/territory and Commonwealth governments. Use a wall map or atlases to identify places.
Your discussion should include:
- general knowledge of your own state or territory including the names of and distances to other cities and towns and the capital
- names of and distances to the capitals of other states and territories
- interstate travel and mobility between states and territories, eg borders, quarantine gates
- overseas travel and the process of leaving and/or returning to Australia, eg passports, customs
- the levels of government including local councils, state/territory parliaments, Commonwealth Parliament (identify Canberra on the map).
1b Introduce the term 'federation'.
Activity 2: A letter from the past (15 min)
2a Display Handout 1 explaining that this is an adapted copy of a real letter that was published in the Argus newspaper.
Highlight features such as:
- the old-fashioned language
- the use of the word 'colony' instead of 'state'
- the use of the term 'federation'.
Students could use the timeline on the Stories of Democracy CD ROM to locate events in Australia's history. They can add information about other events such as the gold rushes (1851), the end of convict transportation to New South Wales (1840), to Tasmania (1852) and to Western Australia (1868) to the class timeline.
