History

 For a class looking at Australia -

Australian Flag

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Aboriginal Flag

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Torres Strait Islander Flag

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Some Audio Files

Australia's National Anthem - as sung by a combined choir in a performance I filmed...

 Advanced Australia Fair

Many official functions start with an Acknowledgement of Country in order to recognise the traditional owners of the land...

Acknowledgement of Country

The didjeridoo was made from a hollowed branch and was part of many ceremonies. The hitting of sticks or boomerangs together often accompanied them.

Sticks and Didjeridoo

Below are links to Australian related posts on my blogs including links to others. I hope they are of some help...

HMB Endeavour at Eden - Replica of Captain James Cook's HMS Endeavour visited  in 2012. James Cook was the first explorer from Europe/UK known to have sailed along Australia's east cost.

My Region of Australia - A general look at my area of Australia featuring the old family dairy farm, scenic photos, beach activities, and Australian animals.

Tasmania – Sharing old photos - Looks at the Australian island state of Tasmania and a little of our convict heritage.

Older Australian Currency - Australia uses dollars and cents these days but before 1966 used pounds, shillings and pence.

Aboriginal Cultural Resource Links for the Roadrunners - Information about the Aboriginal people of Australia and their traditional culture. Check the "Twelve Canoes" link in particular.

Class 6 – Olympic Countries – Australia - History, the Australian flag, National Anthem, animals, Sydney Harbour Bridge, sport

ANZAC Day for 2/3 Class - Looking at ANZAC Day and its meaning for me.

For Emily from Michigan who was interested in Australia - A collection of photos taken in different parts of Australia (including animals).

More photos and information on Sydney for Emily - Some photos of Sydney past and present.

Spring has Sprung in Australia – for 4KJ and 4KM - Looks at the seasons of the Southern Hemisphere.

 Australian National Parks near me in answer to ♥Ell♥e♥ and ಢAcacia✄ - Information about Australia as well as some national parks in my area.

Australian Birds – Mostly Close to Home…

Some plant photos taken in my area…

The family dairy farm for someone who loves everything farming

Maoris, Volcanoes and Aboriginal Rock Art (some notes) for Roadrunners and their comment. Includes the Aboriginal flags of Australia, information about paintings and engravings

Australian Animals for Mrs. Watson’s K/1/2/3 and “Our World, Our Numbers” - An assortment of photos, drawings and information.

Koalas and Kangaroos - Two video links I prepared for a class

Australia’s Extinct and Endangered Species – for Katey of Techie Kids

Tasmanian Devils for Christian and Techie Kids

Some More Aussie Animals for Alexis & Techie Kids

 

You Tube Video Clips

These are my own video clips uploaded to my You Tube Channel. Some are already embedded into the above posts but can be viewed here as well...

Eastern Grey Kangaroos

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

The life of "Sapphire" the koala

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Echidna (Spiny Anteater)

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

"Bert" the wombat joey (baby)

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Walking koala from a series of photos

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

The Song of the Lyrebird

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

"Lyrebird Story" by Alexandra Seddon

This video clip may not be copied or distributed in any fashion.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Suzie the koala's baby makes an appearance

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Black-Headed Python Experience

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Potoroo "Daniel"

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Koala encounter with "Blinky" and "Suzie"

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Echidna "Spike" Encounter

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Ringtail Possum "Estelle" Encounter

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Swamp Wallaby "Serena" Encounter

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Emus

Schools and students have permission to use this video clip for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Potoroo Palace, N.S.W., Australia

Many of the above animal video clips were filmed at Potoroo Palace . It is a native animal educational sanctuary operated by volunteers and funded by visitor entry fees and donations. Potoroo Palace is a not-for-profit organisation passionate about caring for the Earth. The aims of Potoroo Palace are...

  • To improve the habitats and wellbeing of the native animals already in our care

  • To promote public awareness of their plight in the wild

  • To educate the community about the importance of the conservation of our unique Australian native animals and plants.

At times I have been invited to film their animals.

