How should Burnie look in Ten Years?
This lesson is the third in a learning sequence and will involve year five students outlining their vision for the future of Burnie. Previous lessons have focussed on the history of the Australian economy and how Australia’s resources have been used to promote economic growth.
This lesson as a part of a learning sequence links directly to the Australian Humanities and Social Sciences year five curriculum through investigations into “Australian communities- their past, present and possible futures” (ACARA, 2016). Through involving students in investigations about how Australians have managed their natural resources over time, students’ will develop and present their own ideas about how Australia’s resources should be managed in the future. This particular lesson will involve students engaging with the Making Burnie 2030 document (Burnie.net, 2016) to develop their own vision for Burnie in the years to come. In the preceding lessons, students were involved in investigations that were more directly focused on the area’s economic history. One of its most significant economic events in recent history involved the closing of the Australian Pulp and Paper Mill (APPM) in 2010, seeing the loss of hundreds of jobs. The aim of this lesson is to develop students’ knowledge on Australia’s reliance on manufacturing and develop their own ethos on how Australia, Tasmania and, more specifically, North West Tasmania is to effectively move forward in these ever-changing times. Tudball & Gordan, (2014) advocate that through such a process of exploring history before developing ones idea of how the future should look, students can gain a more insightful perspective.
Lesson structure:
*Revisit history of Burnie pulp mill (and other industries) through the attached YouTube clip.
*Lead class discussions about the key historical concepts of continuity and change in regards to the Tasmanian economy and the cause and effect that these changes have on the community.
-Taylor, Fahey, Kriewaldt and Boon (2012) highlight such an exploration of cause and effect as an integral part in developing history concepts. These discussions which have been enlightened through previous lessons explore “the impact of a significant development or event on an Australian colony (ACHASSK108)” (ACARA, 2016).These class discussions will highlight the changing landscape of employment in Tasmania and how Burnie as a community must diversify its economic future harnessing avenues other than manufacturing.
*Introduce the Making Burnie 2030 document to the students. http://www.burnie.net/Community/Making-Burnie-2030
Discuss each of the five ‘Future Direction’ areas, scaffolding student responses where necessary.
- Brainstorming activity- In groups of five, students will brainstorm different ideas about what it is they want to see in Burnie in the coming years. This activity will be scaffolded through the following probe headings: new developments, new infrastructure, ideas to increase tourism opportunities, ideas on how to create a sense of community. At the completion of this brainstorming activity each group will elect a spokesperson who will remain at their table. Moving to the next group, the four students will listen to the spokesperson explain the ideas of their group.
*Individually, students will be tasked with creating a proposal outlining their idea of how Burnie will look in 2030 which, after completion, will be put forward to the Burnie City Council. The proposal can involve the use and combination of any medium i.e. information report, photography, 3D model, artwork etc. Students will be provided access to the school computers in order to develop their proposal.
-Through such a process students will be involved in decision making, which empowers them as active citizens to, as Phillips (2010) advocates, contribute to their own society. This notion of how history can create a platform for students to develop their own sense of self as an individual within a community is highlighted by Hoodless (2008).
Reference:
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2016). The Australian Curriculum: Humanities and Social Sciences (Version 8.1). (Humanities and Social Sciences, all year levels, all curriculum elements, all curriculum dimensions). Retrieved from: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/download/f10
Burnie.net. (2016). Making Burnie 2030. [online] Available at: http://www.burnie.net/Community/Making-Burnie-2030 [Accessed 14 Apr. 2016].
Hoodless, P. (2008). Teaching History in primary schools [electronic resource]. Exeter, England: SAGE Publications. Retrieved from http://www.utas.eblib.com.ezproxy.utas.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=820147
Phillips, L. (2010). Social justice storytelling and young children’s active citizenship, Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education.
Taylor, T., Fahey, C., Kriewaldt, J., & Boon, D. (2012). Place and time: Explorations in teaching geography and history. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Australia.
Tudball, L., & Gordon, K. (2014). Teaching for active and informed citizenship. In Gilbert, R., & Hoepper, B. (Eds.), Teaching humanities and social sciences: History, geography, economics and citizenship in the Australian Curriculum (5th ed.) (pp. 176- 196). South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning Australia.
klayknowsthetruth 
Great work Klay looks like you have put a lot of thought into your topic and lesson.
I believe this lesson will be highly engaging for students as the topic is clearly close to them. The lesson also allows for students to express their ideas creatively which will also assist greatly in student motivation. I particularly liked how you allowed students to deliver their proposal in a variety of different mediums. This aligns well with Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences, which I see as a highly beneficial pedagogical approach.
Perhaps there is a site in Burnie that you could take the students to which could help show the students the reliance that Australia has on the manufacturing industry and the impact of closing an industry can have on the community. An out of class experience such as this can be a great way to get students engaged and is proven to assist in their retention of knowledge.
You seem to have a great range of reliable resources to support your post so congratulations on a great effort.
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Hi Klay, congratulations of the completion of such an attractive blog post that aims to create an engaging and inspiring activity with the promotion and development of history knowledge and active citizenship. You have provided some great ideas for exploring the concept of the ‘impact of a significant development or event on an Australian colony’. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), in relation to this content descriptor, suggest the use of creating ‘what if’ scenarios to portray differing outcomes of past events can be employed as an effective teaching strategy to get students thinking about key events and how they transpired (ACARA, 2016). You might consider utilising this approach to strengthen your learning activity.
Furthermore, identifying to your readers what form of assessment would be appropriate and when and how it should be implemented, could also enhance this activity. Other than a few grammatical errors throughout, this is a solid activity that shows great promise.
All the best with the completion of this assignment and unit.
Kind regards
Dan
Reference
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) (2016). The
Australian Curriculum: Humanities and Social Sciences (Version 8.1). (All curriculum
elements, all curriculum dimensions) Retrieved from:
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/download/f10
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Hey Klay,
This blog post is great! It is clear that you have a well thought out plan, which has strong links to the History and Civics and Citizenship curriculum. I like how you have clearly stated at the beginning that this lesson is a part of a sequence and where it is within that sequence. I believe that using a clip of the pulp mill is an effective way to ‘hook’ students, however, some students may find the footage bland as it is fairly old. (I did do a quick search for a more updated clip but was unsuccessful).
An excursion would have been a great addition to this lesson, but unfortunately there isn’t much left there to explore. I think that it is important for students to explore more than one industry which has impacted the Burnie area, therefore you could start with the pulp mill then investigate other local industries. My thoughts would be to extend this lesson to the more recent job loss from Caterpillar and how that has affected the future of Burnie and its citizens. You could then arrange such an excursion and get students to interview past and present employees, finding out their thoughts on Burnie’s future due to the dramatic loss of employment in the area. This may increase students engagement if they happen to know someone who lost their job due to the cuts last year.
I feel that the lesson provides a good mix of strategies which will assist students learning and allows the teacher to act as a facilitator. Furthermore, I believe students will thoroughly enjoy the idea of contributing to Burnie’s future through creating the proposals for changes they want made.
Good job 🙂
Acacia
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