The content provides opportunities for students to begin to develop humanities and social sciences understanding through key concepts including significance, continuity and change, place and space and perspectives. These concepts may provide a focus for inquiries and be investigated across sub-strands or within a particular sub-strand context.
The content at this year level is organised into two strands: knowledge and understanding, and inquiry and skills. The knowledge and understanding strand draws from two sub-strands: history and geography. These strands (knowledge and understanding, and inquiry and skills) are interrelated and have been developed to be taught in an integrated way, which may include integrating with content from the sub-strands and from other learning areas, and in ways that are appropriate to specific local contexts. The order and detail in which they are taught are programming decisions.
Prep Year
My personal world
The Prep curriculum focuses on developing students’ understanding of their personal worlds, including their personal and family histories and the places they and their families live in and belong to. The emphasis is on the student’s own history and their own place. They explore why places are special to them and others. As students explore the people and features of their social and physical worlds, they examine representations of place and sources, which may include stories from family members and from different cultures. They may also study places of similar size that are familiar to them or that they are curious about, coming to see how people feel about and look after places. Learning about their own heritage and their own place contributes to students’ sense of identity and belonging, beginning the idea of active citizenship.
Inquiry Questions
A framework for developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions. The following inquiry questions allow for connections to be made across the sub-strands and may be used or adapted to suit local contexts: inquiry questions are also provided for each sub-strand that may enable connections within the humanities and social sciences learning area or across other learning areas.
· Who am I, where do I live and who came before me?
· Why are some places and events special and how do we know?
Year 1
How my world is different from the past and can change in the future
The Year 1 curriculum provides a study of the recent past, the present and the near future within the context of the student’s own world. Students are given opportunities to explore how changes occur over time in relation to themselves, their own families, and the places they and others belong to. They examine their daily family life and how it is the same as and different to previous generations. They investigate their place and other places, their natural, managed and constructed features, and the activities located in them. They explore daily and seasonal weather patterns and how different groups describe them. They anticipate near future events such as personal milestones and seasons. The idea of active citizenship is introduced as students explore family roles and responsibilities and ways people care for places.
Inquiry Questions
A framework for developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions. The following inquiry questions allow for connections to be made across the sub-strands and may be used or adapted to suit local contexts: inquiry questions are also provided for each sub-strand that may enable connections within the humanities and social sciences learning area or across other learning areas.
· How has family life and the place we live in changed over time?
· What events, activities and places do I care about? Why?
Year 2
Our past and present connections to people and places
The Year 2 curriculum extends contexts for study beyond the personal to the community and to near and distant places that students are familiar with or aware of, exploring connections between the past and present and between people and places. Students examine remains of the past in their local area, coming to understand how connections have changed the lives of people over time and space and how their community values and preserves connections to the past. They study where they are located in the world and how the world is represented on maps and through place names that reveal the history and value of these places. Students explore other cultures’ connections to their local place and their own connections to distant places. Through a study of technological change, students see how they are both similar and different to people in the past and how they are connected to places near and far. The idea of citizenship is introduced as students think about how people are connected.
Inquiry Questions
A framework for developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions. The following inquiry questions allow for connections to be made across the sub-strands and may be used or adapted to suit local contexts: inquiry questions are also provided for each sub-strand that may enable connections within the humanities and social sciences learning area or across other learning areas.
· What does my place tell me about the past and present?
· How are people connected to their place and other places, past or present?
· How has technology affected daily life over time and the connections between people in different places?
Year 3
Diverse communities and places and the contribution people make
The Year 3 curriculum focuses on the diversity of people and places in their local community and beyond, and how people participate in their communities. Students study how places are represented geographically and how communities express themselves culturally and through civic participation. Opportunities are provided to learn about diversity within their community, including the Country/Place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and about other communities in Australia and neighbouring countries. Students compare the climates, settlement patterns and population characteristics of places, and how these affect communities, past and present. Students examine how individuals and groups celebrate and contribute to communities in the past and present, through establishing and following rules, decision-making, participation and commemoration.
