History K - 6

The importance of Country and Place to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples who belong to a local area. (This is intended to be a local area study with a focus on one Language group; however, if information or sources are not readily available, another representative area may be studied.) (ACHHK060)

Students:

• Identify the original Aboriginal languages spoken in the local or regional area
• Identify the special relationship that Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples have to Country and Place
• Respond to Aboriginal stories told about Country presented in text or by a guest speaker

The diversity and longevity of Australia's first peoples and the ways Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples are connected to Country and Place (land, sea, waterways and skies) and the implications for their daily lives.

• Investigate, drawing on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community representatives (where possible) and other sources, the traditional Aboriginal way of life, focusing on people, their beliefs, food, shelter, tools and weapons, customs and ceremonies, art works, dance, music, and relationship to Country

As a class, discuss the following questions before reading the My Weekend with Pop story:

• What is an Acknowledgement of Country?
• What is a Welcome to Country?
• Who can give an Acknowledgement?
• Who can give a Welcome?
• Why are Acknowledgements and Welcomes important?

Your school might already have a positive relationship with the local community and knowledge of many details about the local country. On the other hand this might be an area that your school needs to work on. If Acknowledgements/Welcomes are already a regular part of proceedings in your school, you could skip straight to the next activity. Or you could work with your class to research and write your own original and unique Acknowledgement/Welcome speech.

As a class, begin a research project to investigate questions such as:

• Where is our school located?
• Which Aboriginal country are we living and learning on?
• What are some of the unique geographical features of this Aboriginal country?
• Are there special Aboriginal places in this area?
• Which Aboriginal language belongs here?
• Are Aboriginal languages written down?
• Are there any Aboriginal placenames in our area?
• Which Aboriginal organisations are in our area?
• What can we respectfully find out about Aboriginal people in our local area?

With all the information you have collected as a class, build up a wall display of information. Each child contributes an image and a sentence to demonstrate something they have learned as part of the class research project. The class could organise and display informatoin on the wall according to themes that anticipate the My Weekend with Pop story, e.g. things we have learned about language, country and culture.