Hello, my name is Dianne and I'm Robyn.
Dianne - We're going to show you some social studies books from the nineteen fifties and sixties.
Robyn - Social studies is a mix of history and geography.
Dianne - I must admit I do love my social studies book.
Robyn - Absolutely! I think it was one of my favourite subjects.
Dianne - Well, I did take a lot of care in the mapping. I really liked the mapping. I loved when we had to map Australia.
Robyn - That was so much fun wasn't it?
Dianne - How did you do that map of Australia?
Robyn - Well, what we did was, we got a map and we traced it on the page.
Dianne - Yes, I like that way that you did your map. I had a stamp. We just stamped and then I traced around it in black. That's what I did. I wasn't finished then - the inside of the map - I had to make a green and brown for the country. I really liked to spend a lot of time doing my illustrations and shading. I liked shading the green in the middle of Australia. Do you remember how you did the water?
Robyn - We did the water - we shaded around the outer edge of the map.
Dianne - What did you use?
Robyn - We used a blue pencil and then we got our fingers and we shaded around.
Dianne - I did that too and labelling. We had to label everything.
Robyn - And I think one of the most exciting parts I do remember was the title page. You sat there and you just got really creative. The teacher didn't mind what you did as long as it had the title.
Dianne - What was your favourite thing you learned?
Robyn - Well, I was intrigued learning about George Stephenson's rocket.
Dianne - Oh, I remember that.
Robyn - He was an inventor and he invented first steam train.
Dianne - We have many social studies books in our collection probably because students took great pride in their work and kept their books forever.
End of transcript.