Unit 02 Activities  
1 Then and Now 6 Mapping and Graphing
2 What Happened When? 7 Discussing Issues
3 How We Use the World
Heritage Area		 8 Dear Editor
4 Rainforest Aboriginal Food Resources 9 Past-Present-Future Views
5 Creative Drama Performance 10 Your Opinion in a Written Discussion

Activity 4: Rainforest Aboriginal Food Resources

Focus
Rainforest Aboriginal people’s in-depth knowledge and close relationship with the land has enabled them to sustain a rich culture and life in the Wet Tropics.

Background
The Traditional Aboriginal Food Resource poster shows a tropical river catchment and coastline, a seasonal food calendar and traditional and scientific knowledge about various animal food resources. The Poster Activity booklet provides templates for the activities below. The following Fact Sheets may also provide some useful reading for students:
• Rainforest Aboriginal Fact Sheet
• Caring for Country Tropical Topics
• Bush Tucker Tropical Topics
• Bush Medicine Tropical Topics.

Pedagogy/teaching strategies
• Classifying animals into lists of birds, fish, reptiles, mammals, insects
• Research for factual information
• Retrieval chart
• Inferring a migrational pattern
• Writing an information report
• Creating a diary from an analysis of information.

Activity sequence
1. List the animals illustrated in the poster according to animal type.
2. Identify an interesting fact about each animal presented on the poster.
3. Use the interesting facts to develop a “What Am I?” activity
4. List foods used in each season in a retrieval chart.
5. Use a map of the poster to show two different seasonal animal migrations.
6. Write an Information Report on an animal selected in the poster.
7. Match the season to the location to show where Rainforest Aboriginal groups migrated throughout the year.
8. Research Aboriginal use of the rainforest.
9. If possible have a Rainforest Aboriginal guest speaker talk to the class about their traditional use of the rainforest.
10. Write a diary of a three-day journey travelling from mangroves to mountain rapids to find your family. The diary is organised around each day. Add details to give the audience a clear visualisation of the events of each day. Hint: refer to Black Bream text to determine where the family group would be at this time of the year.

Assessment opportunities
Use the Information Report template for student research and report writing. See Animal Information Report Assessment for suggested guidelines.

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