8 July 2008
The National Museum of Australia celebrates NAIDOC Week 2008 with the introduction of an online resource to help teachers and their students explore the 1967 Referendum and the significance of this landmark event in Australian history.
'The National Museum's Collaborating for Indigenous Rights website is a wonderful teaching and learning resource, especially for middle to upper secondary students in History, Civics and Citizenship, Studies of Society and Environment, Human Society and its Environment, Aboriginal Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies and English,' said David Arnold, Education Manager at the National Museum of Australia.
The website contains a rich array of primary source documents relating to land rights and civil rights from the 1950s, and even earlier, to the landmark events and decision of the 1970s.
To help teachers and their students make the most of the website, the National Museum, in association with education writers, Ryebuck Media, has produced two units of work. The units are based on the website's extensive evidence; including one which deals specifically with the 1967 Referendum and another which looks more broadly at the development of both land rights and civil rights from 1957 to 1973.
The creation of both the Collaborating for Indigenous Rights website and associated online units of work is a good example of the increasing emphasis the National Museum is placing on the web as a means of producing and disseminating quality teaching and learning materials to education audiences.
The National Museum is now providing much of its education outreach content online, a strategy that goes hand-in-hand with the overall objectives of the Museum to provide increasing information about exhibitions and collections through its website. Teachers and students can look forward to seeing more and more quality education resources available online in the years to come.
To access the National Museum's Collaborating for Indigenous Rights website visit: http://indigenousrights.net.au/
For interviews and more information please contact Dennis Grant on 02 6208 5351, 0409 916 481; Caroline Vero on 02 6208 5338, 0438 620 710 or media@nma.gov.au