[Text appears on screen is read by a voiceover “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that the following video may contain images and voices of deceased persons.”]
[Text appears on screen is read by a voiceover “ACARA would like to acknowledge that this video was filmed on Wankatja Country, and the Ngalia and Tjupan knowledge-holders’ contribution to this project.”]
[Image changes to show a multi-coloured three dimensional graph on screen, which is described by the female narrator]
Narrator: This illustration demonstrates how the three dimensions of the Australian Curriculum work authentically together through a focus on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures cross-curriculum priority.
[Music plays and image changes to show Australia, camera then zooms in on where Perth is located and a hand appears to mark out where Leonora is situated]
[Image changes to show to a sign that reads Leonora District High School]
Female: Leonora District High School is a small Level 4 school, in the Northern Goldfields.
[Image changes to show students walking in the school grounds]
[Image changes to show students seated on the floor in front of a teacher]
We have a 139-students enrolled and 86-per cent of those students are Aboriginal.
[Image changes to show aerial footage of Leonora, it is similar to a desert landscape, orange and dusty with a variety of trees and shrubs]
[Image changes to show Jeannette Maxfield, Principal, Leonora District High School talking to the camera]
Jeannette Maxfield: When I first game to the school in 2016 I discovered that going out bush was a long-standing tradition of the school,
[Image changes to show students and teachers walking in a line in the bush]
and I was really keen to continue that because I saw it as a great opportunity to build positive relationships with the community, to develop our cultural understanding,
[Image shows teachers and students participating in cultural activities]
and also, to give students and teachers the opportunity to connect the learning we can do on country back into Australian curriculum.
[Image changes to show David Broun holding a stack of plastic tubs above his head and talking to the students]
David Broun: So we’re going to look for invertebrates, and we can put some in here if we find any on the way and then we’ll go and look for the Mamutjitji.
[Text appears on screen: Two-way Science Leonora District High School]
[Image changes to show David Broun, Senior Coordinator, CSIRO Science Pathways For Indigenous Communities talking to the camera]
David Broun: So Two-way Science is pedagogy, it’s an approach that connects the traditional ecological knowledge of Aboriginal people, and that is the scientific and cultural understanding of people, animals and the environment, with western science inquiry and links that to the Australian curriculum in a learning program.
[Image changes to show students and teachers walking through the bush]
Fifi Harris: Who can see it? Look, look, look here!
[Image changes to show a female teacher pointing to something on the ground and the students gathering around her to see it]
One, two, three, four, five… how do you get it out? How do you get it out of the hole? Do you dig it? – no.
Student: You’ve got to blow it.
[Image changes to show students crouched down on the ground and blowing]
Fifi Harris: You blow it inni? So when you blow, you’ve got to blow really gently or else you’ll blow the Mamutjitji out and you won’t be able to see it unless we’ve got a magnifying glass.
[Image changes to show the students collecting Mamutjitji and putting them into plastic containers]
Student: Got ‘im, got ‘im, now see ‘im.
David Broun: Ah, well done. Here we’re looking at the Mamutjitji, the antlion, and learning about the story and part of that is looking at the structural features, the pincers, which has direct curriculum links to investigations around the structural features of animals and adaptations.
[Image changes to show David and students closely studying a Mamutjitji]
Student: That looks like a Mamutjitji.
David Broun: It is, that’s a Mamutjitji isn’t? You can see its giant pincers. That’s it, got ‘em, that’s a beauty!
[Image changes to show Kado Muir, Cultural Protocol Officer, Ngalia Heritage Research Council talking to the camera]
Kado Muir: The value here of engaging in Two-way Science learning on country is to reconnect our kids.
[Image changes to show Kado seated on the ground with students gathered around him]
If you go back to a traditional system of learning, it’s our mothers, it’s our auntys, it’s our uncles, our fathers who teach the children.
[Image changes to show a teacher and student looking closely at a bush]
Fifi Harris: See the little flower?
Student: Yeah.
Fifi Harris: One, two, three… it looks like a little hand?
Student: Yeah.
Fifi Harris: See this bush here?
Student: Yeah.
Fifi Harris: This is a medicine bush, and you know what old people do? They break it all up and they boil it all up and they can drink it like a cup of tea and it fixes them up.
[Image changes back to show Kado seated on the ground with students gathered around him]
Kado Muir: So a dreamtime story, there was all the Mamu kids and all the human kids. All the Mamu kids coming up and all the human kids said, “Hey, we don’t want to play with these Mamu’s, they might eat us…
[Image changes back to show Kado talking to the camera]
So the Mamutjitji story, which is the little performance, or the childs corroboree, teaches you where you can find the animal. Why it’s in the earth, it was beaten into the earth by these dreamtime children, who were fighting with the Mamu kids.
