Loft Room

How the World Works

The Loft Room children are inquiring into materials, and how they can be manipulated for a range of purposes. This unit will be exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives on Natural Materials and Sustainability through the central idea: 

Indigenous cultures respect and use natural materials in harmony with the land, promoting sustainability

In their research of  objects, art and technology, on the Australian Museum website, the children were intrigued by a wallaby trap from far North Queensland, woven from lawyer cane. Through discussion, they began to create a shared definition of something that is sustainable and created using natural materials, and something that is human-made and manufactured. This then led to an exploration of  how many steps away from its natural composition something can be and become, while remaining sustainable.

This unit has also inspired numeracy inquiry. Through data collection, categorisation and data interpretation, the children are using materials as the prompt to explore graphing and how we can represent numerical information visually.

This unit is a wonderful example of teachers and children inquiring and learning together, and while the learning aims are established at the outset of the inquiry, in true progressive fashion, the teachers are open to the interests of the children, who may then direct inquiry in a way that was not anticipated.

 Framing the inquiry at the outset are the following learning objectives:

- Understand the importance of natural materials in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

- Learn how indigenous cultures live in harmony with the land.

- Explore sustainable practices related to natural materials

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children."

The broader aim of this inquiry is to establish the importance of caring for the land, spirit, and the importance of our role as stewards of the land and caretakers of our fellow beings, human and non-human in the context of Indigenous wisdom from an Indigenous perspective.