Unit 2: Australian Aboriginal Culture and Geography

In the second unit, our main focus is on the study of a folk society and their characteristics that differ from industrialized societies. A folk society’s longevity, such as the Australian Aboriginals, is directly dependent upon their ability to uphold their defining characteristics and maintain a close and symbiotic relationship with their natural environment. This essential relationship will become evident as students study how the Australian Aboriginal people were able to survive both the unforgiving surroundings and the arrival of the Europeans who attempted to drastically change their culture forever.

Key Concepts:

Written and Oral Mythology
Critical Thinking
Bias
Persuasive Writing

Video:

Rabbit Proof Fence

We begin the unit with an overview of the land and geography of Australia to extend our discussion on the significance of the natural environment to the Aboriginal people. Students evaluate how the biologically desolate and isolated geographic location of Australia led the Aboriginals to maintain an interdependent lifestyle with their surroundings to ensure the preservation of their culture. However, this close relationship is jeopardized when the Aboriginals come in contact with a more powerful outside force who carries a view different from the notion of preservation. In doing so, students begin to reflect on the idea whether it is important to prevent indigenous cultures from disappearing in the “wake of progress”.

Key Concepts:

Progress
Egalitarian
Kleptocracy
Terra Nullius
Social Organizations

Readings:

Adapted handouts from Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Australia: A Concise Political and Social History

In the Australia unit, students explore the complexity of Aboriginal arts and beliefs. They learn the Aboriginal creation story, which explains how the land and spirit was sung into existence through Dreaming and Songlines. In addition, we study three different types of Aboriginal styled paintings (mimi spirits, x-ray, papunya dot) that have been passed down by their creation ancestors. These art forms are vital to Aboriginal identity, which connected them to the land and helped organize their society. Having lasted over 60,000 years, the entirety of Aboriginal culture was challenged at the arrival of the colonists. We see this conflict played out when the Aboriginals began to reclaim their land through the art forms that were given to them by their ancestors. This was eventually rejected by the colonizer as primitive. In a culminating project, students tell their own stories by utilizing their knowledge of Aboriginal styled art to represent the depth of Aboriginal beliefs.

Key Concepts:

Dreamtime
Songlines
Aboriginal Art
Preservation of Culture

One theme that is developed in the Australia unit is the close, interdependent relationship that small-scale societies have with their surroundings in order to maintain balance. In science, we focus on the Aboriginal people of Australia to study the principles of ecology and understand why folk societies MUST maintain a small population for their continued existence. Students learn about the interactions between organisms and the biotic and abiotic parts of the environment. We examine the many invasive species that have impacted Australia’s biodiversity to understand the effect of outside forces on an ecosystem.Students consider their own connection with the environment and how their way of life differs from Aboriginal traditions.

Video:

Australia’s Aborigines, National Geographic