Inquiry Questions
A framework for developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions. The following inquiry questions allow for connections to be made across the sub-strands and may be used or adapted to suit local contexts: inquiry questions are also provided for each sub-strand that may enable connections within the humanities and social sciences learning area or across other learning areas.
· How do symbols, events, individuals and places in my community make it unique?
· How do people contribute to their communities, past and present?
· What events do different people and groups celebrate and commemorate and what does this tell us about our communities?
Year 4
How people, places and environments interact, past and present
The Year 4 curriculum focuses on interactions between people, places and environments over time and space and the effects of these interactions. Students gain opportunities to expand their world knowledge and learn about the significance of environments, examining how people’s need and want of resources over time has affected peoples, societies and environments. Specifically, students study European exploration and colonisation in Australia and elsewhere up to the early 1800s and life for Indigenous Australians pre- and post-contact. They examine the concept of sustainability, and its application to resource use and waste management, past and present, by different groups. The curriculum introduces the role of local government, laws and rules, and group belonging and how they meet people’s needs. Themes of law and citizenship extend into their studies of diverse groups, the colonisation of Australia and other places, and how environmental sustainability is enacted.
Inquiry Questions
A framework for developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions. The following inquiry questions allow for connections to be made across the sub-strands and may be used or adapted to suit local contexts: inquiry questions are also provided for each sub-strand that may enable connections within the humanities and social sciences learning area or across other learning areas.
· How have laws affected the lives of people, past and present?
· What were the short- and long-term effects of European settlement on the local environment and Indigenous land and water management practices?
· What is the significance of the environment and what are different views on how it can be used and sustained, past and present?
Year 5
Australian communities – their past, present and possible futures
The Year 5 curriculum focuses on colonial Australia in the 1800s and the social, economic, political and environmental causes and effects of Australia’s development, and on the relationship between humans and their environment. Students’ geographical knowledge of Australia and the world is expanded as they explore the continents of Europe and North America, and study Australia’s colonisation, migration and democracy in the 1800s. Students investigate how the characteristics of environments are influenced by humans in different times and places, as they seek resources, settle in new places and manage the spaces within them. They also investigate how environments influence the characteristics of places where humans live and human activity in those places. Students explore how communities, past and present, have worked together based on shared beliefs and values. The curriculum introduces studies about Australia’s democratic values, its electoral system and law enforcement. In studying human desire and need for resources, students make connections to economics and business concepts around decisions and choices, gaining opportunities to consider their own and others’ financial, economic, environmental and social responsibilities and decision-making, past, present and future.
Inquiry Questions
A framework for developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions. The following inquiry questions allow for connections to be made across the sub-strands and may be used or adapted to suit local contexts: inquiry questions are also provided for each sub-strand that may enable connections within the humanities and social sciences learning area or across other learning areas.
· How have individuals and groups in the past and present contributed to the development of Australia?
· What is the relationship between environments and my roles as a consumer and citizen?
· How have people enacted their values and perceptions about their community, other people and places, past and present?
Year 6
Australia in the past and present and its connections with a diverse world
The Year 6 curriculum focuses on the social, economic and political development of Australia as a nation, particularly after 1900, and Australia’s role within a diverse and interconnected world today. Students explore the events and developments that shaped Australia as a democratic nation and stable economy, and the experiences of the diverse groups who have contributed to and are/were affected by these events and developments, past and present. Students investigate the importance of rights and responsibilities and informed decision-making, at the personal level of consumption and civic participation, and at the national level through studies of economic, ecological and government processes and systems. In particular, students examine Asia’s natural, demographic and cultural diversity, with opportunities to understand their connections to Asian environments. These studies enable students to understand how they are interconnected with diverse people and places across the globe.
Inquiry Questions
A framework for developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions. The following inquiry questions allow for connections to be made across the sub-strands and may be used or adapted to suit local contexts: inquiry questions are also provided for each sub-strand that may enable connections within the humanities and social sciences learning area or across other learning areas.
· How have key figures, events and values shaped Australian society, its system of government and citizenship?
· How have experiences of democracy and citizenship differed between groups over time and place, including those from and in Asia?
· How has Australia developed as a society with global connections, and what is my role as a global citizen?