This project involves year 9 Australian history students researching a soldier from their local area who served and died in World War 1. Students will investigate the soldier's profile and battle history and upload the information to a website to create a central database. The project aligns with curriculum standards and will help students learn research and analytical skills. Introductory activities are designed to prepare students by having them select a soldier, analyze images of gravestones as historical sources, and effectively search websites for information.

1. ‘Online Database Project’
Spirit of ANZAC Prize
C h a rlene L a n d v og t

2. Over view of Project
Project overview: This project is targeted at year 9 Australian History
students studying World War 1 (WW1). They will complete an assignment
on a soldier from their local area who served and died in WW1. They will
investigate both his history (profile) and describe the battles he fought in
(contextualisation). They will then upload this information onto a website
and begin creating a central database where these various local histories
are collected. This will be termed their Major Study for the semester.
Students will present both the soldier’s profile and the discussion of the
battles he fought to the class.

3. Links with VELS
Strand 1: Discipline Based Learning (5.25
Sem 1, 5.5 Sem 2).
Domain - History
Dimension: Historical Reasoning &
Interpretation.
Dimension: Historical Knowledge &
Understanding.

4. Links with VELS
Strand 2: Physical, Personal and Social
Learning (5.25 Sem 1, 5.5 Sem 2).
Domain - Personal Learning
Dimension: The Individual Learner.
Dimension: Managing Personal Learning.

5. Links with VELS
Strand 3: Interdisciplinary Learning(5.25
Sem 1, 5.5 Sem 2).
Domain - Information and
Communications Technology
Dimension: ICT for Creating.

6. Current position....
Currently I am in the process of
finishing the unit outline for this
project. I still need to refine and
review how I am going to
present this information to
students.
I realise, however, that one of
the most important (and initial)
parts of the project will be
preparing the students for their
research.
I have therefore included in the
following slides three
introductory activities teachers
may like to use to help get
students thinking about the
process of research, before they
even begin researching.

7. Introductory Activity 1: Presentation of
a list of soldiers students can choose from
Students will obviously need to select a
soldier to research.
I think it is important, however, that
students have a wide variety of soldiers to
choose from. That way they can select a
soldier that they find a connection with.
I will use a slideshow presenting an array of
soldiers and ask students to nominate
which soldier (and battles) they would like
to know more about.
The next three pages are example slides of
the presentation I am developing.

8. Charles
Scharness
(406)
- Buried at Beach cemetery,
ANZAC Cove.
- Born in Essendon.
- 20 years old at enlistment.
- Died on 25th April, 1915.

9. Frank Trickey
(696)
- Buried at Lone Pine Cemetery
- Enlisted in Essendon.
- Died at the age of 19.
- Died on 25th April, 1915.

10. Eric Edgerton
(Lieut.)
- Buried at VB Cemetery
- Born in Moonee Ponds
- Died at the age of 21.
- Died on 11th August, 1918.

11. Introductory Activity 2:
Discussing Images
Students will be given a picture of their
soldier’s grave stone as part of their
research.
They will also, inevitably, come across other
images in the course of their research.
It is therefore important that students
discuss how to use and question sources
effectively.
The following activity is designed to be used
on an electronic white board and requires
the teacher to find an image of a grave
stone, such as the one to the right.

12. Start with a blank screen, with the image fully covered and tell students
that you will reveal each section in part.(You will need to explain how
families paid for inscriptions on soldier’s tomb stones).
Questions for discussion...
- Why is the information written on grave stones crucial to our understanding of a soldier?
- Why did families pay for inscriptions on grave stones? Why was it important to them?
- What type of text or tone of text do you expect to read on soldier’s grave stones?
- Do you expect the type of inscriptions on grave stones to differ between battle fields (e.g. Gallipoli and the Western Front)?
- Whose view of events and history do we read when using a grave stone as a historical source?

13. Reveal the first part of the tomb stone.
Questions for discussion...
- What does this information reveal about the soldier?
- If we only had this part of the tomb stone, what would we know about him?
- If we only had this part of the tomb stone, whose version of history, whose perspective, would we be
reading?
- If this was all that was written on the tomb stone, what might you assume about the soldier’s
family?

14. Reveal the second part of the tomb stone.
Questions for discussion...
- What additional piece of information does this sentence reveal?
- Who else may be adding to our understand of this soldier?
- What are we being told about the soldier?

15. Reveal the final part of the tomb stone.
Questions for discussion..
- What does this final part of the inscription tell us?
- How does this change your understanding of the soldier’s past?
- Who wrote this inscription?
- What do we need to be mindful of when reading this inscription?

16. Introductory Activity 3:
Use of Websites....
Students will be using websites during their
research of a soldier.
It is therefore very important that they aware of
the uses, and limitations, of websites.
It is also important that they are prepared and
aware of what information they need before
they access a website. This will make their web
searching and researching more productive.
The next slide shows some guiding questions a
teacher might use when introducing students to
the website monumentaustralia.org.au

17. Questions
1) What is the
purpose of this
website?
2) What information
might you search for
on this site?
3) What would you
need to know
before using this
website?

18. What’s to come...
I hope to upload unit
outlines and other
classroom activities
in the future.