Getting published material such as text books about Australia can be
a rather interesting exercise from North America. The Australian Studies
Association of North America has prepared some general information to help.
Check out their how
to get Australian books.
The new EdNA
(Education Network Australia - a government project) is online and contains
a great deal of school-related information. It is a bit difficult to navigate,
but the information is probably there. (you should start in the schools
section) A good spot to find schools
with web sites, etc. Teachers may be especially interested in the "Seeking
School Online Project Partners" noticeboard.
Classroom projects from throughout the world post notices here seeking
exchanges with other schools. Also check the listing of online
school projects.
The Age Education,
the education section and assorted information from the leading "serious"
newspaper in Melbourne.
K-12 education is a state function in Australia. Each of the six states
provides considerable information for its own teachers and schools. You
may find it interesting to visit some:
The Australian department of Foreign Affairs and Trade publishes, online,
many Fact Sheets.
These are excellent and are in "pdf" format so may be printed
out with great results. (especially in color!)
The Australian Embassy in Washington
has quite a bit of useful information about most aspects of Australian
life.
Facts
about Australia, from the Australian Tourism Commission. Many useful
(but rather short) topics.
The CIA FactBook
on Australia offers a lot of assorted facts. Must be true, it's from the
CIA!
Check out the information from the US
Embassy in Canberra. The USIA in Australia has a Country
Data Paper about Australia. And the State Department issues a Consular Information Sheet.
Each contains general information.
Trishan's OZ,
aimed at children with lots of general information about Australia. Won
various internet awards.
My
World by "CK" in Canberra has some fun (and useful) information
as well as recordings of Australian songs.
Directories to more information
The essential starting point is the official World-Wide-Web Virtual
Library for Australia
The listing of resources
from SOFWeb points to many good education-related sites in Australia.
The best source is the new Parliamentary
Education Office - in fact, this is probably the only reference you
need. It is essential. And divides resources between primary and secondary
levels. There is also a lot of good support material from the Parliamentary Library.
The Australian Government's Entry
Point from the National Library of Australia.
The "official" Australian Commonwealth Government Entry Point.
Of special interest is the new Radio National series called The Good Citizen: Australian
Democracy & Citizenship. This series of 13 half-hour programs is in
support of the large Australian Civics project directed by the government.
The web site includes full transcript of each program supplemented by audio
files and nice graphics. An excellent resource. Teachers may also be able
to obtain the actual programs from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Check it out!
The major government project, called Discovering
Democracy, is developing much useful material for use in elementary
and secondary classrooms.
Specific items:
The Constitution.
The Flag, (and the history of various Australian flags as well as the
movement toward changing the flag - from Ausflag,
a public interest group.)
Gallipoli
1915 [from Focus MultiMedia, a company based in Australia that maintains
an online magazine dealing mostly with the Mediterranean area, especially
Turkey.]
South African War
(Anglo-Boer War 1889-1902)Virtual Library.
Mining
There is a very good site put out by the University of Ballarat about
the history and evolution of mining and other information about the Ballarat Goldfields
in Victoria. This is part of the larger Gold 150
project.
See the article History
of Mining in the Northern Territory by David Carment.
Music
The Australian
Folk Songs site gives over one hundred songs with words, sheet music
and a paino version.
Science
The Department of the Environment maintains an excellent Environment
Australia Online project. See especially the Biodiversity
Group section which contains extensive information. Much of this is
rather advanced, but teachers will find a lot of useful things with a little
effort (shortcut - schools
page)
Multiple
Kangaroo Tales is
presented by the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia. It includes
ideas for using Kangaroo themes in the curriculum. (Teachers should be
aware that the site does include recipes - after all, this is an "industry")
Geography
A
Network of Rivers is a project by the schools located in the Murray-Darling
Basin (South Eastern Australia).
Miscellaneous things:
This
Month in Australian History, select the month, will list dates with
events of interest.
It really is about half way around the world to Australia (seriously
"down-under"!) - and figuring out the time difference can be
a challenge. When all else fails, you can check
the time in Sydney over the web. And since Australia is in the Southern
Hemisphere, the seasons are reversed - check
the current weather in Australia. (remember, figures are almost always
metric!)
Distance is very great (about the size of the USA) but the population
is very small (about the size of New York City). Sometimes things are done
differently out of necessity - visit the Royal
Flying Doctor Service or the School
of the Air (actually, each state has its own "school of the air",
this one in in the Northern Territory).
Sports are big in Australia - and many are very different. Cricket,
rugby, Aussie rules football, etc. You can learn about them all from the
Australian Sports Commission.
And, of course, you must keep up with the Sydney
2000 Olympic games.
Although not the national anthem, Waltzing
Matilda is certainly the best know Australian song. This version includes
a translation! Another
version includes the sheet music and plays a (not all that great) paino
version.