Australia through time

  • Audience
    Secondary school
  • Learning stage
    Stage 4, Stage 5
  • Learning area
    Climate change, Geography, Science
  • Type
    Learning resources, Self-led

On this page...

This activity gives students a taste for most of the exhibitions in the Museum as they create their own digital story about ‘Australia through time’. Learn about Australia’s evolving landscape, First Nations’ history, dinosaurs, megafauna, and other extinct organisms, using fossils and archaeological evidence in the Museum collection.

  • Smartphone or iPad
  • Australia through time map

  1. Find the 10 objects in the Museum. Read the label and object description.
  2. Take photos and notes or make a 60 second video at each location. Think about how it tells us about Australia’s past environments, how it helps us to relate animals from the past with those of today, or how First Nations people lived sustainably on Country.
  3. Use the words under each heading as a guide in your story about each object.
  4. Back at school, make a video, website or use another presentation style of your choice to tell a story of ‘Australia through time’. We recommend Adobe Spark.

1 Stromatolite
3000 million years ago, cyanobacteria, photosynthesis, sea levels, Shark Bay, fossils, oxygen

2 Canowindra Fish Fossils
360 – 370 million years ago, late Devonian, 4000 fossils, 8 fish species, ancient lake ecosystem

3 Shifting Continents
200 million years ago, Pangaea, Gondwana, fossil evidence, Glossopteris, Continental drift, Mesosaur, Cynodont

4 Australian Dinosaurs – Cretaceous
110 million years ago, early Cretaceous, Lightning Ridge, polar zone, fossils, mammals, dinosaurs, invertebrates, marine reptiles

5 'Eric' the Pliosaur
110 million years ago, pliosaur, opalised fossil, inland sea, Aboriginal water dreamings, aquatic carnivorous reptile

6 Diprotodon
30,000- 25,000 years ago, megafauna, marsupial, 2700 kg, climate change, Aboriginal people

7 'Welcome to Country' video
Eora Nation, 29 clans, gadigal, Hawkesbury (Darkinjung), Nepean (Deerubbin), Georges (Kayimai)

8 Archaeological Peel
4,000 years ago – present, baning bawaga (cave shelter), Balmoral, bones, magura (fish), gan (reptiles), wali (possum), badangi (Sydney Rock Oyster), vital

9 Thylacine
100 years ago

10 Climate Change
100 years ago – Present