Deep Time to Future Voices is a complete 10‑week Year 7 History inquiry exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures from 65,000+ years of innovation through colonisation, resistance, civil rights, land rights, and contemporary truth‑telling. The unit is built around a central question: How does the world’s oldest continuous living culture maintain connection to Country despite the disruptions of colonization?

Students examine archaeological evidence, Songlines as navigational systems, cultural burning, first contacts, frontier conflict, protectionist laws, intergenerational trauma, the 1967 Referendum, Mabo, Wik, and Voice–Treaty–Truth. Weekly lessons follow a clear rhythm—Engage, Explore, Create—and draw on authentic sources such as Mungo Lady, Macassan trade, the Bringing Them Home Report, frontier conflict maps, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
The unit includes a wide range of student activities: source analysis, map interpretation, bias detection, reflection tasks, structured writing, and creative outputs. The summative assessment is a Truth‑Telling Museum, where students curate a display that uses evidence to debunk a misconception—for example, demonstrating that Indigenous fire management (cool burns) promotes new growth and prevents wildfires.

What’s Included

Full 10‑week Year 7 inquiry unit
Weekly content covering archaeology, astronomy, Songlines, cultural burning, first contacts, frontier conflict, protectionist laws, intergenerational trauma, civil rights, land rights, and Voice–Treaty–Truth
Source analysis tasks: Mungo Lady, Macassan trade, Frontier Wars maps, Bringing Them Home, 1967 Referendum
A wide range of student activities: source analysis, map interpretation, bias detection, reflection tasks, structured writing, creative outputs
Case studies: Pemulwuy, Charles Perkins, Mabo, Wik, Uluru Statement
Weekly inquiry questions and evidence‑based misconceptions
Summative assessment: Truth‑Telling Museum
Teacher references and curated links to reputable sources
Provided as non‑editable PDFs

This resource is provided as non‑editable PDFs and is not designed as editable PowerPoints. Teachers can upload slides to their LMS, print selected pages for classroom use, display them to support discussion, analysis, and writing, or upload them to presentation or design platforms if they wish to adapt the material (formatting may vary depending on the program).