Description
Deep Time Detectives is a fun and engaging education program that supports students in learning about the long and diverse histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.Over the last decade, interest in learning about Australia's deep-time histories has surged. Changes to curricula, including the addition of the cross-curriculum priority in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures and the introduction of the Deep time histories of Australia depth study for Year 7, have contributed to this shift. Growing interest among students in the diversity and adaptability of the hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that thrived across the megacontinent of Sahul has also played an important role.
Deep Time Detectives is a practical resource for educators, developed by scientists in collaboration with Traditional Knowledge holders. We hope it empowers Australian educators to confidently teach the deep time histories of people and Country.
Sources of evidence
Australia’s deep cultural history dates back at least 65,000 years. Yet less than 1 per cent of this long and diverse story has been captured in written records. To fully understand Australia’s past, we must weave together multiple sources of knowledge, including oral histories and Traditional Knowledge held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, alongside archaeological and palaeoecological evidence.
Archaeology—the excavation, analysis and interpretation of material remains—and palaeoecology—the study and reconstruction of past landscapes, climates and ecologies—are key disciplines that help illuminate deep-time histories. Both fields are highly interactive and lend themselves well to immersive, hands-on learning experiences in the classroom.
Deep time detecting
Deep Time Detectives is an innovative, flexible, and ready-to-use education program designed to support the Deep time histories of Australia depth study in the Australian Curriculum. Through a simulated desktop archaeological excavation, students learn how artefactual and ecofactual evidence is recovered and interpreted. Using 3D-printed models, students are introduced to both ecofacts and palaeoecological proxies—two key sources of information about the deep history of Country. Students excavate, analyse, and interpret 3D-printed replicas of cultural objects, shared through a collaboration with Anaiwan Elders from the Northern Tablelands of NSW.
Guided by a research handbook, students apply critical and creative thinking to reconstruct the history of the people who lived at their site, and explore how Country changed with and around them. Each component of the program is supported by worksheets, including an evidence log, analysis form, and interpretive report, which encourage students to engage with the evidence and methodologies of archaeology and palaeoecology.
The program is adaptable, with delivery options ranging from two lessons that cover foundational knowledge and the simulated excavation to a unit of work covering the full -depth study, incorporating that incorporates formative and summative assessments.
Pedagogical approaches
Deep Time Detectives is grounded in experiential and object-based learning pedagogies.
Guided by the Eight Aboriginal Ways of Learning (8 Ways) framework, developed by the Western NSW Regional Aboriginal Education Team within the NSW Department of Education, the program combines a narrative-driven approach with kinaesthetic skills, encouraging students to engage creatively with diverse sources about the past. This narrational approach helps students connect core themes and concepts across the present, past, and future, building a knowledge network that connects the familiar to the unfamiliar.
The program’s flexibility also enables links to a wide range of geographic locations, providing opportunities for place-based learning centred around local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges of place and Country. The non-linear pedagogy included in the 8 Ways framework supports the weaving together of multiple ways of thinking about deep time, scaffolding students’ approaches to higher-order, relational thinking.
To ensure accessibility and provide opportunities for extended learning, Deep Time Detectives is designed using a low threshold high ceiling approach. Its modular structure forms a sequential learning pathway, allowing educators to tailor the depth of learning to suit the needs and capabilities of their class or student cohort.
https://doi.org/10.26181/c.7780676
Grant Funder and Grant ID: ARC/CE170100015
| Period | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Held at | La Trobe University, Australia |