🧰 Curating the Past and Present: Choosing Powerful Learning Materials for HASS

📚 Why Resource Selection Matters in HASS

In the Humanities and Social Sciences, the learning materials we choose are not neutral—they shape how students understand people, places, histories, and systems. Whether it’s a political cartoon, a primary source letter, a modern news article, or a hand-carved tool, each artefact brings a perspective that either deepens understanding or risks flattening complexity.

Unlike some subjects where a single textbook might do, HASS requires diverse, multimodal resources that reflect real-world inquiry and build critical, disciplinary knowledge. Materials must support students to question, interpret, analyse, and empathise—not just remember facts.

As Parker (2020) reminds us, HASS teaching must go beyond generic “worksheets” and draw students into authentic disciplinary practices through rich, relevant materials.

 

🗂️ What Counts as a 'HASS Learning Material'?

A HASS learning material isn’t just a handout—it’s any text, artefact, image, document, or tool that helps students engage with inquiry. Effective materials:

• Support exploration of real-world or historical contexts
• Represent multiple perspectives and voices
• Invite analysis and interpretation
• Reflect the language, tools, and texts of the discipline
• Are age-appropriate, accurate, and inclusive

This includes both primary sources (e.g., letters, maps, artefacts, oral histories) and secondary sources (e.g., textbook explanations, documentaries, websites).

 

🕵️‍♀️ Using Artefacts and Sources: Making Learning Tangible

Artefacts—both physical and digital—allow students to interact with history, geography, civics, and economics in concrete, visual, and tactile ways. They act as springboards for inference, empathy, and critical thinking.

Examples of HASS artefacts and materials:

• History: Replica tools, immigration documents, diary entries, photographs, timelines
• Geography: Weather maps, topographic maps, satellite imagery, land use plans, items from the natural enviornment
• Civics: Voting ballots, campaign posters, parliamentary transcripts, protest footage
• Economics: Product packaging, pricing data, ads from different eras, budget infographics

🧠 Tip: Artefacts don’t need to be “old”—they just need to represent a context, viewpoint, or system that students can question and analyse.

 

🧠 How to Select Effective Materials

Use the following criteria to guide your selection:

1. Authenticity

Does the material come from the real world or simulate a genuine civic, historical, geographic, or economic context? Students should feel like they’re working with the same kinds of resources professionals would use.

2. Complexity

Does it require thinking beyond the surface? Look for materials that aren’t too simple or closed-ended—those that invite interpretation, questioning, or comparison.

3. Accessibility

Is it suitable for your learners in terms of readability, cultural familiarity, and scaffolding needs? Offer visuals, vocab supports, and guiding questions where necessary.

4. Inclusivity

Does the material reflect a diversity of voices? Especially in history and civics, consider whose stories are told—and whose are left out.

5. Alignment

Does it align with curriculum goals, inquiry questions, or disciplinary skills? Always ask: What thinking will this material prompt?

 

📦 Example: Year 5 History – The Gold Rush

Topic: The impact of the gold rush on different groups in Australia.

Materials to include:

• A newspaper excerpt from 1851 describing gold fever
• A mining licence document (primary source)
• A political cartoon showing Chinese miners being harassed
• An image of a recreated goldfields town
• An audio diary reading from a migrant family
• An interactive map showing migration routes

Students are asked to use these artefacts to form evidence-based conclusions about:

"How fair was life on the goldfields, and for whom?"

 

🛠️ Where to Find Quality HASS Materials

Here are some excellent sources for rich, classroom-ready HASS resources:

• Trove (National Library of Australia) – digitised newspapers, photos, letters
• ABC Education – civics, history, and geography videos
• National Museum of Australia – artefact images, virtual exhibits, First Nations perspectives
• My Place for Teachers – timelines, character stories, teacher notes
• Australian Electoral Commission – mock voting kits and civics resources
• Geoscience Australia – downloadable maps and spatial tools
• State libraries/museums – often have education packs and curated collections
• Your own life/backyard - often we have our own rich artifacts students can explore or bring their own in

🧠 Pro Tip: Build your own classroom resource bank using Google Drive folders or Padlets so students can access materials easily.

 

✏️ Student Use: From Passive to Active

The goal isn’t just to show materials—it’s to have students use them to think. Try framing resource use around verbs like:

• Compare
• Infer
• Evaluate
• Sequence
• Classify
• Judge
• Justify

For example:

• “Compare two images of land use and infer how this environment has changed.”
• “Evaluate the reliability of these two newspaper reports on a protest.”

