Eve Pownall 2010

Eve Pownall Award for Information Books

This award is: made to outstanding books which have the prime intention of documenting factual material with consideration given to imaginative presentation, interpretation and variation of style. Intended for an audience ranging from birth to 18 years. (Some books may be for mature readers).

  • Make up your own quiz – based on a Jeopardy game template designed by Elaine Fitzgerald

CLODE, Danielle

Prehistoric Giants: The Megafauna of Australia M is for Mates: Animals in Wartime from Ajax to Zep Museum Victoria Department of Veterans’Affairs in association with the Australian War Memorial
  • Themes: fossils, geological time, prehistoric animals, paleontology
  • Prehistoric Giants, the second in the Museum Victoria Nature series, is a guide to the Australian megafauna of the Pleistocene—a time when humans shared the land with giants. Imagine herds of two-tonne Diprotodon roaming the plains, and flocks of flightless ducks bigger than emus striding across the shallow inland sea. Step back to a time when giant goannas and marsupial lions stalked the Australian bush.
  • Introduce the book with a clip of the Marsupial Lion (National Geographic)
  • Danielle Clode's Website

Activity ideas:

  • Mark places on the map where megafauna fossils have been found on a map of Australia
  • Film news items about megafauna discoveries
  • Play a ”who am I” megafauna quiz
  • Find articles in Australian newspapers (via Trove) about discoveries of marsupial lion fossils, etc.
  • List of animals and facts matching game
  • Spot the animals

Resources:

Department of Veterans' Affairs

M is for Mates: Animals in Wartime from Ajax to Zep
  • Themes: animals, pets, war, Anzac Day, soldiers, bravery
  • Amazing life-saving service provided by a wide variety of remembered animals to Australian troops in wartime
  • Australian War Memorial ART93929 - Animals in war memorial
  • The AWM has a lot of photos on their website of animals in war – particularly from an exhibition

Activity ideas:

  • Ask students to choose an animal and describe the roles it could play in war
  • Find pictures and video footage of animals at war

Resources:

MACINNIS, Peter

Australian Backyard Explorer National Library of Australia
  • Themes: Australia, explorers, survival, mapping, bush skills, measurement, diaries, journal writing, debates, drawing and painting
  • Peter MacInnis' Website

Activity ideas:

  • Read out the route taken by an explorer while students pinpoint locations on a map
  • Write your own diary entries as explorers
  • Try catching insects with an umbrella and a pooter

Resources:

  • Video of how to make a pooter

PATRICK, Tanya Illus: HUTCHESON,Nicholas

Polar Eyes: A Journey to Antarctica CSIRO

Activity ideas:

Resources:

REEDER, Stephanie Owen

Lost! A True Tale from the Bush National Library of Australia
  • Themes: Australian pioneer life, survival in the bush, Australian art works, being lost, trackers
  • Look for articles about the missing Duff children in Trove - hint look in newspapers published in August 1864
  • Stephanie Owen Redder's Website

Activity ideas:

  • Use Trove to look for newspaper articles about the Duff children missing in 1864 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper
  • Research children’s clothing of the era
  • Make a maze of fabric covering the library shelves. Students try to find their way through when they can’t see over the shelves.

Resources:

Using Lost! in the Classroom - ideas supplied by the National Library of Australia

  • What sorts of trees are mallee trees? What parts of Australia do they grow in? What speical characteristics do they have? Draw a map of Australia to show where mallee trees grow.
  • What sorts of wildflowers grow in your area? Draw pictures of the wildflowers and identify the major parts of a flower.
  • What sorts of native animals life in your area? Are any of them endangered animals?
  • Write a story about a monster that lives in the mallee-tree forest. Include the following information: special characteristics the monster has to survive in the forest; what the monster eats; where it sleeps; what noise it makes. Draw a picture or make a model of a mallee monster. Consider the following: How big is it? How does it get around? What colour is it?

YALATA & OAK COMMUNITIES with MATTINGLEY, Christobel

Maralinga: The Anangu Story Allen & Unwin

Activity ideas:

  • Pinpoint the locations on a map
  • Discuss the 1967 referendum that gave Aboriginal people citizenship

Resources:

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