Design & Technologies

In May 2017, DATTA Vic's annual conference celebrated the theme of 60,000 Years of Australian Design & Technologies.

Following this event, DATTA Vic is honoured to work with our partners to collect and develop resources, which can be used by Design & Technologies teachers to deliver the VCAA's cross-curricular priority of Learning about Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures.

If any teachers have ATSI resources that they'd like to share, send them to Laura at pl@datta.vic.edu.au.

Note - some of the following resources and links contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.

Budj Bim Cultural Landscape

In July 2019, Budj Bim Cultural Landscape was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Status. DATTA Vic congratulates the traditional owners of the land, the Gunditmara people, who for millennia have managed and cared for "the world's oldest engineering project." We pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, and aim to learn from their cultural traditions, knowledge, practices and ingenuity.

Click HERE to read the entire report from UNESCO, and HERE for a Broadsheet article which explains How Budj Bim Became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We highly recommend booking a tour with Leigh Boyer of Budj Bim Tours.

With them, you will experience the history of the Gunditjmara people with an expert Indigenous guide and experience a culture that is over 60,000 years old through the remnants of a settled lifestyle, including circular stone dwellings and the remains of Australia's first and largest freshwater stone aquaculture system.

Bruce Pascoe: Aboriginal Agriculture, Technology and Ingenuity

Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu was published in 2014, and challenged the belief that the First Australians were hunter-gatherers. He introduced us to a complex civilisation that developed and used sophisticated technologies to live and manage the land. ABC Education have produced this wonderful digibook that explores and celebrates the ingenuity of the First Australians.

Bruce Pascoe's TEDxSydney Talk

A real history of Aboroginal Australians, the first agriculturists

In this TEDxSydney talk, Indigenous writer and anthologist Bruce Pascoe draws on first-hand accounts from colonial journals to dispel the myth that Aboriginal people were hunters and gatherers and "did nothing with the land that resembled agriculture". In this powerful talk, Pascoe demonstrates a radically different view of Australian history that we all need to know – one that has the potential to change the course of Australians' relationship with the land.

Possum Skin Cloaks

Uncle Ivan Couzens at Thunder Point in a possum skin cloak made by his daughter, Vicki, a key figure in the cloak making revival. Photo: Sarah Rhodes

Museums Victoria have published a beautiful account of the history and art of the Possum Skin Cloak. It focuses on the museum's two historical cloaks, which were collected from the Yorta Yorta and Gunditjmara peoples in the mid-19th Century, and remain the only known surviving cloaks in the world of their time and place. Alongside these are the stories of two newly-commissioned cloaks, which connect the makers to their ancestors andtell stories both timeless and contemporary through their designs.

The Orb

The Orb is a collection of online multimedia resources designed to assist the teaching of Tasmanian Aboriginal histories and cultures, including design. It reflects the holistic nature of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture and the interconnectedness between people, country, culture, identity and the living community.

Stories of Indigenous Engineering by EWB

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people represent 2.5% of the Australian population, but just 0.5% of total engineering students. Engineers Without Borders have developed Stories of Indigenous Engineering to increase diversity in the engineering profession and open our eyes to different knowledge systems and perspectives.

Marngo Designing Futures from Swinburne University

Marngo Designing Futures is an initiative from Swinburne's Centre for Design Innovation, which promotes and enables Indigenous design and innovation. In partnership with indigenous designers, the program provides fun, hands-on activities and tools for ATSI students to explore a creative future in design framed from Indigenous perspectives.

The Indigenous Perspectives Tuckerbag

The Indigenous Perspectives Tuckerbag is a comprehensive Australian Curriculum resource guide on Aboriginal History, Culture and Country from the Koorie Heritage Trust. The KHT run a range of education programs for schools. Click HERE for more information.

Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre

Bunjilaka at Melbourne Museum offers a diverse range of exhibitions and learning programs celebrating the complexity and diversity of Australia's First Peoples, including their relationship with the land, food, tools and technologies. Click HERE for an overview of all their workshops and resources.

Remembering David Unaipon - the Man on the Fifty Dollar Note

Known as the Australian Leonardo da Vinci, Unaipon was a well-known Indigenous Australian of the Ngarrindjeri people, an inventor, preacher and writer. He took out 19 provisional patents on his inventions, but could never afford to get any of them fully patented. Amongst his designs are an anti-gravitational device and a sheep shearing handpiece which was the basis of modern sheep shears. He also drew-up plans for a helicopter based on the principle of the boomerang. Click HERE for an article about his life and work from NITV.

The Budj Bim Fish Traps

Click HERE to read the story of the Budj Bim eel traps of the Gunditjmara people of South West Victoria, which in 2019 was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List - the first place to be accepted solely for its Aboriginal heritage. Budj Bim demonstrates that, rather than living passively off whatever nature provided, the Gunditjmara actively and deliberately manipulated local water flows and ecologies to engineer a landscape to provide food in a sustainable manner. Click HERE for guided tours and workshops at Budj Bim.

Aboriginal Inventions - 10 Enduring Innovations

Australian Geographic has published this website which focuses on the technologies developed by Aboriginal Australians, including thermoplastic resins, stone tools, bush foods and medicines and toys. Click HERE to read about them all.

Ngarara Place by Greenaway Architects

Ngarara Place, an Indigenous landscape designed by Greenaway Architects, has opened at RMIT University's city campus. It is designed to be a visible presence and recognition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories as connected among the lands of the Kulin Nations. Click HERE to discover the story behind Jefa Greenaway's beautiful design.

Indigenous Perspectives on Sustainability

Click HERE for a radio broadcast from the ABC on Indigenous perspectives on sustainability, particularly related to land management

ABC Education

ABC Education – search by topics, lots of videos and interactives! This is a link to the Technologies Resources