Impact Studios

Australia’s no 1 university for research impact

  • Synopsis
  • Credits

How do you teach and talk about Australian history with kids?

This is a bonus episode for teachers, carers and parents featuring Professor Anna Clark and  Professor Clare Wright.

Teaching and talking about history with kids can be rewarding and challenging.

From their experience studying and teaching history, Clare and Anna tackle questions like:

  • How can kids in primary school work with history’s complexity?
  • How can primary students consider the moral lessons of what they’re learning?
  • How do you encourage kids when they’re interested in history but get some facts wrong?
  • What’s one crucial thing to get across to kids about history?

Anna and Clare look at a concern about saying the wrong thing when talking about Australian history, and look at how to do Reconciliation while teaching or talking about history with kids?

And you’ll hear why asking questions is an important part of how you talk about history, and how to use primary sources and historical objects to connect kids with the history of our country.

Credits

  • Hosted by Axel Clark.
  • Made on Gadigal Country by Anna Clark, Clare Wright, Jane Curtis and Britta Jorgensen.
  • Executive producers are Clare Wright and Anna Clark.
  • Podcast concept, design and development by Anna Clark.
  • Indigenous Cultural Consultant is Katrina Thorpe.
  • Story editor is Kyla Slaven.
  • Learning material by Nick Adeney, Victorian primary educator
  • Curriculum advisors are Nicole Laauw, Department of Education NSW, and Rose Reid, Association of Independent Schools of NSW

Thanks to all the students whose voices you hear in this episode and their schools and teachers: Princes Street Primary school, Marrickville West Primary School, Westbourne Grammar School, Preshil Primary School, La Perouse Primary School, and Yirrkala Bilingual School.

Hey History! is produced by the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS and UTS Impact Studios.

Impact Studios’ executive producer is Sarah Gilbert.

Podcast playlist

EPISODE 4

Gold fever

May 15 · 28 MIN

What were the Gold Rushes? Why did people from all over the world get ‘gold fever’?

What was life like on the Ballarat goldfields of Victoria, on Wada Wurrung Country?

With so many different groups of people, how did everyone get along?

Did First Nations people mine gold too? What was the Eureka Stockade?

How did the Gold Rushes change Australia?

Students from Preshill Primary School and Westbourne Grammar in Melbourne tell us what they know about the Gold Rushes.

Fred Cahir, Andrew Pearce, Sarah Van de Wouw and an oral history about a Chinese miner share the different experiences of goldfields life.

How to use this episode in your classroom

Voices

Episode image 

Gold panning dish. Image courtesy of the National Museum of Australia.

Music

Lady Marie, Rush to the Clearing, Borough and Jespen by Blue Dot Sessions.

 

EPISODE 3

Convict kids

May 14 · 33 MIN

Why did kids get transported from Britain to Australia?

What were their crimes? Did they miss their families?

What was life like as a convict in Van Dieman’s Land, an open air prison on Palawa land?

Students from Princes Street Primary School in Hobart tell us what they know about convict kids.

Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Marcelle Mangan tell the story of transportation, convict tattoos and tokens, and convict life at the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart.

They answer kids’ questions and reflect on what the evidence can and can’t tell us about the convicts.

How to use this episode in your classroom

Voices

Episode image 

Convict love token from J. Fletcher. Image courtesy of the National Museum of Australia.

Music

Less Jaunty and Apollo Diedre by Blue Dot Sessions.

EPISODE 2

First meetings at Kamay Botany Bay

May 14 · 24 MIN

In 1770, Captain Cook got secret instructions to find the ‘Great South Land’.

His ship The Endeavour sailed into Kamay Botany Bay, the land of the Gweagal people.

How did the Gweagal people meet Captain Cook and his crew?

How did they communicate?

What happened over the eight days that Captain Cook stayed in Botany Bay?

Students from Marrickville West Primary School in Sydney tell us what they know about this encounter.

Ray Ingrey and Paul Irish, along with Captain Cook’s own diary, tell the story of this first meeting, answer kids’ questions, and reflect on how it went.

How to use this episode in your classroom

Voices 

  • Ray Ingrey is a Dharawal person from the La Perouse Community. He is a Director of the Gujuga Foundation.
  • Paul Irish is a professional historian who has worked for the past twenty years with Aboriginal heritage and history.
  • Captain’s Cook diary is voiced by Nick Hopwood.

Episode image 

Gweagal spears reproduced with the permission of the Dharawal and La Perouse community, and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, formerly MAA D 1914.1-4

Music

Curiously and Curiously and Roundpine by Blue Dot Sessions.