 Hello and welcome to the second edition of my video log, Fanning the Flames of Wonder. In the first edition I explained why I chose that name and the significance of the first word in Akara's name, Australian. In this second edition I'd like to focus on aspects of our responsibilities in relation to the second word in our name, curriculum. As many of you would be aware, the Australian curriculum is three-dimensional. We have the eight key learning areas, seven general capabilities and three cross-curriculum priorities. One of those cross-curriculum priorities is called Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures. Why is this a cross-curriculum priority and what does it mean in practical terms for teachers and students? Let me answer that by telling a story about a lesson I used to give when I was a teacher in secondary school. At the start of each year in the first history class I would ask two volunteers to come out the front of the classroom and stand at either side of the classroom looking towards me in the middle of them. I would give each student a piece of chalk and ask them to close their eyes. And then I would hold up in the middle a double-sided piece of paper, something like this, red on one side and blue on the other. And I would hold it in such a way that when I asked the students to open their eyes one student saw one side and the other student saw the other side. And then I would quickly put it away and I would ask them, OK, right down on the board what colour was the paper? Of course one student wrote red and the other blue and the rest of the class who could see what I was up to watched with amusement the puzzled looks on the two students' faces as they tried to figure out why the other student had written down what they'd written. It didn't take them long to work out that literally there were two different colours and which one you saw depended on your perspective on where you stood. The point of this lesson in the context of a history course was to demonstrate that when it does come to history telling the story of the past perspective is vitally important. Historians are investigators who try to uncover the truth about the past so that we living in the present can better understand the situation in which we live. And that means they have to work hard to understand events from a variety of perspectives the perspectives of those involved in the events at the time. Which brings me back to the question of why we have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures as a cross-curriculum priority in the Australian curriculum. It's very simple really. According to the 2008 Melbourne Declaration on the Educational Goals for Australian Schooling one of the goals for our students is to become active and informed citizens and that this is a key purpose of education. In order for this to be achieved Australian children and young people do need to develop an appreciation for the perspective and experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Seeing things from their perspective will reveal different aspects of our national story that many people would not otherwise be able to see. However it's important to understand that this cross-curriculum priority is not a separate or additional key learning area. Teachers are invited to integrate aspects of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experience and perspectives into the way they teach the key learning areas. At ACARA we are supporting teachers to do this through the development of what we call elaborations to the curriculum's key learning areas. Elaborations are essentially examples of content that teachers can build into their lesson plans for a particular subject or learning area. They are not a compulsory part of the curriculum. So we have started with science. Last October ACARA released almost 100 examples of how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have understood and applied scientific concepts and ideas in their daily life. In designing boomerangs for example Aboriginal people demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of aerodynamics long before Leonardo da Vinci started drawing pictures of helicopters. So you'll find the full list of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elaborations for the Year 7-10 Science Curriculum on the Australian Curriculum website. These elaborations will help students understand aspects of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and cultures while they are importantly at the same time improving their understanding of key scientific facts and ideas. In other words, this cross-curriculum priority and these elaborations are not an addition to what many teachers feel is an already overcrowded curriculum. This is able to be built into the way a subject is taught. It's not meant to be additional to it. The hope is that when Australian children and young people are given the opportunity to learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and perspectives within the context of the key learning areas, they will experience a number of wow moments when they see how sophisticated and complex the way of life of our first people actually was and is. And this could spark their curiosity and get them asking more and more questions and finding more and more answers. These elaborations to the curriculum can help teachers fan the flames of wonder and I commend them to you.