[Image changes to show Kado teaching the students the Mamutjitji dance moves]
See like this, this movement, that’s like when you’ve got the bushes, you’re chasing the Mamu kids.
Student: And you’re whacking ‘em.
Kado Muir: Yeah. And the song go like this, it go…
[Kado commences to sing the students a song in Ngalia language. It gets louder and faster and the hand actions become more vigorous until Kado lifts his hands in the air and the children lean out of the huddle, giggling]
[Image changes to show Suzanne Fowler, Primary Teacher, Leonora District High School talking to the camera]
Suzanne Fowler: So this year in my Year Three/Four class we’ve been focusing on biological sciences,
[Image changes to show the camera panning over labelled pictures of Mamutjitji’s]
where living things have observable features and the science inquiry skill that we’re focusing on is representing ideas, scientific ideas through scientific drawings.
[Image changes to show students around a contained pit of dirt in the classroom]
Student: Some of the features are antennae, pincers, abdomen, legs, thorax and the head.
[Image changes back to show Suzanne talking to the camera]
Suzanne Fowler: We’ve been able to look at the way the Traditional Owners have communicated their ideas and understandings of the scientific processes through song and dance,
[Image changes back to show Kado Muir with the children and then changes back to show Suzanne talking to the camera]
and then we can relate that to our science inquiry skills of communicating and representing ideas, but this time, we’re not actually going to be doing it in song and dance like the traditional owners would have,
[Image changes to show students drawing pictures of Mamutjitji]
we’re actually doing it through scientific drawings.
[Image changes to show the students back out in the bush with a teacher all holding small pit traps]
Tayla Hughes: Alright, so what we’re going to do today is put out our pit traps. Now the reason we’re doing this is to catch different types of invertebrates.
[Image changes to show Tayla Hughes, Secondary Teacher, Leonora District High School talking to the camera]
Before we came out here to conduct the field work we had to plan and work out where it would be best suited to put those pit traps.
[Image changes to show school work, different photos and text: 2 Way Science. Questioning – Do different invertebrates live in different habitats? Predicting]
We also had to work out what we predicted. So that is a part of their science inquiry process,
[Image changes back to show Tayla talking to the camera]
and the predicting involved if a different site would be better to collect invertebrate, so we’re comparing school to Malcolm Dam.
[Image changes back to show Tayla talking to the students who are gathered around her]
And we’re going to compare and analyse the data we collect, and we’re going to put it in a tally and see how many different invertebrates we can find here. Once we’ve done that we get to have a discussion about whether we think it’s a fair test.
[Image changes to show David Broun talking to the camera]
David Broun: In any field investigation, the model that we promote is one where students are making sure that what they are doing fits within ethical and cultural guidelines of local people, as scientists should be doing in their research.
[Image changes to show Kado Muir talking with a group of students]
Kado Muir: So as you guys are working as scientists, one of the important things about science is you need to have ethical clearances, you’re taking an animal whose going about their daily life in the bush, doing their thing, and you’re disturbing them, you’re taking them away and you may end up killing them, and it does raise ethical questions, you need to have these ethics approvals to basically do this kind of work and make sure that you’re doing the right thing.
[Image changes to show Kado assisting the students to set up traps]
One of things to keep an eye out for when you’re setting up the pit traps in these sort of areas, you’d not want to dig a pit trap near here, there’s two reasons. One, is there’s evidence of Aboriginal occupation and use of the land, as well as it’s actually protected by the Aboriginal Heritage Act.
[Image changes to show David Broun talking to the camera]
David Broun: In these Western Desert regions Aboriginal people are involved in the management of huge areas of land, whether it be through the Aboriginal Ranger Program,
[Image changes to show Kado vigorously rubbing two stones together]
or participation and support of research undertaken by other scientists.
[Image changes to show a small group of students digging in the dirt and then moves back to David]
Developing in students this idea of science being a consultative process between traditional owners, community and science in the research is really important.
[Image changes to show Fifi Harris, Aboriginal and Island Education Office, Leonora District High School talking to the camera]
Fifi Harris: Going out at Malcolm Dam and Two Way Science and teaching language on country, ‘cause I think it’s really important that we’re given the opportunity to teach the kids language on country, because doing and seeing, I think, the kids, like it sticks with them better. So, you know, if they can run around and go OK, I found a ngurtal out bush, you know, the ngurtal comes off the kurtan tree. Kapi is the water, waan for creek, if they can see, feel, taste, you know, you got Wangai word, English word, so much better for the kids, I think.
[Image changes to show the camera panning a school building]
[Image changes to show Jenna, talking to a group of students who are seated on the floor in front of her]
Jenna Corlett: OK, so one of the activities we‘re going to be doing this morning, is we’re going to be using the iPads.