These verbs align with both Bloom’s Taxonomy and the skills strand in the HASS curriculum.

 

🎓 Final Thoughts: Materials That Make Meaning

Powerful HASS learning happens when students explore rich, real-world materials that challenge them to think deeply. Whether it’s through a torn photo, a census sheet, or a town plan, the resources we choose shape the inquiries our students undertake and the connections they make.

Design your units like a museum exhibition—thoughtfully curated, purposefully layered, and full of stories waiting to be uncovered.

 

🧩 The Art of Personalised HASS: Making the Curriculum Meaningful for Every Student

🧩 The Art of Personalised HASS: Making the Curriculum Meaningful for Every Student

🎓 Theoretical Foundations: Differentiation, Student Voice, and Identity

Personalising learning in HASS is grounded in principles of differentiated instruction, Universal Design for Learning, and culturally responsive pedagogy. These frameworks share a common goal: to ensure every student can access, engage with, and find meaning in what they’re learning.

In HASS, where we examine histories, places, cultures, systems, and identities, personalisation isn’t just an option—it’s a pedagogical imperative. When students see their stories, communities, questions, and challenges reflected in the curriculum, they are more likely to invest, participate, and retain what they learn.

Personalisation in HASS involves:

              • Adjusting content, process, product, and environment

              • Incorporating student choice and voice

              • Embedding cultural and contextual relevance

              • Valuing diverse worldviews and lived experiences

 

🎯 Why Personalised Learning Matters in HASS

Unlike subjects that are more skills-based or procedural, HASS is interpretive, narrative-driven, and context-sensitive. It invites students to explore:

              • Who they are and where they come from

              • How people live and interact in different settings

              • What justice, power, identity, and environment mean to them

By personalising HASS, we:

              • Support students with varied learning preferences and literacy levels

              • Engage learners through relevant, authentic inquiry

              • Foster inclusivity, agency, and motivation

              • Build critical and creative thinking in relation to their world

 

🛠️ Strategies for Personalising HASS in Practice

1. Interest-Based Inquiry Questions

Give students choice in what they explore, while guiding them with key concepts.

Examples:

              • In Civics: “What does fairness mean to me?” or “How does leadership work in my culture?”

              • In Geography: “How does my neighbourhood manage natural resources?”

              • In History: “Whose stories haven’t been told in our local community?”

Use student-driven questions to co-construct inquiry pathways while still aligning with curriculum content descriptors.

2. Differentiated Learning Pathways

Modify learning tasks based on readiness, need, or learning profile.

Ideas:

              • Use tiered activities with visual, oral, written, and hands-on options

              • Offer different end products: video presentations, maps, dioramas, journals

              • Scaffold research tasks for students needing extra support

              • Incorporate extension tasks for deeper analysis

This allows all students to access core HASS concepts at their own level, with room to grow.

3. Relatable, Localised Case Studies

Swap generic textbook examples for local or culturally relevant stories.

For example:

              • Replace a general history topic with a community migration story

              • Use maps of the students’ own suburb or country of heritage

              • Invite students to interview their families about cultural celebrations

              • Integrate community or First Nations perspectives that reflect the class makeup

Place-based, student-centred learning fosters meaning-making and belonging.

4. Student-Led Presentations and Products

Allow students to demonstrate understanding in ways that reflect their strengths and interests.

Ideas:

              • Podcasts, zines, or documentaries on community change

              • Personal timelines or illustrated life journeys

              • Maps of important places in their identity or ancestry

              • Peer teaching sessions on cultural knowledge

These multimodal and choice-driven outputs enhance motivation and creativity.

 

🧠 In Action: A Year 6 HASS Unit on Migration

Personalisation Focus:

              • Students begin with the broad question: “Why do people move?”

              • They then choose a migration story to explore: family, local community member, or a fictional case.

              • Tasks are differentiated based on readiness:

                             ○ Some students create a digital story

                             ○ Others produce a research poster or infographic

                             ○ One group works with a scribe or buddy to create an oral narrative

Outcomes:

              • Students learn the economic, political and cultural drivers of migration

              • They connect emotionally and intellectually with the topic

              • All students access the content in a meaningful, personal way

 

💬 Final Thoughts: The Personal is Pedagogical

Personalising HASS is about more than just engagement—it’s about justice, identity, and inclusion. When students see that their voices, communities, histories, and questions matter, they don’t just learn HASS—they live it.

As educators, our role is to design flexible, responsive learning pathways that honour diversity, cultivate agency, and ensure every student sees a place for themselves in the narrative of society.