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An Australian Recipe Authors: Jennifer Gregg & Marko Krsticevic

Overview

Students are dealing with the question of what it means to be Australian. Throughout their tasks they are faced with different notions of Australianism. They begin to realise that everybody around them has an equal opportunity to be Australian regardless of their background, race, ethnic origin, or religion.


 * "Celebrating a culture" encourages students to immerse themselves in a culture that some Australians originate from, thus building respect and an understanding for fellow Australians.


 * "Family Recipe" allows students to connect with their families ancestry, ensuring a better understanding of where their own and all families originate from.


 * "Indigenous Languages" gives students the opportunity to appreciate the original inhabitants of Australia, immersing themselves in a piece of their culture and their languages.


 * "Immigration" allows students to delve into important periods in Australia's immigration history. Students research the first settlers right up until current migration, allowing them to realise that everyone migrated here at some point in time.


 * "If Australia were a village..." gives students a visual of current Australian demographics, allowing them to make connections with past events and how they impact today's population.


 * "Racism" encourages students to keep an open mind, spot racist behaviour in their school and communities and to know that it is not ok.



VELS Level 4, Year 5 and 6

In the Interpersonal Development domain, students "work effectively in teams and take on a variety of roles to complete tasks of varying length and complexity". This will be done throughout the given tasks. Students accept responsibility for these roles and can explain the benefits of working together in a team. ‘Students should be able to provide feedback to others’, which will be demonstrated when they help assess some of the tasks along with the teacher.

In the English domain, the reading standards state that "students read, interpret and respond to a wide range of literary, everyday and media texts in print and in multimodal formats and have the ability to analyse these texts". Throughout the tasks, students will be researching the internet and library for suitable resources to use and this will be evident. The writing standards state that "students produce, in print and electronic forms, a variety of texts for different purposes using structures and features of language appropriate to the purpose, audience and context of the writing". This will be evident as students complete the newspaper article, power point presentations, comic strip and visual presentations. The speaking and listening domain states that "students plan, rehearse and make presentations for different purposes. They adjust their speaking to take account of context, purpose and audience, and vary tone, volume and pace of speech to create or emphasise meaning." This will be apparent as students have presentations for most of the tasks.

In the history domain, it states that "students demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of significant events in Australian history including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, European settlement and the 1850s gold rushes." Students will expand on some of the history here as they specifically look at emigration to Australia around these periods and others. Students also "demonstrate an understanding of the histories of some cultural groups which make up Australia today". Students will research some of the prominent cultural backgrounds of Australians, including their own families.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">In the communication domain, it states that "students summarise and organise ideas and information, logically and clearly in a range of presentations. They identify the features of an effective presentation and adapt elements of their own presentations to reflect them. Using provided criteria, they evaluate the effectiveness of their own and others’ presentations." Students will have the opportunity to do this during their own presentations and as they assess their fellow students work. Students are also presenting information in many different formats across all of the tasks. They will be assessed on the clarity of their presentation including the logical and chronological flow of information.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">In the mathematics domain, working mathematically standards state that "students recognise and investigate the use of mathematics in real and historical situations." In the task, 'if Australia were a village', students are dealing with percentages and rounding up and down with demographic statistics.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">In the communication domain standards "students summarise and organise ideas and information, logically and clearly in a range of presentations... Using provided criteria, they evaluate the effectiveness of their own and others’ presentations." Students will also get the chance to assess peers in their presentations.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">In the Information and Communications Technology domain " students safely and independently use a range of skills, procedures, equipment and functions to process different data types and produce accurate and suitably formatted products to suit different purposes and audiences." Across all of these tasks students are using different types of technology including but not restricted to: video cameras, photo cameras, various movie software, interactive software, etc.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 24pt;">Length of unit

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Students will complete this unit over a ten week period. They will start the unit on the first day of a new term, starting firstly with the task in which they are asked to celebrate a culture. They will have two weeks to complete and have this task ready, but only one group will present at the end of the two week period. The groups will be chosen at random to present to the class and one group will present each week throughout the unit after the end of the second week. Students will also be introduced to the 'Family Recipe' task at the beginning of the unit and will be made aware that this will be presented in the final week. It is proposed that each task will be presented on Fridays and that students will be given time to work on the tasks during the afternoons on allocated days.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 1: Introduction to unit, groups of four will be allocated, students will start to work on 'Celebrating their chosen culture', students will begin to think about their 'Family Recipe' task

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 2: Students work on their task and two groups present on Friday

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 3: Students are introduced to the 'Indigenous Languages' task, another group presents their culture task

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 4: Students continue to work on their 'Indigenous Languages' task, all students present on Friday

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 5: Students are introduced to the 'Immigration' task, another group presents their culture task

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 6: Students continue to work on their 'Immigration' task, all students present on Friday

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 7: Students are introduced to 'If Australia were a village..' task, another group presents their culture task

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 8: Students continue to work on their 'If Australia were a village task, all students present on Friday

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 9: Students are introduced to the 'Racism' task and work on it and complete it by Friday, another group presents their culture task

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Week 10: Students work on their 'Family Recipe' task and they all present their completed work on Friday

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">This could be adapted to suit other classes by changing time frames, group sizes, individual assignments and the order in which the unit is completed. It could also be followed up with an excursion to either the Immigration Museum or Melbourne Museum.