Learning resources
Primary resources
A range of online resources designed to support student learning in the classroom or at home.
Early Stage 1
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Life in the past...stinks!
We can’t go back in time, we can still visit the places where people once lived and worked - and do some of their jobs
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Growing Up in the Past
Travel back in time at Rouse Hill Estate and meet the children who lived in the overseer’s cottage with their family. See what daily life would have been like over 150 years ago
Growing up in the early 1900s
What was life like for ordinary working-class children living in the suburbs or on the fringes of Australian cities in the early 1900s?
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Toys in the past
Let your Stage 1 students explore this 3D mystery object to find out more about games played by children and adults in the past
Stage 1
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A is for Archaeologist!
Archaeologists study objects as sources of evidence. But first they have to dig them up!
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Waterway investigation
Use this resource to conduct your own investigation of a local waterway
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How to grow broad beans
Some handy hints to help you look after your broad bean seed after your excursion to Vaucluse House
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How to finish your sewing square
Follow these easy, step-by-step instructions to complete the house shape on your sewing square from Rouse Hill Estate
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Susannah Place
Take a closer look at this 3D scan of Susannah Place, as shown in our Virtual Excursion ‘Solve It Using Sources’
Stage 2
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Investigating the penal settlement at Sydney Cove
Learn how sources provide evidence of how people lived in the first penal settlement at Sydney Cove
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Understanding the Art of Place
Discover how we can understand and connect to place through art, and consider how a place can mean different things to different people
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Day in the life of a convict
Between 1819 and 1848 over 50,000 male convicts passed through the Hyde Park Barracks
Convict Sydney
Convict punishment: the treadmill
As a punishment, convicts were made to step continuously on treadmills to power wheels that ground grain
First Fleet Ships
First Fleet ships
At the time of the First Fleet’s voyage there were some 12,000 British commercial and naval ships plying the world’s oceans
Why were convicts transported to Australia?
Until 1782, English convicts were transported to America; however, that all changed from 1783
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Convict life
What can this object from the 1800s tell us about convict life at Hyde Park Barracks?
Convict Sydney
What are convict love tokens?
A convict love token is a coin that convicts gave to their loved ones before they were transported to NSW
Activity: draw a convict from an indent
Watch this short video and learn how to use an original Convict Indent listing to draw a real convict
Activity: make your own convict love token
Learn about convict love tokens and some of the convicts at the Hyde Parks Barracks
Child convicts of Australia
For more than 50 years, convicts were transported from Britain to New South Wales. These included children as young as nine years of age
Transportation: one convict’s experience
What do we know about the lives of people in Australia’s colonial past?
Convict Sydney
What was convict assignment?
‘Assignment’ meant that a convict worked for a private landowner
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What clothes did male convicts wear?
The convict men who lived at Hyde Park Barracks were provided with a uniform to mark them as ‘government men’
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Did convicts escape from the Barracks?
From June 1819, unmarried male convicts who were working for the government had to stay at the Hyde Park Barracks
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What food did the convicts eat?
In 1820, the convicts living at the Hyde Park Barracks would have been woken at sunrise by the ringing of a bell in the yard
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What did convicts do in their free time?
After a day of hard work, the convicts were walked back to the Barracks for the evening muster
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What happened to sick or injured convicts?
Convicts were needed to do a lot of work around the colony, so it was important that they were kept healthy
Convict Sydney
What was ‘flash’ language?
Convicts transported to NSW brought a lot of different things with them. In some cases this included their own slang language, called ‘flash’
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What happened to convicts who broke the rules?
The convicts who lived at the Barracks had to obey lots of rules – more than 200!
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How were convicts rewarded for good behaviour?
While some convicts broke the rules and were punished, most of them worked hard and tried to stay out of trouble
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What work did convicts do?
There was a huge amount of work to do around the town of Sydney, and most of it was done by convicts who did lots of different jobs
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Object analysis
Investigate what objects can tell us about the past by exploring these 3D scans of collection objects from MHSNW
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Digging up the past
Use this animal skeleton, found at the site of First Government House, to develop students’ archaeological investigation skills and knowledge of animal biology
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What does archaeology tell us?
Who were the secret archaeologists living at the Hyde Park Barracks?
Stage 3
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Aboriginal Languages revitalisation in NSW
How were Aboriginal languages recorded during the early colonial period? What were the consequences? And how are Aboriginal Knowledge Holders revitalising language today?
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Terra nullius, Perspectives, Reconciliation
What was terra nullius? How can you examine Australian history from Aboriginal perspectives? How does understanding past decisions, help Reconciliation?
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Understanding the Art of Place
Discover how we can understand and connect to place through art, and consider how a place can mean different things to different people
Were bushrangers villains or heroes?
During the colonial period bushrangers committed serious crimes. However, to some people they might have seemed impressive
Chinese on the goldfields
By the early 1850s, news of a gold rush in Australia sparked an influx of Chinese migration to Australia.
Convict Sydney
Female migration
For many women in the UK migration was seen as an opportunity to change their fortunes - to escape poverty, find work and start a family
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Electric telegraph in NSW
The electric telegraph revolutionised communication throughout the colony. It also made it easier for police to track down bushrangers
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Object analysis
Investigate what objects can tell us about the past by exploring these 3D scans of collection objects from MHSNW
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The Gold Rush
How does this object relate to the Gold Rush and, if you struck lucky, what could a gold sovereign buy you in the 1850s?
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Troopers, Trackers, Bushrangers and their weapons
The three phases of the war against bushrangers
Student quiz
Think you know it all? Try the quiz and see how you do! Give it your best shot and good luck!
Secondary resources
A range of online resources designed to support student learning in the classroom or at home.
Stage 4
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Hyde Park Barracks site study
The Hyde Park Barracks is an important historical site. It has been recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site because of its significance to the convict History of Australia
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Terra nullius, Perspectives, Reconciliation
What was terra nullius? How can you examine Australian history from Aboriginal perspectives? How does understanding past decisions, help Reconciliation?
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What does archaeology tell us?
Who were the secret archaeologists living at the Hyde Park Barracks?
Stage 5
Depth study (core) – Australia: making a nation – from Federation to WWI
WW1
Home Front
As the war stretched on, thousands of women at home in Australia supported the war effort by volunteering for patriotic fundraising activities
WW1
Registering aliens
On 10 August 1914, less than a week after Australia entered World War I, the Australian government defined a new type of resident: the enemy alien
WW1
Fallen hero of Flanders
In 1922, petty criminal Arthur Ernest Noonan was arrested by Sydney police to face charges of conspiracy to defraud
WW1
Returned from active service
In July 1921 James Arthur Banfield was arrested by Sydney police, photographed and charged on three counts of larceny