OUR
CURRENT LEARNING:
Welcome back, our Civics and
Citizenship Education (CCE) emphasis within HASS has turned to democratic
decision making.
Democratic decision making
includes; citizens who are actively involved in the community and can negotiate
and be inclusive about decisions that affect their community (Hoepper, 2017).
Our
combined learning focus is: for History, continuity and change and for Civics,
democratic decisions.
Our
stimulus material is: Launceston City Park; past, present and future.
WHY WE
ARE LEARNING THIS?
Research
indicates it is important for students to investigate significant citizenship
unifying ideas in engaging and active ways (Brett, 2005). Democracy is both a Civics
and Historical concept that can be explored through the HASS curriculum concepts
of continuity and change, evidence and empathy.
Empathy
also links to the general capability; personal and social capability. Empathy
is a Civics notion and we want students to understand how and why decisions
were and are made about their local City Park and how they can be involved too.
HOW WE
ARE APPROACHING OUR LEARNING?
Our
approach uses key questions that keep the concepts of continuity and change and
democratic decision making to the fore of student learning. Concepts and
essential questions are the significant learning in any topic (Wiggins &
McTighe, 2005).
Our
class will brainstorm what students already know about City Park. To guide students
we will consider questions including:
These
questions will raise directions to explore.
We
will then look as a class, at how decisions are made by the local council.
Students
will then have the opportunity to look at a range of photographs of City Park,
then and now. To help students critically analysis the images, they will use
questions that combine both Civics and History.
This
process will raise questions about what has changed, what is no longer there
and what has remained the same. We will construct a timeline to assist our
understanding of continuity and change.
Our
Civics and History focus will use these questions to investigate who made the
decision to change or include something new and was the decision made
democratically.
Students
will find that decisions in the past did not fully involve everyone in the
community including, ignoring the traditional owners of the land (ATSI
perspective).
To
focus on our key questions that combine both Civics and History knowledge and
understandings, students will consider these questions:
To
connect the history to active Civics, students will be asked to engage with the
following questions:
HOW
YOU CAN SUPPORT YOUR CHILD’S LEARNING IN THIS UNIT:
Talk: to them about what
City Park was like when you were young and how you feel about changes and
decisions in the spaceGo: if you can
KNOWLEDGE
AND SKILLS LEARNING
Here are the specific Year
3 knowledge and skills outcomes from the Australian Curriculum. 
REFERENCES
Australian
Curriculum And Assessment Reporting Authority [ACARA], (2017). HASS
year three. Retrieved from: https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/humanities-and-social-sciences/
Brett, P. (2005). Citizenship
through history- what is good practice?. International journal of historical
learning, teaching and research, Vol 5, Issue 2, 10-26.
Gilbert, R., & Hoepper, B. (Eds.). (2017). Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences: History, Geography, Economics and Citizenship (6th edn.). Southbank, VIC: Cengage Learning.
The People’s Park, Launceston. (n.d.). Retrieved
from the Launceston Historical Society Inc website: https://launcestonhistory.org.au/
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design. (2nd
edn.). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, VA.