• 6 Comments

This was a very early blog comment post on another blog. It has been transferred to this blog.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

In answer to the question, "If you woke up tomorrow and there was no such thing as numbers, what would your day be like?"

There were, in the past, times when numbers weren't in existence. They're something humans have made up to try to explain things we see.

Through history, there have been many ways of writing numbers. Our numbers are known as Hindu-Arabic because of the influence of those two systems on us. They replaced Roman numerals that were based on fives as in the fingers and thumbs on our hands.

Look at the sum below and see how hard it would be to do maths....

Roman Numerals

DCCLXIX + CCCXLIV = MCXIII

Hindu-Arabic Numerals

769 + 344 = 1113

Which would you prefer to use?

Did you know computers use a number system called binary to work?

Binary only uses 1 and 0. A 1 tells the computer to turn something on and a 0 off. By turning on or off many tiny “switches” in a processor, the computer is able to operate. No numbers, no computers.

Here is 0 to 10 in binary coding…

0,  1,  10,  11,  100,  101,  110,  111,  1000,  1001, 1010

Numbers are a fascinating part of our lives. They are much more a part of our everyday life than we might realise and would affect many things you might not realise.

Remember to set your alarm so you can be up in time for school tomorrow. Wait, clocks use numbers. Have a shower, no, computers and machines control the delivery of water and electricity. Maybe we could walk to school because buses and cars aren’t running. Wait, the buildings have gone because we didn’t have the numbers to help build them. We can go into the simple wooden shelter and sit on the ground then pick up our books. No, computers and machines involved again…

Maybe I should just make a spear and settle around a fire near my rough shelter made from branches and animal skins. When the sun rises, I’ll go hunting while the family searches for water and wild grains to make rough bread. For games, my children can practise throwing spears or learn how to cut animal skins into clothing.

We could survive without numbers but the world would be a very different place for us.

 

This was a very early blog comment post on another blog. It has been transferred to this blog.

I thought this might be too long to include as a comment on your blog so I have decided to set up a blog page as a comment. From your writings, I can see you have been learning about World War II and how it effected people’s lives. As well as the home front, Allied forces were scattered around the world. British forces were fighting in North Africa, Burma and Singapore. I have some photos to share you might find interesting. All were taken when I visited Singapore in 2010. They show The Battle Box in Fort Canning, the Allied Forces HQ , during the Japanese attack on Singapore and its surrender in 1942. One of the troops in Singapore at that time was my father. He was with the Australian forces and ended up a POW until the end of the war in 1945.

Picture 1:

The main entrance to the underground shelter known as “The Battle Box”

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: The Battle Box, Fort Canning, Singapore

 

Picture 2:

This is a guiding diagram for The Battle Box

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: The Battle Box, Fort Canning, Singapore

 

Picture 3:

I chose to explore The Battle Box by myself. All I met were the mannequin soldiers in the darkened rooms. Considering the heat and humidity of Singapore, The Battle Box has a pleasant coolness unlikely to have existed when full of soldiers.

 Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: The Battle Box, Fort Canning, Singapore

Picture 4:

Lt. General Arthur Percival commanded the Allied Forces. You can see his likeness behind the desk. His decisions guided the Allied defences.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: The Battle Box, Fort Canning, Singapore

Picture 5:

Operations kept track of Allied and Japanese forces during the Battle for Singapore

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: The Battle Box, Fort Canning, Singapore

 

Picture 6:

With munitions running low, the last defence line broken, anti-aircraft guns unable to fire, and growing losses to civilians in Singapore, Lt. General Percival felt compelled to discuss the surrender option.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: The Battle Box, Fort Canning, Singapore

 

Picture 7:

On 15 February, 1942, Lt. General Percival surrendered to the Japanese. Over 80,000 Allied troops fell into Japanese hands. It was the largest surrender of British-led forces in history. Many died during their years of captivity with large numbers going to work on the Burma Railway never to return. Some were also sent to Japan as POWs.

