Case Studies
This page enables you to preview the first 40 seconds of each of the case study videos contained in the membership section of Australian History Mysteries. A brief overview description of each case study has also been provided.
Go to VIEW DEMO CASE STUDY to download one entire case study, including the full video segment and pdf unit of work as well as one of the interactive modules to sample. Subscribing to Australian History Mysteries will enable you to gain access to all videos, pdf units of work and interactive modules.
ALL CASE STUDIES
Who ‘discovered Australia’?
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Case Study Overview
Students look at a variety of evidence to determine who ‘discovered’ Australia. In doing so they have to address the issue of what ‘discover’ means and what the implications of different definitions, or elements of an overall definition, are. Students are introduced to a range of ‘discoverers’, including Aboriginal people, Baijini gypsies, Chinese explorers, Macassan fishermen, Portuguese seamen, Dutch merchants, James Cook and Matthew Flinders.
An interactive entitled, Build a timeline for the discovery of Australia, is also available for this case study.
What was the life of a female convict really like?
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Case Study Overview
Students are involved in a detailed investigation of the Ross Female Factory site in Tasmania. They ‘become’ archaeologists and find a variety of objects relating to convict life. They then have to draw on a variety of other sources of evidence to help them ‘interrogate’ and interpret each object, and to discover what it tells them about convict life and conditions.
An interactive entitled, Digging up the past — archaeological dig at the site of a female convict factory, is also available for this case study.
The Eureka Rebellion – could you have stopped it from happening?
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Case Study Overview
Students take on the persona of the people involved in the Eureka Rebellion and have to make crucial decisions. They are given choices and know that consequences will flow from their decisions. In this exercise students see that at every point in the story there were alternatives that might have been available, but were, for whatever reason, not taken. It engages students with some key historical ideas — empathy, causation, values, motivation and consequences.
An interactive entitled, The Eureka Rebellion – could you have stopped it from happening?, is also available for this case study.
What happened in a frontier conflict near Broome in 1864?
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Case Study Overview
Students investigate an incident of frontier conflict in Western Australia and are challenged to consider different interpretations of the event. They carry out an inquiry, calling witnesses and critically analysing the evidence presented. They also investigate a memorial, called the ‘Explorers Memorial’, which carries both the original inscription from 1913 and a later interpretation of events by Aboriginal people from 1994. In doing so they experience how history ‘hears’ and ‘silences’ voices and how people use the past in the present.
An interactive entitled, Key moments — can you make key decisions in Australian history, is also available for this case study.
Was Ned Kelly a hero or a villain?
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Case Study Overview
Students investigate how people can interpret one set of facts very differently to come up with contrasting ‘Ned as hero’ and ‘Ned as villain’ interpretations. They then put Ned Kelly on trial for the event that set his fate — the killing of the three police at Stringybark Creek in 1878 by becoming witnesses, presenting evidence and being challenged about that evidence. In doing so they confront one of the icons of Australian history and decide for themselves the place of that person in their own sense of their national identity.
An interactive entitled, Kelly country — the race to Glenrowan, is also available for this case study.
What happened to ‘Smithy’?
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Case Study Overview
Students look at the contribution and significance of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith to Australian national identity. They explore his war record and then his ‘barnstorming’ feats before establishing the aviation records for which he became a national hero. The evidence asks students to compare image with the reality and raises questions about how we should remember and commemorate national figures.
An interactive entitled, What happened to ‘Smithy’?, which asks students to decide which version of his disappearance they think best fits the evidence, is also available for this case study.
Why did the Government lie about the bombing of Darwin?
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Case Study Overview
Students investigate one of the most significant episodes in Australia’s Second World War experience. Why was the bombing of Darwin ‘hushed up’ by the government? Was there a warning that was ignored? Was there looting and cowardice by soldiers? Was 19 February 1942 Australia’s ‘great day of shame’? Students visit the sites, analyse the maps, interrogate witnesses, sequence the events, and come to their own conclusions.
An interactive entitled, The bombing of Darwin, is also available for this case study.
What are the mysteries of Maralinga?
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Case Study Overview
Students explore an important Australian Cold War event that is often overlooked in Australian history: the testing of atomic weapons in Australia in the 1950s. They ask what it reveals about the Australia in which it occurred and in doing so explore both their own values, and develop an empathetic understanding of the values and attitudes of Australian society during the Cold War. Students also investigate the effects of nuclear testing on Aboriginal people from that area and ongoing debates about responsibility and compensation since that time.
An interactive entitled, Cold War timeline, is also available for this case study.
Freedom Ride and 1967 Referendum — What do they tell us about Australian attitudes?
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Case Study Overview
Students explore the evidence to critically discuss the issue of Australians’ attitudes to Indigenous rights and racial equality. They explore how the apparent racism revealed by the 1965 Freedom Ride in places such as Walgett and Moree can be reconciled with the overwhelmingly positive example of the 1967 referendum. Or how the apparent hostility of many towards the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972 can be reconciled with the awarding of equal pay to Aboriginal pastoral workers in 1966 and the adoption of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975. The case study also compares the Yirrkala people’s claim to legal ownership of their land in 1971 and the Mabo case in 1992.
An interactive entitled, The 1967 Referendum, is also available for this case study.
What happened to Juanita Nielsen?
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Case Study Overview
Students investigate the murder mystery of Juanita Nielsen, a prominent Sydney activist in the 1970s, who opposed the development of the historic Victoria Street in inner Sydney. They must decide who killed her and why. The focus of the case study is to use her death to put the society of the time under the microscope — the green bans, union rivalries, political corruption, a powerful criminal presence, police involvement, clashing egos and an emerging environmentalism movement.
An interactive entitled, Who killed Juanita Nielsen? A cold case, is also available for this case study.
World War 1 — Did WWI divide or unite local communities?
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Case Study Overview
In this unit students ‘create’ a family and community, and then explore how the people involved react to a series of situations that develop during the war. The unit provides a practical classroom-based way of developing knowledge, understanding and empathy while formulating hypotheses that can then be tested in a real local community, or at a state or national level.
Coniston Massacre — What happened at Coniston in 1928?
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Case Study Overview
In 1928 at least 31 and possibly more than one hundred Indigenous people were killed near Alice Springs after a local dingo trapper was found dead. A Government Inquiry found the killings were justified. Were they? How can such a terrible event have happened? Students investigate the evidence to try to establish the facts, and to understand the attitudes, values and clash of cultures that made these events possible.
Great Depression — Testing images of the Great Depression
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Case Study Overview
This unit provides a way of introducing students to the social impacts of the Great Depression on Australia in a simple, entertaining and challenging way. Its aim is to help students be more aware of the variety of experiences and the complexity of the factors involved in determining how people were affected by the Depression. It does this by using an empathetic approach to the period, while still tackling it in a historically accurate way.
Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme — A melting pot of different nations?
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Case Study Overview
The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme is always presented as the beginnings of, and a triumph for, multiculturalism in Australia. If it was, how were former enemies able to work together apparently so successfully in a new community? How were tensions, even hatreds, overcome? Focusing on some specific case studies, students investigate a number of possible explanations and draw their own conclusions about the scheme.
Vietnam — Can you be a Vietnam War ‘myth buster’?
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Case Study Overview
There are many aspects of the Vietnam War that are popularly accepted. This unit puts them to the test. Did Whitlam bring the troops home? Were returning soldiers splattered with paint? Did Australians oppose the war? Were protesters just scruffy university radicals? Were soldiers forced to go to Vietnam? The unit introduces such themes, and lets students be the ‘myth busters’ by providing them with evidence that will support or refute each claim. They make the decisions!
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