Recently in Integrated, our unit has been The Hard Road Ahead. We have been working on this unit since day 1 Term 3. We have done everything from a school camp to diorama creating. We have spent weeks researching and learning about life on the Goldfields during the 1850s and life in Ballarat during the 1850s.
One thing that I learnt about life in the 1850s was that life was never easy. There was a lot of inequality and many people didn’t have the respect that they deserved. People on the Goldfields had to pay high taxes and if you wished to mine (which most people did), you had to have a gold licence. If not, they would take innocent people and make them suffer unfair consequences. Some had to go to jail. Some had to pay more money even if they didn’t have the money, or some were even killed there on the spot. Life was not easy.
Many people that came to Australia during the Gold Rush came to mine and dig. But there were others who came to step up businesses because there were many people to sell your things to. There were bakery’s, criterion stores, hotels, carriage company’s, grocery stores and lots more businesses all of which were very successful and helpful to the people on the Goldfields.
On the 3rd of December, 1854 at 5:00am the Eureka Stockade took place. The battle was one of the most important events in Australian history and it shaped our nation. The Eureka Stockade was a fight between the soldiers/redcoats and the diggers. The diggers were fed up with paying taxes, licence fees and having redcoats come up to them a threaten them to kill them if the diggers didn’t give them money. So, the diggers built a Stockade to take shelter in so that no one could come and threaten them to pay money . The diggers wanted their right and they wanted justice. So they did something about it. The battle was only 15mins but it was one of the most dreadful battles. 22 diggers died (one of which was a women) and 6 soldiers died. It was a very unpleasant but memorable battle.
Some important people from the 1850s are…
Peter Lalor was chosen by the diggers to be their leader in their fight against the authorities for liberty and freedom from taxes and licence fees.
John Humphray went to Govern Hotham to present an idea to make a Ballarat Reform League Charter so that all diggers could be able to vote. He also demanded that Governor Hotham realised the jailed diggers and destroyed gold licences.
Governor Hotham was in control when the Eureka Rebellion occurred.
Some important dates were…
- 1770 Captain Cook came to Australia
In 1770 Captain Cook first migrated and discovered the Australian land
- 1788 the first fleet arrived at Port Jackson
- May, 1851 gold was first discovered
In 1851 the first person struck gold in Australia. After, thousands of people came from across the world to find their fortunes.
- 3 December at 5:00am, 1854 was the Eureka Stockade
At 5:00am on December 3rd was the Eureka Stockade. The Stockade was a fight between the diggers and the redcoats because the diggers wanted their rights and fairness.
At the end of our unit, the class made a diorama. We each had a partner and each group had to design 2 squares and at the end we put all our squares together to make our version of Sovereign Hill. My partner was Sam. We made the Cobb & Co and the horses and stables. The Cobb & Co is a carriage company and the horses and stables is were the horses live.
Something else that I learnt during this unit was in writing when we were writing our own newspaper article and we had to pretended that it was an article from the 1850s. We used some old fashion slang. Another thing in writing that we learnt good skills to have when comparing and contrasting. We read newspaper articles and found the similarities and differences in the articles. During this unit in Maths, we had to program a robot to travel around our diorama. We also did an explain everything. I learnt about how to label a map and how to give specific instructions using the 4 directions.
I think that Sam and I used a lot of Imagination when we were creating the design of our building. Also, I think that I had to use Communication and Collaboration to share ideas with Sam for the diorama. I think that I used Resilience because I came across challenges that I had the build on in order to make Sam and I’s diorama building.
One challenge that I faced during this unit was probably programming my robot to go around the diorama. The programming wasn’t hard it was lining the robot up on the Main Road so it would go straight that was hard. Also, we had sand on our diorama so lots of sand got on the robots wheels so it started going in all different directions. But in the end, all I had to do was wipe the sand of the wheels and then the robot would go around the diorama really well. Another challenge was getting everything to stick together when Sam and I were making the diorama building. What I figured out was that hot glue worked best but you have to hold what you are sticking down for a while before you let go so that the glue can dry.
Some of my major highlights during this unit would definitely be camp. Camp was so much fun and I really enjoyed spending time with all of my friends and doing the all the fun activities such as the school program and researching about the shop that we were creating for our diorama building. Another highlight would be making the diorama because I enjoyed working with my partner and being able to create something that was part of the 1850s. Also, I really like seeing the whole diorama at the end. I loved writing my newspaper article as well.
My favourite things throughout this unit would have to be going on camp and writing my newspaper article. I liked camp because it was really fun and I loved doing lots of interesting things with my friends like the navigation map task or spending our money on special things from Sovereign Hill. I liked writing my newspaper article because I liked pretending to have an accident at my diorama shop and being able to write about it.
Some advice that I might give is that when you are making your diorama building to make sure that you have enough time to make your building because we didn’t have long to make our diorama.
One thing that I learnt about myself was that I can write in copperplate handwriting and that I can work quite well with Sam because I didn’t think that I could. One thing that I learnt about Sam is that he has some really creative ideas.
This unit was definitely the best Intergrated unit that we have had so far this year and that it has definitely been the most fun and interesting. I loved everything about this unit and I think that the year 4’s will have a great time doing this unit next year.
