St Mary's College Newsletter

HSIE News

HSIE

It has been an exciting year for the Human Society and its Environment (HSIE) Learning Area.  In addition to mandatory History and Geography in Years 7 to 10, students participated in elective subjects including Years 9/10 Elective History and Years 9/10 Commerce and senior subjects including Business Studies, Modern History, Work Studies, Society and Culture and Legal Studies.  Our students have produced some amazing work this year.  This is just a very small snapshot. 

 

YEAR 7

Year 7 studied Ancient Egypt as one of their compulsory depth studies.  Miss Sherriff’s class built Egyptian pyramids using Lego as part of their studies.

Troubie Theatre Productions also visited the College and performed an enjoyable production of Ask Hatshepsut for our Year 7 students.  Students gained an understanding of life in ancient Egypt and the interwoven layers of religion, politics and administration that created the empire of this great Queen.  For many students, this was the first time they had seen live theatre.

Mrs Hennessy’s Year 7HG classes enjoyed the opportunity to “mummify” a willing fellow student at the end of their Ancient Egyptian unit.

In Miss Stanley’s 7.5 History class, students participated in an excavation cookie challenge. Students were studying a unit called Investigation the Ancient Past in History and became archeologists and tried to excavate the artifacts (choc chips) out of the dirt (cookie crumbs). 

    

YEAR 8

Students in Year 8 have studied a range of topics this year including Interconnections, Water in the World, Expanding Contacts: Aboriginal and Indigenous Peoples, Colonisation and Contact, The Vikings and Shogun Japan.  Below are some student submissions for these topics:

Part of Amber Welch’s Viking Museum Virtual Exhibition

 

Miss Sherriff’s class created the following posters in their Colonisation and Contact unit:

  

Miss Barisa’s class is currently studying Shogun Japan.  Below are some of their creations along with Aleisha Doolan’s traditional Japanese meal

    

YEAR 9

Year 9 have studied Changing Places, Sustainable Biomes, Movement of Peoples, Australians at War (World War 1 and World War 2).  Below are some of their work samples:

Liam Reid’s 

YEAR 10 HISTORY

Students studied Rights and Freedoms with a focus on the fight for civil rights in the USA including the Freedom Rides, and its influence on Australia. To support the learning in this unit, Troubie Theatre came to the College and performed ‘Rights and Freedom/The Referendum - The Performance’, looking at the years preceding this historic vote, and the years since and the changing attitudes & public awareness in Australia and the continuing evolution of the civil rights movement.

Students also completed an investigation into pop culture in Australia during the 1960s (to support the historical investigations in the other classes). Students analysed aspects such as fashion, film/TV, music, family, food etc. Students were tasked with creating a Time Capsule in which they analysed a range of historical sources from the 1960s. They chose a number of sources and created a time capsule website of the 1960s.  They also completed an extended response.  Below are a sample of extended responses on the 1960s in Australia 

Clare Canham - Lesson 19 Extended Response Jacey Ross - Lesson 19 Extended Response Jho Deniz Natividad - Lesson 19 Extended Response Owen Robinson - Lesson 19 Extended Response

Elective History

Students in Elective History studied a range of topics of interest including:

  • A World in Crisis - A Study of Genocide and Terrorism
  • Medieval Japan
  • Historical heroes and villains through history
  • An Historical Investigation
  • Richard III and the Princes in the Tower
  • A Brief History of Organised Crime

Below is a life size Samurai drawing completed by students as part of their Medieval Japan studies.

In their studies of Richard III, students participated in a class debate on Richard III - did he kill his nephews? The team arguing that he didn’t was the winning team.  To assist with the preparation for the debate, students completed a crime board for sources of Richard III. Students used sources (both primary and secondary) and images to link together ideas using wool to determine what the sources stated about Richard III and Henry VII.

Students also created a presentation to the class about a historical hero or villain of their choice. Natasha Sidorenko-Parson did a great performance as if she were hosting a ‘This is Your Life’ episode for Albert Einstein. These  are the slides she used to support her presentation:

 Natasha Sidorenko-Partridge - Heroes and Villians Assessment Task 

For the Historical Investigation unit, students had to create a research proposal and then write an extended response on a historical issue, place, person of their choice. Riley Roden did a comparison of Disney’s Coco to the historical representation of the Day of the Dead.  A link to her presentation is below:

 Riley Roden - Part B - Historical Investigation Extended Response

 

Commerce

Students participated in a Model UN in Term 1. The students had so much fun completing this unit. This was just before the war in Ukraine began and Russia invaded as students were working on ways to solve the problems between Russia and Ukraine (as countries in the EU). This gave students a real world taste and application/understanding of the skills they were building. Here are some reflection statements created by students:

 Clare Canham - Reflection Statement Emily Williams - Reflection Statement

Students have completed some project based learning. For the unit on the Employment and Work Futures students worked in groups to create a start up business and created an induction plan for employees.

Students investigated an industry of their choice to see how it has changed in the last 50 years: Ally Harris - Employment and Work Futures Assessment Task  Riley Roden - Employment and Work Futures Assessment Task  Chelsie Smith - Part B

Students are currently completing a unit on Towards Independence. They are currently finishing a Board Game activity.

Senior Legal Studies

Year 12 students completed their HSC Examination on 21 October 2022.  They studied the core units of Human Rights and Crime and Global Environmental Protection and World Order as their optional topics.

Year 11 students have now started the HSC Course.  In Year 11, they studied a range of topics including Achieving Justice and Law Reform in the Australian Legal System.  The College also had a team of students attend the Tamworth Family Law Pathways Network Mock Trial.  They were successful in their Mock Trial against Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School and finished third overall.  Congratulations to Mesaydes Sullivan, Bianca Pye, Emma Doyle, Eliza Renton and Clare Canham (Year 10).

Society and Culture

Students have just begun their Personal Interest Project journey. Students have given presentations about what they have achieved so far and their topics of investigation. Students have very broad ideas. Some examples of research areas are:

 

The impact on the individual and society of the lack of representation of people with disability

  • The decline of GP healthcare in rural areas compared to that in the city
  • The intersection of capitalism and feminism - can they coexist?
  • ‘My Culture is not your Costume’ an investigation of race and representation. Cultural appropriation in costumes: is it culturally inappropriate or is it racist?
  • The changing face of children’s media: is society's racial diversity really represented in children’s tv/film and its impact on people’s views of race and the family unit

Thank you to all of the dedicated HSIE teachers.  Bring on 2023!