AC9HC7K02 Year 7 Humanities and Social Sciences

AC9HC7K02 – Year 7 Humanities and Social Sciences: Government and democracy

Strand

Knowledge and understanding

Substrand

Government and democracy

This Content Descriptor from Year 7 Humanities and Social Sciences provides the specific knowledge and skills students should learn. Use it to plan lessons, create learning sequences, and design assessments that align with the Australian Curriculum v9.

Content Descriptor

the characteristics of Australia's democracy, including freedom of speech, association, assembly, religion and movement

Elaborations

• explaining the origins of the characteristics of Australian democracy and how democratic freedoms, such as freedom of speech, association, assembly, religion and movement, support active participation in Australia’s democracy, and investigating cases where the “bounds of law” can limit these freedoms and why this occurs
• identifying how citizens can participate in a democracy (for example, engaging in community organisations, volunteering, social enterprise and collaborative problem-solving)
• comparing the effectiveness of different ways of participating in Australia’s democracy, including voting, standing for parliament, contributing to committees of inquiry, organising petitions or social media campaigns, and protesting
• identifying characteristics of formal citizenship and the attributes of active citizenship, and identifying who has been included and excluded from the rights and freedoms of citizenship in Australia, particularly in relation to First Nations Australians
• examining the active citizenship of First Nations Australians such as Neville Bonner, Adam Goodes, Noel Pearson, Murundoo Yanner, Charles Mene, Ellie Gaffney, Evelyn Scott and Pat O'Shane, and their contributions to the rights and freedoms of Australian First Nations Peoples

Achievement Standard This Supports

This Content Descriptor contributes to the following Achievement Standard:

Year 7 ASHASCIVY7

Year 7 Humanities and Social Sciences Achievement Standard

By the end of Year 7, students describe the key features of Australia's system of government, and the principles and features of the Australian legal system. They explain the characteristics of Australian democracy. Students describe the nature of Australian society, its cultural and religious diversity, and identify the values that support cohesion in Australian society. Students develop questions and locate, select and organise information from sources to investigate political and legal systems, and contemporary civic issues. They analyse information and identify perspectives and challenges related to political, legal or civic issues. They identify and describe the methods or strategies related to civic participation or action. Students use civics and citizenship concepts, terms and sources to create descriptions, explanations and arguments.