🧰 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.
