Learning resources
Primary resources
A range of online resources designed to support student learning in the classroom or at home.
Stage 1
![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/47bd857babc344d6a6c19143c1981677.jpg)
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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
![Black and white image of a boy looking out a window](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/be91ff5d46a941eef2cba87f1b6eccee8c4b0e2f-3406x1942.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
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?
![3D model of a bone object](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/85cec555d239e3a6471a62e26872f2677f7d022e-1358x681.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
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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 2
![Sarah Bunn and Peter White with Governor Darling's Commission](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/136b645910a8875d4af79b780e8bc185f39d5c51-2040x1148.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
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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?
![Domestic-servant-square.jpg](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/97e575d8af734773a743b073fba91682.jpg)
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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
![LON10_EDU_008.jpg](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/0a35319177f7434f94194bc0a12191de.jpg)
Convict Sydney
Convict punishment: the treadmill
As a punishment, convicts were made to step continuously on treadmills to power wheels that ground grain
![Photograph of a wooden model depicting a First Fleet ship.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/9d8e2a04ead64cf6973b48660ea35fc7.jpg)
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
![Watercolour painting of two ships on the water, with sandstone outcrop in foreground and shoreline in background.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/afe27659682e46509895d29b82ff3df2.jpg)
Why were convicts transported to Australia?
Until 1782, English convicts were transported to America, however that all changed after 1783
![3D model of a metal object](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/8d2cae6d6b9ba5f5e21c1bec533ea392a1a8ee10-1492x798.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
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Convict life
What can this object from the 1800s tell us about convict life at Hyde Park Barracks?
Stage 2 & 3
![Between the mountains and the sea, Lorraine Brown and Narelle Thomas, 2008. Photo © Bernie Fisher, 2022. Artworks © the artists](https://images.mhnsw.au/fotoweb/embed/2024/06/2c973d0d1a6e4d19902090b700efa531.jpg)
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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
![Sarah Bunn and Peter White with Governor Darling's Commission](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/136b645910a8875d4af79b780e8bc185f39d5c51-2040x1148.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
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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?
![Woman in vdieo with overlay of activity sheet.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/ff4e3cb53a34446f8a2e51aba73fa5d5.jpg)
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
![Kneeling man farewelling seated woman.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/0e610fd4c5a0473288acd49504a8ef1c.jpg)
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 - Chapter 1 Transportation and the First Fleet](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/bdb10f26dc7f42458766ab0f3ca87345.jpg)
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
![Domestic-servant-square.jpg](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/97e575d8af734773a743b073fba91682.jpg)
Resource
Day in the life of a convict
Between 1819 and 1848 over 50,000 male convicts passed through the Hyde Park Barracks
![Actors dressed as convicts in hammocks.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/5b66532c774e4ac691e49742dfa2d819.jpg)
Transportation: one convict’s experience
What do we know about the lives of people in Australia’s colonial past?
![Lewin-from-Evans.jpg](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/3fab2773e47944c6bc512e6899ce1c33.jpg)
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What was life in early Sydney like for convicts?
By 1801 Sydney had grown into a little village with streets and buildings
Stage 3
![Sarah Bunn and Peter White with Governor Darling's Commission](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/136b645910a8875d4af79b780e8bc185f39d5c51-2040x1148.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
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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?
![BUSHRANGERS_COL_JP1910_0058b_edit.jpg](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/294e36e0546940deabc9bb08faba5157.jpg)
Were bushrangers villains or heroes?
During the colonial period bushrangers committed serious crimes. However, to some people they might have seemed impressive
![Illustration of goldfields with figures dressed in Chinese-style clothing working.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/d10f663c206440ce8a196403f8d8cce3.jpg)
Chinese on the goldfields
By the early 1850s, news of a gold rush in Australia sparked an influx in Chinese migration to Australia.
![Barbara Zammit holding a photo of her ancestor immigrant Rose McGee](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/08/890c4a4d9a2a48198e3637ead1173b25.jpg)
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
![Illustration of historic building.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/f91b882c3e0a424a9c1a635e42745618.jpg)
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Electric telegraph in NSW
The electric telegraph revolutionised communication throughout the colony
![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/09611dc345a4410ab6f15ef235c9917d.jpg)
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What does archaeology tell us?
Who were the secret archaeologists living at the Hyde Park Barracks?
![Detail shot of the historical objects used during a virtual excursion.](https://images.mhnsw.au/fotoweb/embed/2024/05/3a6c9bed79a14a0d9ee09aa2bcf4d6e6.jpg)
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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
![Close up view of an animal skeleton](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/d1c506b69b1f57ae93120a5492a80930461735be-1920x1080.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
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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
![3D model of a stone object](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/a415cc2ed6a011cadc86b53222b9f03e7aebc0f9-1426x697.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
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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?
![LON13_BFB_0019_web.jpg](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/99caa6d2f6204c9ab560984314f72984.jpg)
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Troopers, Trackers, Bushrangers and their weapons
The three phases of the war against bushrangers
Secondary resources
A range of online resources designed to support student learning in the classroom or at home.
Stage 4
![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/09611dc345a4410ab6f15ef235c9917d.jpg)
Resource
What does archaeology tell us?
Who were the secret archaeologists living at the Hyde Park Barracks?
Stage 5
Stage 5: Depth Study 3 Australians at War
![Frayed at edges, certificate with red cross symbol in ornate diagram at top, and cursive script below.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/5843f011ddd54ff6a5b5aa90e9df7418.jpg)
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
![Building behind picket fence with gate shut.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/d9925850e50b445c82bb48c229f5571c.jpg)
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
![Two photos side by side; man seated and man standing, with hat on.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/d83f3dac35ff418494ba3bcfcac42444.jpg)
WW1
Fallen hero of Flanders
In 1922, petty criminal Arthur Ernest Noonan was arrested by Sydney police to face charges of conspiracy to defraud
![Two photos side by side, first showing seated man, second showing man standing, with hat on.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/c338709851d04aaebb4f7e75b3c82c9f.jpg)
WW1
Returned from active service
In July 1921 James Arthur Banfield was arrested by Sydney police, photographed and charged on three counts of larceny