Immersion experience
Set up a number of stations around the classroom. Students work in small groups and visit each station. At each station, the small group takes notes to answer the following points:
- What information is presented?
- What do we know about this topic?
- What questions do we have?
The stations can include:
- Fact sheets compiled by the Australian Government about numbers of people who have entered Australia as migrants.
- Read about cultural diversity, as explained by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics.
- Watch a
video about the history of immigration in Australia.
- Listen to a
recording of the song I am Australian.
- Read the picture story book Ten Pound Poms by Carole Wilkinson. This is a personal account of the author’s journey to Australia, from England.
- Read the picture story book Ziba came on a boat by Liz Lofthouse
- Talk about the Australian flag and Indigenous flag and look at flags from around the world.
- Listen to
stories of migration as personal recounts.
- Read about the reasons for the migration of certain cultural groups - from Vietnam, Italy, Poland, China, Sudan, Iraq, New Zealand.
- Look at photographs of migrant ships that travelled to Australia post WW II. Investigate how long these journeys took and the conditions people experienced on the ships.
- Talk about key words displayed on cards such as - Populate or Perish; Racial Discrimination Act 1975, White Australia Policy, New Australian, Assimilation, Displaced Persons. Investigate different perspectives to do with these.
- Match words and definitions – immigration, migrant, refugee, asylum seeker, policy, democracy, racial discrimination, unity etc.
Students work in small groups to compile a definition of what it means to be Australian.
Access
stories about people who migrated to Australia or have guest speakers share their experiences.
Plot on a map where the cultural groups who are now present in Australia came from.
Access
Victoria Museum’s timeline of Migration to Victoria. Create a class timeline to show
Investigate the conditions in Europe after World War II and begin to list the reasons for mass migration.
Investigate the
Refugee Council of Australia to identify some of the reasons people become refugees.
Conduct an internet image search about posters advertising Australia. Infer the era in which each poster was created; what the poster is advertising; and the visual elements used to engage the viewer.
Examine the poster on page 317 of The Story of Australia. Use the
See, Think, Wonder framework to discuss this image.
Use the following questions to encourage deeper thinking about the image:
- Who created this text and why?
- Who might the audience of the text be?
- What was Europe like post war, in 1949?
- What aspects on the poster might appeal to people in post war Europe?
- Where is your eye drawn and how is this point relevant to the image’s purpose?
- What is salient in the image and why is this important?
- What connections can you make with the colours in this image?
- Why do you think the creator of this text chose those colours?
- Describe the actions of the people in the image?
- What message do these actions convey?
- Describe what is in the foreground, midground and background of the image?
- How do these three levels each contribute to the overall message the poster gives?
- Examine the words in the poster – Australia – a land for tomorrow. How do these words help to contribute to the text’s message?
- If this poster was to be recreated today, who would be the audience and what image and words would be appropriate?
Read Chapter 10 of The Story of Australia by Robert Lewis.