Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: What does it mean to represent a place?

20 minutes

Find Out: Australian athletes and their hometowns

25 minutes

Take Action: Exploring my connection to place

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

explore geographical divisions of Australia and where Commonwealth Games athletes come from
identify which state/territory, city, town, or region they are from.

Success criteria

Students can:

explain the geographical divisions of Australia
locate on a map of Australia which state/territory, city, town, or region they are from.

Tune In: What does it mean to represent a place?

Step 1

Ask students if they have ever heard of people representing a place before. Explain that people can represent a variety of places for different reasons, not just countries and sporting events. Provide some examples to help prompt their thinking, eg:

A student could represent their school at a science fair.
An adult could represent their workplace at a charity event.
An artist could represent their town by entering a national art competition.

Next, ask students to consider why someone would want to represent a place. If they are unsure, explain that people are shaped by the places they grow up or spend lots of time in, and that many people hold a special connection to these places.

Step 2

Explain that for today’s lesson, students are going to learn about Australian athletes who compete in the Commonwealth Games, focusing specifically on the places they represent and what it means to represent a place. Ask students what they think athletes are representing when they compete in sports – the sport, their country/state/region, their culture and heritage, or all of these? What are some visible elements athletes use to show what, where or who they are representing (eg their uniform, by singing a national anthem, gestures or movements at the end of a competition, etc)? Invite students to explain their thinking.

Step 3

To help contextualise this question and the lesson, outline the overall purpose of the Commonwealth Games using the What are the Commonwealth Games? Visual Explainer.

Find Out: Australian athletes and their hometowns

Step 1

Before diving into the profiles of 5 prominent Australian athletes who have competed at the Commonwealth Games, take a moment to familiarise students with a map of Australia using the Australian Athletes and Their Hometowns Visual Explainer. Use the unmarked map on slide 2 to encourage students to identify the states and territories they may already know, then show them the labelled map on slide 3. If time permits, ask them the following questions before continuing:

Which state/territory do we live in?
What’s the name of our capital city? Which state/territory is it in?
Hands up who has visited [teacher choice – insert state/territory]. What did you do there?

Step 2

Once students understand the different states and territories within Australia, talk them through the remainder of the visual explainer featuring the 5 prominent Australian athletes. During the presentation, bring students’ attention to the information about the athletes' hometowns and how they have been represented, starting with the state/territory and followed by the city and town they grew up in.

Step 3

On the final slide, there is a table displaying all the names of the athletes and the places they represent. Use this information to highlight that people can represent different geographical divisions (places within places). To help solidify this idea, you may like to ask students to answer the following questions based on the information presented in the table:

Which athlete represents the town of Berwick?
Which state does Stephanie Morton represent?
Which athlete represents Western Australia?

Extension opportunity: If time permits, look up the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Country names of these locations using the AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia (https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia). For example, Slade Point is known as Yuwibara. This could be done as a class using a projector on the whiteboard or in small groups using digital devices.

Take Action: Exploring my connection to place

Step 1

To help students apply what they’ve learnt so far, explain that they will be exploring the geographical regions they represent, similar to athletes in the Commonwealth Games.

Step 2

Start by asking students to identify the state/territory they currently live in, followed by the city and town name.

Next, invite students to pair up and brainstorm a list of sports played at the Commonwealth Games and decide which sport they’d most like to compete in. Once they’ve decided, prompt them to record their answer on the Student Worksheet and continue to work through the questions independently. Depending on their needs, you may need to write the names of sports and places on the whiteboard for them to copy.

Step 3 (Optional extension)

Introduce the concept of the ‘intergalactic games’, where athletes represent not just earthly regions but also interstellar ones. Prompt students to consider what they would represent at the intergalactic games. For example, Earth > the Milky Way > the Galaxy. Encourage creativity and imagination in how far they can extend their representation, allowing them to explore beyond Earth's boundaries.

Reflection

To wrap up the lesson, ask students to reflect on the following questions, inviting them to share their answers in pairs or small groups.

All the athletes we learned about today come from different places, yet they all represent Australia. What connects them? We may come from different places, too, so what connects us as Australians?
Share 1 thing you learned about places in Australia or the athletes that you didn't know before.
How can knowing where athletes come from help us understand and appreciate their achievements even more?

Athletes on the Map

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Athletes on the Map

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