Where Stories Live, History Comes Alive
From the Dreaming to digital technology – join us to hear how the stories we keep bring history to life.
Where can you find stories about the past? Who keeps them? Who tells them? And how can they help us to understand the world today? The stories we keep are waiting to be discovered and shared.
Join us on Thursday 10 September for this FREE live virtual event as part of History Week 2026.
During this exciting program, your students will:
- listen to a Dreaming story from Wiradyuri Country
- learn how convict love tokens hold personal stories of love, loss and mystery
- see how oral history can bring places to life through the stories of children who lived there
- hear from an archaeologist about the different stories that artefacts can tell
- gain insights into how to unlock stories of places, people and objects.
Attendees will be active participants in this live session – answering questions, responding to polls and sharing insights and stories of their own.
At Museums of History NSW, we keep stories so they can be uncovered, shared and understood. Come and join us this History Week and discover that where stories live, history comes alive.
The virtual event is suitable for students in stages 1–3.
Post-event resources have been designed to support your students to create written texts that demonstrate their understanding of history concepts covered during the event.
For more information, contact the MHNSW Learning team at learning.team@mhnsw.au.
Stage 1
HS1-ACH-01 describes interactions between Aboriginal Peoples and Country
HS1-HIS-01 describes the ancient past and changes in communication over time, using stories, images, objects and sites as evidence
People learn about the past by engaging with stories, images, objects and sites
Aboriginal Peoples have rich and diverse Cultures and Histories
- Identify and describe significant Aboriginal sites across NSW and relate them to Dreaming Stories
- Identify ways in which Aboriginal Peoples share and celebrate their Cultures and Histories
People use stories, images, objects and sites to understand the ancient past
- Recognise that archaeologists locate and study objects and sites as sources of evidence of a time and place
The way people communicate has changed over time
- Describe ways communication has changed over time by comparing stories, images, objects and sites as evidence
- Describe ways Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have communicated over time by comparing stories, images, objects or sites as evidence describes interactions between Aboriginal Peoples and Country
Stage 2
HS2-ACH-01 describes Aboriginal Peoples’ obligations to Country, Culture and Community
HS2-HIS-01 explains how people lived in the past, how navigation connected the world, and what life was like in the Sydney Cove penal settlement, using sources as evidence
History uses sources to construct narratives of the past
Aboriginal Peoples have the oldest living continuous Cultures in the world
- Explain how the arrival of the First Fleet affected Gadigal Peoples
Sources provide evidence of how people lived in the first penal settlement at Sydney Cove
- Represent life in the penal settlement at Sydney Cove using images, maps, personal accounts and sites
- Research and recount the life of an Aboriginal person, a convict, a marine and a settler who lived in the penal settlement at Sydney Cove
- Explain how stories, images, objects and sites are used as sources of evidence for the first penal settlement in New South Wales
Connecting ideas in written texts supports understanding of the past
- Sequence ideas about the past and include elaborated details, consistent tense and connectives to create cohesion
- Use a range of connectives to create compound and complex sentences to signal the cause and effect of a past event and compare and elaborate on ideas
- Use information from sources to create compound and complex sentences describing life in the past
- Refer to evidence when describing who, what, when, where and explaining why
Stage 3
HS3-ACH-01 describes Aboriginal Knowledges and Practices that care for Country and the importance of Aboriginal Languages revival
HS3-HIS-01 examines and describes the development of Australian colonies and Australia as a nation, using sources as evidence
Historical sources present perspectives on the past
Aboriginal Peoples have diverse Languages
- Research how interactions between Aboriginal Peoples and early colonial settlers led to the recorded sources of Aboriginal Languages and describe the benefit to the reclamation of Aboriginal Languages
- Describe the role of Aboriginal Knowledge Holders in revitalising and maintaining Aboriginal Languages
- Explain how Aboriginal Peoples celebrate and share Aboriginal Languages and Cultural Practices in a contemporary world
Sources show perspectives on how people established colonies in Australia
- Recount stories of migrants and free settlers in the colonies from 1825 to 1901 using sources as evidence
- Describe significant contributions made by women to the development of Australian colonies
Coming soon
Location
Online via Zoom
Cost
Free
When
Thursday 10 September 2026, 2.10pm–2.50pm
Duration
40 minutes