Federation and Democracy

Yesterday we started our focus on Federation and Democracy. Students were put into 'States/Colonies' based on their interests with the symbols representing each state which linked to their industries before Federation. Boundaries were formed across the classroom and students had to work out their fines, history of their Colony, create money and negotiate with other states.

Over the next four weeks students will be learning the importance of Australia Federating and the difficulties they would have faced before Federation in this fun format. Already we have had some interesting discussions between colonies and some creative ways of earning money.

Since we are currently doing the Census, I have also created a Census for the students to do today that will be a snapshot of their state/colony and later we will combine our data to create a snapshot of Australia (our classroom).

As part of our Federation and Democracy unit, each student was also allocated a Prime Minister of Australia to write a biography about over the past two weeks. Students are now finalising these biographies in class by typing them up to publish. Once finished, we will create a class timeline of Prime Ministers.

Below are some videos we have or will be watching in class relating to Federation and Democracy if anyone would like to watch them again at home.
http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4513450.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1PLNK1bht0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFQqwGhoEFw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecB-Lpm_AZ0

There are lots of fabulous you tube clips around relating to Federation and Democracy so if you find any at home please send them through so we can all watch them!