Contact - First Encounters

Explore the impacts of British colonisation on the local Aboriginal people.

Investigate the plants used by the Cadigal for food, medicine, tools and weapons. Get a hands-on experience using artefacts and stories to gain insight into the convict experience.

• Understand the importance of Country and Place to Aboriginal people, their relationship with the land and uses of plants for food, medicine, and shelter.
• Stand on the site of the first farm in Australia and discover the plants brought by the First Fleet.
• Discuss ‘contact’ from the view of an Aboriginal child and a first settler child to gain a relatable perspective.

• Nature and impact of colonisation, pre-contact Aboriginal culture, and British contact with Aboriginal peoples to 1820
• Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal perspectives of the relationship to land and country
• Hardships and difficulties of convict life on the site of the first farm in Australia

Focus Syllabus Outcomes

History

• Describes and explains how significant individuals, groups and events contributed to changes in the local community over time (HT2-2) 
• Describes people, events and actions related to world exploration and its effects (HT2-3) 
• Describes and explains effects of British colonisation in Australia (HT2-4) 
• Applies skills of historical inquiry and communication (HT2-5)
• The diversity and longevity of Australia's first peoples and the ways Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples are connected to Country and Place (land, sea, waterways and skies) and the implications for their daily lives (ACHHK077) 
• Stories of the First Fleet, including reasons for the journey, who travelled to Australia, and their experiences following arrival (ACHHK079)
• The nature of contact between Aboriginal people and/or Torres Strait Islanders and others, for example, the Macassans and the Europeans, and the effects of these interactions on, for example, families and the environment (ACHHK080)