Digital Classroom | National Library of Australia (NLA)

Digital Classroom

Explore Australia's history at the National Library's Digital Classroom, aligned with the Australian Curriculum. With over 10 million items, we support diverse learning styles, fostering inquiry-based learning for students to analyse sources and draw conclusions about the Australian story.
Showing 1 - 12 of 12 results
A detailed drawing of various hunting implements and weapons. The illustration includes spears, shields, boomerangs, clubs, and other tools, arranged in a grid-like pattern on a plain background. Each item is depicted with precise lines and shading, with some labelled using letters A and B.

Port Jackson Painter, Aboriginal hunting implements and weapons, 1790, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135230406

Changing technology

Topic 

Explore how food production and gathering methods have evolved over time, using artworks and photographs from our collection.

Humanities
Year 3
Australian history
Science and technology
man working on huge gears

Sievers, Wolfgang, 1913-2007 & Vickers Ruwolt. (1967). The gears [picture] : gears for the mining industry, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Melbourne, 1967 / Wolfgang Sievers. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136505226

Documenting modern Australia

Module

This resource is aligned to the Australian Curriculum: Design and Technologies standards for Year 5 and 6.

Humanities
Technologies
Year 5
Year 6
Architecture and design
Art, drawing and illustration
Photography
Science and technology
National Gallery of Victoria forecourt

Sievers, Wolfgang, 1913-2007. (1968). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne - Forecourt with Rodin's Balzac, 1968, 2 [picture] / Wolfgang Sievers. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-160765377

Documenting modernity

Topic

Sievers’ work is a pictorial timeline showing Australia’s social, technological and industrial transformation.

Humanities
Technologies
Year 5
Year 6
Architecture and design
Photography
Science and technology
stacks of aluminium profiles

Sievers, Wolfgang, 1913-2007. (1965). Aluminium profiles at Comalco's plant at Yennora, New South Wales, 1965, 3 [picture] / Wolfgang Sievers. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-160295127

Modernism

Topic

Modernism was a cultural movement that influenced visual arts, architecture, music, literature and design in the first half of the twentieth century.

Humanities
Technologies
Year 5
Year 6
Architecture and design
Photography
Science and technology
Man leaning against gate

Sievers, Wolfgang, 1913-2007. (1991). [Photograph of Wolfgang Sievers], Berlin, Germany, 1991 [picture] / Wolfgang Sievers. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-161009403

Wolfgang Sievers

Topic

Wolfgang Georg Sievers, AO (1913–2007) was a well-known modernist photographer who documented Australian architecture and industry over a career spanning almost 60 years.

Humanities
Technologies
Year 5
Year 6
Architecture and design
Photography
Science and technology
Painting of five men, thought to be Dr Daniel Solander, Sir Joseph Banks, Captain James Cook, Dr John Hawkesworth, Lord Sandwich.

John Hamilton Mortimer, (1771), [Captain James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Sandwich, Dr Daniel Solander and Dr John Hawkesworth], nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135646842

Science and strategy: The Enlightenment

Module

This resource is aligned with the Australian Curriculum: Modern History for Senior Secondary students, with specific reference to content descriptions for Unit 1: Understanding the Modern World, and specifically those that fall under the topic elective ‘The Enlightenment (1750–1789)’.

Humanities
Senior Secondary
Explorers
Science and technology
World cultures and history
cartoon of a man gesturing to a diagram of the uranium atom

McCrae, Stewart, 1919-. (1963). "Of course, in the matter of uranium, it's a case of the atom splitting people!" [Nuclear physicist giving a lecture on the uranium atom] [picture]/ McCrae. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-145842939

The use and influence of science

Module

This resource is aligned to the Australian Curriculum: Science for Year 9 students. It draws on the National Library of Australia’s Oral History and Folklore Collection, which has recorded the thoughts and stories of thousands of influential Australians from all disciplines.

Science
Year 9
Science and technology
painting of Australian bush landscape

Von Guerard, Eugene, 1811-1901. Eugene Guerard's Australian landscapes. (1867). Source of the Wannon [picture] / Eug. v. Guérard. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135740687

Timeline of Australian innovations

Topic

Australians have a talent for ingenuity and creative thinking. From ancient times, Australians have used the materials around them to develop unique and practical tools to help them live and prosper.

Science
Year 9
Science and technology
black and white photograph of Sir Howard Florey

Australian News and Information Bureau. [Portrait of Howard Florey] [picture] / [Australian News and Information Bureau]. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136743351

Oral history: Sir Howard Florey

Topic

Sir Howard Florey was an Australian medical scientist.

Science
Year 9
Science and technology
photograph of Nancy Millis

McDonald, Damian, 1971-. (1999). Portrait of Nancy Millis [picture] / Damian McDonald. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-144499251

Oral history: Emeritus Professor Nancy Millis

Topic

Professor Nancy Millis was an Australian microbiologist who worked and studied microbial growth and the fermentation process.

Science
Year 9
Science and technology
black and white photograph of a man lecturing at a lecturn

Mulligan, J. A. (John Aloysius), 1927-1996. (1970). Sir Mark Oliphant lecturing at the University of Sydney, 1 September 1970 [1] [picture] / John Mulligan. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-145323842

Oral history: Sir Mark Oliphant

Topic

Sir Mark Oliphant was an Australian physicist who is known for his work in nuclear physics and radar, and, later, for becoming governor of South Australia.

Science
Year 9
Science and technology
photo of a woman standing against a purple background

Gostelow, Philip, 1962-. (2013). Professor Fiona Stanley at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Subiaco, Perth, 21 August 2013 / Philip Gostelow. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-153312966

Oral history: Professor Fiona Stanley

Topic

Professor Fiona Stanley is an Australian paediatrician and epidemiologist who is best known for her work linking deficiencies of folic acid in pregnant women with birth defects - specifically, spina bifida and related conditions.

Science
Year 9
Science and technology

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