HASS · Year 4

Active learning ideas

Dispossession and Resistance

Active learning builds empathy and historical accuracy for dispossession and resistance by moving students beyond passive reading. Through movement, dialogue, and creation, students physically engage with the scale of change and the voices of those affected, making abstract policies and conflicts tangible and unforgettable.

• ACARA Content Descriptions
• AC9HASS4K02
• AC9HASS4K01

• 25–45 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Stations Rotation
• 45 min · Small Groups

Stations Rotation: Colonisation Impacts

Create four stations with sources on land dispossession, diseases, resistance stories, and maps of frontier expansion. Groups spend 8 minutes at each, noting evidence and perspectives in journals. Conclude with a whole-class share-out of key findings.

Evaluate the immediate impacts of colonisation on First Nations communities.

Facilitation Tip

During Station Rotation: Colonisation Impacts, circulate with a clipboard to listen for students using precise terms like 'dispossession' or 'frontier conflict' when summarizing source evidence.

What to look for

Pose the question: 'Imagine you are a First Nations person living at the time of early settlement. What would be your biggest concerns, and how might you try to protect your family and Country?' Facilitate a class discussion, encouraging students to use vocabulary terms and consider different perspectives.

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 02

• Socratic Seminar
• 30 min · Pairs

Pairs Role-Play: Acts of Resistance

Provide paired students with accounts of Pemulwuy or other resisters. Students script and perform short scenes showing resistance tactics, then switch roles to represent settler views. Discuss effectiveness afterward.

Analyze the various forms of resistance employed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Facilitation Tip

For Pairs Role-Play: Acts of Resistance, model how to stay in character for two minutes so students focus on historical accuracy, not performance.

What to look for

Provide students with a short primary source quote describing an act of resistance or the impact of disease. Ask them to identify the key concept (e.g., resistance, disease, dispossession) and write one sentence explaining how the quote illustrates it.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• Socratic Seminar
• 40 min · Whole Class

Whole Class Timeline: Settlement Events

Project a blank timeline of 1788-1830. Students add events like disease outbreaks and resistances using sticky notes with evidence. Vote on most significant impacts and justify choices.

Justify the importance of acknowledging the dispossession of First Nations lands.

Facilitation Tip

In Whole Class Timeline: Settlement Events, assign each pair one event to present in chronological order so the group builds collective understanding through shared responsibility.

What to look for

On a slip of paper, have students write down one immediate consequence of European settlement for First Nations peoples and one example of how First Nations peoples resisted this settlement. Collect these to gauge understanding of the core concepts.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 04

• Socratic Seminar
• 25 min · Individual

Individual Mapping: Local Connections

Students mark local First Nations lands on personal maps, research dispossession events nearby, and write one sentence acknowledging impacts. Share in a class gallery walk.

Evaluate the immediate impacts of colonisation on First Nations communities.

Facilitation Tip

When students map Local Connections in Individual Mapping: Local Connections, ask them to mark both a place they know today and a traditional name or story connected to that place, linking past and present.

What to look for

Pose the question: 'Imagine you are a First Nations person living at the time of early settlement. What would be your biggest concerns, and how might you try to protect your family and Country?' Facilitate a class discussion, encouraging students to use vocabulary terms and consider different perspectives.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

A few notes on teaching this unit

Anchor this topic in primary sources and lived experience rather than textbooks. Use local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and stories to humanise the content and avoid framing colonisation as inevitable. Research shows that when students connect emotionally to historical figures, their retention of facts and moral reasoning increases significantly.

Students will articulate the immediate impacts of colonisation and name at least two forms of resistance used by First Nations peoples. They will connect these events to local Country and justify why acknowledging dispossession matters in modern Australia, using evidence from sources and personal reflections.

---

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During Station Rotation: Colonisation Impacts, watch for students repeating 'empty land' language in their source summaries.

  Redirect students to the Indigenous land management sources at Station 2 and ask them to describe how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples used fire, water, and ceremony to care for Country, using specific examples from the text.

• During Pairs Role-Play: Acts of Resistance, watch for students assuming resistance was always violent or unsuccessful.

  After the role-play, bring the class together and ask each pair to share one non-violent tactic they explored, such as cultural preservation or negotiation, highlighting sources that document these strategies.

• During Station Rotation: Colonisation Impacts, watch for students attributing disease spread solely to natural causes or fate.

  At Station 3, have students trace the movement of smallpox from port towns inland using the disease data chart, then discuss how European mobility and disregard for Indigenous movement patterns accelerated transmission.

---

Methods used in this brief

• Stations Rotation
• Socratic Seminar