Year 5: Chinese migrants and the gold rush

Level 1: Look to Learn   ·   Level 2: Knowledge Building   ·   

Look to Learn

Throughout the 1800s Chinese migrated to colonial Australia to try their luck on the goldfields. This Look to Learn activity enables you to explore what life was like for the Chinese migrants through primary sources from this period.

Key inquiry question: What were the significant events and who were the significant people that shaped Australian colonies?

Access to Scootle digital content

Digital content has been incorporated into these learning sequences to support student learning.

Instructions

1. Select one image from the gallery to view at a time. Look carefully at one image, not cursorily at many. Scroll through the gallery thumbnails: when you click on each, it becomes visible as the main image.
2. Using a data projector the whole class views the image and applies a thinking routine. Two are shown below the gallery. Choose one. You may apply only one part of the prompt at a time ("See," for example of "See-Think-Wonder") or move through all sections of a thinking routine in one session. Now explore the image and discuss your views with other students.
3. Make thinking visible: You can use a wide range of strategies working independently and writing responses in a personal notebook, to working collaboratively on butcher's paper or a whiteboard, to brainstorming online using one of the EtherPad installations (see below).

 

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Thinking Routines are used from Harvard's Visible Thinking initiative and Cultures of Thinking.

TLF ID R9349 - Wake, Australia! Wake, 1888

TLF ID R9357 - Anti-Chinese immigration cartoon, 1888 - Item 2

TLF ID R8175 - Chinese men on the road to the Palmer River gold field, 1875

TLF ID R9204 - Chinese people on the way to the Ravenswood gold fields, 1870

TLF ID R9360 - Anti-Chinese immigration cartoon, 1888 - Item 4

TLF ID 9365 - Landing Chinese at Cooktown, Queensland, 1875

TLF ID R9366 - Tween decks in an intercolonial steamer, 1880

TLF ID R9350 - Her first pipe of opium, 1888

TLF ID R4214 - Chinese opium smokers, Melbourne, 1868

TLF ID R2807 - Chinese carpenters at work

TLF ID R9374 - Henry Parkes restricting Chinese immigration, 1888

TLF ID R9354 - 'Out you go John, you and your Small Pox', 1881

Technology integration—brainstorming using Web 2 tools

Brainstorm your responses to the thinking routines outlined above. You may wish to use collaborative writing software. Explore how you can integrate PrimaryPad into your learning. Read detailed instructions on using this tool.

Level 1—Conclusion

Answer these reflection questions:

• What do you now know about Chinese immigrants that you did not know before?
• What else would you like to learn about this period of history?

You may now want to complete the Knowledge Builder activity to explore this period more.

Level 1: Look to Learn   ·   Level 2: Knowledge Building