Catalyst • Junior Secondary Curriculum • Handbook 2021
Action
Project Year 7
Ancient Mysteries (History)
Who were the bog bodies? What killed Ötzi the
Iceman? How old is the Sphinx and who built
it? What was the purpose of the Stonehenge
monument?
These are just some of the questions about
Ancient History that have fascinated people
through the years. Historians are ‘time detectives’.
They follow the process of historical enquiry in
order to better understand the past. In this Action
Project, students will investigate how historians
have tried to solve some of the most puzzling and
intriguing historical mysteries of the ancient world
by consulting specialists and using all the resources
of modern technology: historical databases, online
discussions, CAT scans, radio carbon dating, digital
reconstructions and chemical analysis.
Students will use their ‘toolkit’ of inquiry skills to
try and piece together an accurate picture of how
historians build hypotheses concerning the complex
ancient civilisations and pre-historic communities.
Students will need to draw together evidence from
artefacts, oral accounts, documents and secondary
sources in order to form their conclusions.
Discover the experts, evaluate the evidence and
methods they used, see how they constructed
their hypotheses and tried to solve the mysteries
throughout history
Action
Project Year 7
To Bottle or not to Bottle? (Economics and Business)
So the saying goes ‘... water, water everywhere nor
any drop to drink.’
This is hard to imagine given the global availability
of fresh drinking water. We all know that we need
to drink water to survive, and yet in our society it has
evolved into a want. Driven by consumerism we now
spend $500 million on bottled water every year in
Australia. For each bottle consumed the water has to
be pumped out of the ground, packaged, transported
and chilled.
In this Action Project, students will consider
water availability from an individual, national and
international perspective. They will investigate why
consumers are willing to pay over 1,000 times the
cost of tap water for bottled water and the ways
in which businesses adjust the price of products
according to demand. Based on data analysis,
collection of print and digital resources and service
learning, students will be able to justify their answer
to the question, ‘…to bottle, or not to bottle?’
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