Teacher Resource
River Country: Connecting with Australia’s Waterways
Stage
Stage 2, Stage 3
Learning Area / Topic
Science, Geography, Visual Arts
Strand
Science: Science understanding (Biological sciences) Science as a human endeavour Science inquiry Geography: Knowledge and understanding Skills The Arts (Visual Arts): Exploring and responding Developing practices and skills Creating and making
Summary
River Country: Connecting with Australia’s waterways develops student engagement with and understanding of national and local freshwater systems. Drawing on artefacts and stories from the National Museum of Australia’s collections and mapping across science, geography and the arts curriculum points, this flexible ten-lesson resource invites students to explore how they are part of and can care for watery communities of plants, animals and people.
River Country: Connecting with Australia’s waterways was developed by the National Museum of Australia, the Sydney Environment Institute (University of Sydney) and Petaurus Education Group.
The National Museum has also created a complementary River Country: Stories of change from the Murray-Darling river system virtual excursion to its Great Southern Land gallery, introducing some of the artefacts and stories featuring in this resource. The excursion is available here:
River Country: Murray-Darling river virtual excursion
Student Outcomes
Through completing the River Country resource, students will: • Understand different Australian freshwater systems as threatened communities of interconnected peoples, plants and other animals • Build skills in investigating the ecological, cultural, historical and emotional values of waterways • Discover how to investigate museum artefacts as documents of cultural, historical and ecological relationships • Learn how to investigate their local places through science, humanities and arts-based approaches • Develop capacities to create stories that share their waterways values, as a means of responding to environmental change