ACSA Members click here to go to the Members Area and access the IDEAS resources.

IDEAS (Innovative and Dynamic Educational Activities for Schools) is a set of resources for Australian classrooms freely available to ACSA members as a benefit of membership. Each IDEAS resource features a curriculum context, a learning sequence and reproducible worksheet/s. A new IDEAS resource will be added to the website each month from February to November. These resourses can be downloaded from the Members Area button on the ACSA homepage.

Sample IDEAS Resource

To view a sample of an IDEAS resouce click here for:

Acknowledgement of Country
Level: All Years
Curriculum Area: Cross-curriculum
This activity encourages students to develop a respect for, and understanding of, Indigenous protocols used in the community.

Latest IDEAS titles

A day for Australians
Level: Primary
Curriculum area: History, English, Civics and citizenship education
General capabilities: Literacy, Critical and creative thinking, Personal and social
capability, Ethical behaviour, Intercultural understanding.
In this classroom resource, students will reflect on the reasons that Australia Day is celebrated.
Using the 2012 Australia Day Address as a source, students explore what Australia Day may
mean for different groups in the community. They also identify exemplars of what being
Australian means to them.

Crafting a message
Level: Years 9-12
Curriculum Area: English, Civics and citizenship education, Values education
In this resource, students will analyse how language variation and organisation of a text can be used to achieve different purposes. The learning sequence uses a range of texts (including expository and persuasive texts) that explore the theme of asylum seekers and refugees.

Positive Steps
Level: Years 3-6
Curriculum Area: Civics and citizenship education, Values education
This learning sequence aims to provide students with knowledge and skills that will promote personal resilience and deal with friendship problems in a positive way; making them better equipped to handle friendship difficulties when they occur.

Sourcing the past
Level: Foundation to Year 3
Curriculum Area: History
This resource aims to foster interest in researching with primary sources, with a focus on the theme of transport.

Australian Flying Corps
Level: Middle Years
Curriculum Area: History
In this short learning sequence, students explore the experiences of members of the Australian
Flying Corps during World War I.

A giant ripple
Level: Middle Years
Curriculum Area: Geography
In this resource students explore the impact of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on 11 March 2011 and the ensuing problems with the Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant in Fukushima.

A Healthy Promotion
Level: Middle Years
Curriculum Area: Health and Physical Education, English
In this resource students explore the challenges involved in conducting programs to promote healthy lifestyles in the community.

A century of change
Level: Years 6-12
Curriculum area: History, Civics and citizenship education, Values education
This resource provides a learning sequence in which students will explore changes to the role and status of women in Australian society over the last 100 years.

Standing up to Bullying
Level: Years 3-10
Curriculum area: Civics & Citizenship education, Values education
This resource provides a short learning sequence that focuses on the role of the bystander in a bullying incident.

Let the people speak
Level: Year 10
Curriculum area: History, Civics & Citizenship education
In this classroom resource, students will reflect on the recent popular uprising in Egypt to identify any elements that it had in common with other movements for civil rights and freedoms.

Responding to Natural Disasters
Level: Years 5-10
Curriculum Areas: Geography, History, Civics and citizenship education, Values education
This resource provides a short learning sequence that focuses on the response by the Australian community to recent natural disasters.

Water: for all of us?
Level: Upper Primary / Lower Secondary
Curriculum Areas: Environment, English (persuasive writing)
This resource encourages students to think about the competing demands for water in the dry continent of Australia, by exploring sources revealing the impact of drought on people and animals.

It's all in a name!
Level: Middle/Upper Secondary
Curriculum Areas: Commerce/Business studies, Values education
In this resource students are challenged to think about why a person's name can influence their chances of success in a job selection process; and to explore the development of stereotypes based on ethnicity and gender.

Calligraphy and Islam
Level: Upper/Middle secondary
Curriculum Area: Arts
This short learning sequence explores the tradition of calligraphy in the Muslim world and asks students to identify its role and purpose. Students reflect on the tradition from their own context and perspective.

A new preamble for the Australian Constitution?
Level: 10-12
Curriculum Area: History / Legal Studies
In this learning sequence students explore the role and function of the preamble in the Australian Constitution. They also consider what a new preamble might say, and identify values they would want to see included if a new preamble were to be developed.

Defending a nation
Level: Middle Years
Curriculum Area: SOSE / Citizenship
This resource encourages students to explore attitudes towards the right of governments
to compel citizens to join the armed forces, and the responsibility of citizens to serve, in
times of conflict.

Developing cultural sensitivity in the classroom
Level: 5-10
Curriculum area: SOSE, Values Education
This resource provides a short learning sequence that focuses on developing cultural sensitivity and intercultural understanding.

A nation of many cultures
Level: Middle years
Curriculum Area: SOSE / Values Education
This resource encourages students to explore attitudes towards different cultural groups in the Australian community.

Is it alright to steal if it makes you feel good?
Level: Lower Primary
Curriculum Area: Cross-Curriculum
This resource will introduce young students to the philosophical skills of inquiry and
reasoning.

What was it like learning maths when you were at school?
Level: Middle Years
Curriculum Area: Numeracy
This resource allows students to explore what their parents remember about their experience
of learning maths at school, and how maths is relevant to them in their lives now.

Who Cares?
Level: Middle Years
Curriculum Area: Cross-curriculum
This resource encourages students to critically analyse the way that values are embedded in
the images that surround us.

The IDEAS learning sequences reflect the principles of curriculum as defined in the ACSA Principles for Australian Curriculum. ACSA believes that curriculum should:

• be of current and enduring personal and social value
• be constructed from a balanced and explicit selection from key areas of human inquiry and endeavour
• develop deep disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning
• prepare people to be creative and effective life-long learners
• provide people with the necessary knowledge, understandings, values and skills to be active, informed and productive citizens in a democratic society
• encourage global perspectives and promote responsible, just and sustainable global citizenship
• be inclusive in recognising and representing the cultural, political and economic contribution of the range of groups in the community
• be based on cooperation and success for all learners
• be responsive to the experience of learners
• embody participatory, collective and empowering approaches to teaching and learning
• engage people in authentic tasks.