HASS · Year 6

Active learning ideas

Causes and Impact of the Great Depression

Active learning helps students grasp the Great Depression’s complexity by moving beyond dates and facts to see human stories and systemic causes. Hands-on tasks like simulations and role-plays let students experience economic pressures firsthand, building deeper empathy and retention than passive reading allows.

• ACARA Content Descriptions
• AC9HASS6K02

• 35–50 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Jigsaw
• 45 min · Small Groups

Jigsaw: Global and Local Causes

Divide class into expert groups on Wall Street Crash, export collapse, or protectionism. Each group researches and prepares a 2-minute presentation with visuals. Regroup into mixed teams to teach peers and co-create a causes flowchart on butcher paper.

Explain the primary economic factors that led to the Great Depression in Australia.

Facilitation Tip

For the Jigsaw activity, assign each group a cause to research and prepare a short presentation using only the keywords from their section of the textbook to prevent reading aloud.

What to look for

Pose the question: 'Imagine you are a newspaper reporter in 1932. Write a short headline and a two-sentence lead paragraph describing the most significant social impact of the Great Depression you have witnessed in your city or town.' Facilitate a brief class sharing of these imagined reports.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Relationship Skills
• Self-Management

Activity 02

• Simulation Game
• 35 min · Whole Class

Role-Play: Breadline Simulation

Assign roles as unemployed workers, soup kitchen volunteers, or officials. Students line up, share personal stories based on sources, then debrief on social impacts. Vote on policy solutions like public works.

Analyze the immediate social consequences of widespread unemployment during the 1930s.

Facilitation Tip

During the Breadline Simulation, set a strict two-minute time limit for each role-play interaction to heighten the sense of urgency and scarcity students are portraying.

What to look for

Provide students with a T-chart. On one side, they list three specific economic causes of the Great Depression in Australia. On the other side, they list three immediate social effects experienced by Australians. Review charts for accuracy.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Decision-Making

Activity 03

• Simulation Game
• 40 min · Pairs

Compare Charts: Australia vs USA

Pairs use provided sources to fill Venn diagrams on economic causes, unemployment rates, and recovery plans. Share findings in a gallery walk, noting unique Australian challenges like rural hardship.

Compare the Australian experience of the Depression with that of other countries.

Facilitation Tip

For Compare Charts, provide colored pencils so students can highlight key trends in unemployment or export prices, making patterns visible across datasets.

What to look for

Ask students to write down one key difference between Australia's experience of the Great Depression and the United States' response (e.g., the New Deal). They should also briefly explain why this difference is significant.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Decision-Making

Activity 04

• Simulation Game
• 50 min · Small Groups

Interactive Timeline Build

Small groups add dated cards for key events, causes, and impacts to a class mural. Attach flaps with personal stories from diaries. Discuss sequences during a walkthrough.

Explain the primary economic factors that led to the Great Depression in Australia.

Facilitation Tip

When building the Interactive Timeline, give students sticky notes for events so they can physically arrange and rearrange the chronology to spot cause-and-effect sequences.

What to look for

Pose the question: 'Imagine you are a newspaper reporter in 1932. Write a short headline and a two-sentence lead paragraph describing the most significant social impact of the Great Depression you have witnessed in your city or town.' Facilitate a brief class sharing of these imagined reports.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Social Awareness
• Decision-Making

A few notes on teaching this unit

Teachers should avoid oversimplifying the Depression as a single event, instead framing it as a cascade of failures where global and local factors collided. Research shows that using primary sources, like 1930s newspaper ads or bank failure posters, makes the human cost tangible and prevents students from treating the topic as abstract history.

Students will move from recalling causes and effects to analyzing their relationships, such as how protectionist tariffs reduced trade and caused wool prices to collapse. They will also evaluate how government responses addressed immediate needs like hunger while worsening long-term debt.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During Jigsaw: Global and Local Causes, watch for students attributing the Depression solely to the Wall Street Crash.

  Use the jigsaw structure to require each group to present at least one non-crash cause (e.g., overproduction in agriculture) and one local factor (e.g., drought), then ask groups to link their causes to the crash in a whole-class web map.

• During Compare Charts: Australia vs USA, watch for students assuming Australia’s rural suffering was isolated from global markets.

  Have students trace wool and wheat trade routes on a world map during the chart comparison, marking where prices dropped and trade barriers went up, showing how global policies directly affected Australian farmers.

• During Role-Play: Breadline Simulation, watch for students believing unemployment only impacted city workers.

  Assign roles that include rural families facing foreclosure and migrant workers, then debrief by asking students to identify which roles faced the most severe social consequences based on their simulation responses.

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Methods used in this brief

• Jigsaw
• Simulation Game