Teaching Secondary History

Matters of sustainability are frequently given media attention, including Australia’s experience of major catastrophic weather events from droughts to floods and bushfires, to issues of climate change and how we can live more sustainably. Students, having either experienced natural disasters first-hand or seen them reported in the media, will most likely have an interest in the topic of sustainability. With science identifying climate change as the greatest risk to humanity, issues of sustainability need to be covered at some level by schools. The Australian Curriculum has identified Sustainability as one of three cross-curriculum priorities to be integrated across all learning areas. This chapter provides contextual information about Sustainability and examples of how to link this cross-curriculum priority to the Humanities and Social Sciences learning area with a specific focus on history. Through increasing awareness of the need to live sustainable lives, critiquing debates around climate change and linking this to impacts on students’ lives in the present and into the future, the curriculum can be mapped to ensure children and young people can exercise agency in making decisions about how they will respond to issues of sustainability - for example, choice in product consumption.