Today in class I gave you your individual logins and passwords. People who were absent, please email me for details. GO TO: http://quizstar.4teachers.org/indexs.jsp
LOG ON WITH YOUR USER NAME AND PASSWORD
YOU HAVE A WEEK TO COMPLETE THE QUIZ AND THREE ATTEMPTS
GOOD LUCK :) AUSTRALIAN TIMELINE (if you needed help with history questions)
Gold Rush of 1850s was a series of events that had some serious consequences for Austrailan society. We'll be talking about:
- migration and ethnic minorities
- representation and Eureka Stockade (also, we'll watch this CLIP in class)
- White Australia Policy
and
- the concept of "diggers"
Click on the picture below to read more about the era of Australian Gold Rush.
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GROUP PROJECT
Now, here's my chance to check who is reading these posts before the class ;)
Next week your groups will be giving presentations on the topics below.
You can choose between:
1. General geography of Australia 2. General climate of Australia 3. Great Dividing Range 4. Great Barrier Reef
FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED!
If you're one of the first people reading this post, you can grab the best/easiest topic for your group. Use the comments below this post to let me know what you have chosen - name of your group (e.g. Blue Kangaroos) + the topic.
Australian weather has never been easy on the settlers. Southern regions suffer from severe fires, while the North often faces tropical cyclones and floods.
Watch a heartbreaking account of Black Saturday - the 2009 Victorian Bushfires.
Watch the clip below to learn more about the 2011 Queensland Flood.
And finally listen to this story of a survivor. Turia suffered her burns in a bush fire in Kimberly just two weeks after I was in the region, so this makes the story particularly emotional for me.
2. Federation
"At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve 1900, as the clock ticked into 1901 and the 20th century, whistles, gongs, church bells, rattles, pots, pans, accordions and all manner of noise-makers joined the sirens of boats on Sydney Harbour.
It was to be a special day"
Do you know what special day it was? No? Then go here to find out :-)
"Just after that midnight, a storm broke and winds gusting up to 50 miles an hour swept into Sydney. Forty points of rain drenched the harbour city.
But the New Year’s Day morning of 1901 broke clear and fine, and an eight-kilometre procession headed out to Centennial Park, just beyond Paddington, where the federation rites, uniting the erstwhile separate British colonies into one federal Commonwealth, finally took place."
History so far:
- Britain loses American colonies
- Industrial Revolution re-shapes British society
- 1770 Captain Cook lands in Botany Bay
- 1788 First Fleet brings british convicts to Australia
- early 19 century marks the arrival of free settlers ("bounty migrants" and "maiden boats")
It seems like Australia was destined to be an English-speaking country, right?
Well, not quite. It may well have been colonised by completely different nations. This week we'll learn by whom and why. We'll be also talking about a much earlier history in an attempt to explain its flora and fauna.
But before we delve into these topics heare are some materials for you that can be useful if you want to do well in another of our "pub quizzes" ;)
1. Dancing
Just watch the video above ;) 2.Darwin
Click on the picture to watch a clip showing Darwin from the point of view of an insider.
And then read the inevitable bit of historical trivia. [But please do not memorise the names of ships or numbers of casulties, I'm not going to quiz you on that! ;-) ]
The topics below we'll cover in class together but please do the reading/watching: 4. Exploration
A. Let's start with European discovery and colonisation. We have already talked about James Cook and the First Fleet, but this time please concentrate on non English explorers. Click the map to get some information (focus on nationalities only). Go here to see the chronology of landings, and here to see a cute animation.
B. Our second topic is a little tricky - excavation. But we will not be talking about gold - not just yet! ;-)
In fact what we are going to discuss is Australia's fossil past. Click to read some fascinating facts.