[Camera zooms in on Jenna Corlett, Primary Teacher, Leonora District High School talking to the camera]
Having the children able to go out on country and experience something that they are already confident and capable of is a really nice way to engage them in the program in the classroom.
[Image changes to show students walking around in the bush and then changes back to them in a classroom gathered on the floor while Jenna is talking to them]
And what have been learning about in our class at the moment?
Students: Mamutjitji!
Jenna Corlett: Mamutjitji’s well done! And what do Mamutjitji’s like to eat?
Students: Ants!
Jenna Corlett: And how do they catch the ants do you think?
Students: With a pit trap!
[Image changes to show Jenna talking to the camera]
Jenna Corlett: I’m able to integrate it through a range of different learning areas. So, for example, today we’ve been able tie it into digital technology through using the Scratch App
[Image changes to show Jenna showing the students the Mamutjitji on the screen of an iPad and then changes to show the students working independently on iPads at their tables]
And so the kids are able to use coding to move the ant to the Mamutjitji pit.
[Image changes to show Jenna talking to the camera]
We’re able to incorporate the visual arts through painting; the students are able to do mural.
[Image changes to show children painting a mural]
We were just using the microscope to basically zoom in on the different insects and we’re looking at their external features, because we know that all insects have a variety of external features, so they are able to identify and label the different features of the insects.
[Image changes to show Tayla gathered around by students standing together under a marquee with tables set up with scientific equipment]
Tayla Hughes: This stage is, is when we are classifying what we have found in our pit traps. We are using our flip guide, and images from our microscope that we have to help us classify. Once we’ve got this information and we’ve tallied it all up on our data sheet, we’re going to go back and we’re going to collate all of our data together and then graph what we found.
[Image changes to show students tipping insect samples onto white trays]
Whoa! Look at that one!
[Image changes to show a Mamutjitji under a microscope]
You can see the head, the thorax and the abdomen just looking at it.
[Image changes to show David Broun talking to the camera]
David Broun: When I come out to these communities now, I see this as just full of opportunity and potential.
[Image changes to show an aerial shot of the desert, a body of water, tracks and cars can been seen in the shot]
What kids in remote communities have on their doorstop in terms of culture and country,
[Image changes to show David talking to the camera]
provides opportunities that many kids in an urban setting just don’t get access to.
[Image changes to show Fifi Harris, Aboriginal and Island Education Office, Leonora District High School talking to the camera]
Fifi Harris: The kids are learning who they are.
[Image changes to show the students in the bush]
And when they find out who they are they’re going to be stronger people.
[Image changes to show Fifi talking to the camera]
If they have success out here then they’re going to have success in the classroom because say if it’s a flow on isn’t it, a flow on? Yep, let’s go.
[Image changes to show Fifi back in a classroom and working with the students]
You know, out bush, into classroom, we can do it.
[Image changes to show Suzanne Fowler, Primary Teacher, Leonora District High School talking to the camera]
Suzanne Fowler: I’ve actually found the engagement has gone through the roof.
[Image changes to show David working with the students in a classroom]
There was a reluctance to put things down on paper, but because we’re now connecting it to their everyday lives, you know, I’m find that they’re more willing to write things, or draw things,
[Image changes to show Suzanne talking to the camera]
and they’re actually more willing to talk about it as well, so therefore, I’ve got more that I can assess on.
[Image changes to show students around a contained pit of dirt in the classroom]
Student: When they build their home, it’s like a trap for them. They build their house and it’s like an inside out cone, and then when an ant comes walking along, it falls down into that little inside out cone and then the Mamutjitji launches up and grabs it with its pincers.
[Image changes to show Jeannette Maxfield talking to the camera]
Jeannette Maxfield: There are many benefits from working with this project,
[Image changes to show Suzanne and Fifi seated together and talking]
and the first and most important one is that its helped us to create a stronger link between school and community. The Aboriginal Cultural Standards Framework is guiding us to become a more culturally responsive school.
[Image changes to show Jeannette Maxfield talking to the camera]
We are creating a respectful environment where students’ language, and culture, and experience is being valued.
[Image changes to show Kado Muir talking to the camera]
Kado Muir: I’m hoping with what we’re doing now is that valuing Aboriginal knowledge, incorporating that into the curriculum,
[Image changes to show Kado showing a small group of students gathered around him something in the dirt]
and then seeing the world through our eyes.
[Image changes to show Kado talking to the camera]
We’re able to add an element of, you know, our knowledge to the curriculum.
[Children singing can be heard and image changes to show the desert on dusk and text: Wangkatha adaptation of original son “Wanjoo” by Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse]
[Image changes to show ACARA (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority logo]