 With the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August, Japan official surrendered to Allied forces. The photo below was on display. It showed the Japanese commander surrendering to Lord Mountbatten on 12 September, 1945.

 

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: The Battle Box, Fort Canning, Singapore

Now for something a little different.

Read this letter from a Prisoner-Of-War (P.O.W.) held by the Japanese at Changi P.O.W. camp in Singapore during World War II. This was the first letter he sent to his mother after being freed at the end of the war.

 

Changi 6-Sept-45
Dearest Mum,
Free at long last. At last I am able to write to you after three and a half years of silence. It has been a long wait, but all good things come to those who wait.
At present I am in fairly good health. Of course I have had my share of sickness since I have been a prisoner of war. My weight is now about eleven stone so you see I could be a great deal worse than I am. The sicknesses that I have sustained are such that will be quickly dispelled with proper medical treatment and a good diet so you need not worry about it in the least.
There is no need to tell you just how happy I was when I heard the news of imminent release. I can just imagine the excitement at home when the wonderful news was released.
There is really not much I can tell you about my life as a P.O.W. as censorship is very strict but I will try and give you some idea of what I have been doing since release. One of the first things that happened in the camp was the installation of a short- wave radio and hence we have been able to hear the news from the outside world (officially and first hand). Red Cross supplies have been coming into the camp since the news became official, so that rations have been getting better every day and we are told that we will soon be on full European diet. It is a great thing to have plenty of cigarettes again.
It was not long before swimming parades were arranged. Today I went on an organised tour just outside the camp. Two of my mates and myself managed to buy a duck, some eggs and a large papaya (paw-paw) and of course we had the best meal we have had in three and a half years. Well I will have to cut it short here as space is short.
Please give my love to all at home (I can’t mention all).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As you can see by the date, the letter was written before the official surrender of the Japanese but Allied forces already controlled Singapore. Here are some questions you might consider if interested...

1. How do you think the soldier felt during his time as a prisoner?

2. Was he well looked after by his Japanese captors?

3. Do you think he was lonely or worried being far from home and not able to write to his family?

4. How do you think his family felt while he couldn’t write?

5. How do you think they felt when they got this letter after so long?

 

Picture 8:

There are still many buildings in Singapore that stood during the war but Changi, where so many were held, has changed. As then, it is a prison and has been renovated but the old Changi chapel was moved and incorporated into a memorial chapel and museum. Visitors can sit in the chapel or walk around inside the attached museum.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Changi, Singapore

 

Perhaps some of you have relatives who served in Singapore during World War II. I can't imagine you would be able to have a field trip to Singapore to see Fort Canning and The Battle Box so I hope my post has shown you something from WWII's history very far from your home.

• 1 Comment

For the Battalion Hawk Bloggers original post

Making the World a Better Place

Hello Battalion Hawk Bloggers,

Thank you for another thought-provoking comment on my comment.

One slight correction, I have only scanned between two and three thousand photos and negatives so far. I’ve owned digital cameras for about ten years. Because it costs virtually nothing to take digital photos, most in my collection are digital. With many negatives and slides still to be scanned, I will probably be preparing another two or thee thousand photos.

How long did it take?

I hadn’t really thought about the time taken to scan and process negatives, photos and slides so I ran a little test. I scanned a set of 34 negatives with a stop watch keeping time. They took 58 minutes from start to processing and adding to iPhotos. That is an average of about 1 minute 40 seconds per photo (100 seconds).

You know I like working with numbers so I next worked out the time 1,000 negatives would take. It would take 100,000 seconds. That is about 1,667 minutes or about 27 hours 45 minutes. Of course I don’t scan these all at once as there are other things to do in the day so a 1000 scans would be done over about one week.

Here are two photos from the timed scans. While the quality isn’t as high as modern digital photography, they brought back memories of a weekend I organised for children from my school to visit an old gold mining town named Hill End. The first shows the town and the second a place known as The Golden Gully where people digging and panning for gold were the cause of large amounts of erosion.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Hill End, N.S.W., Australia

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Golden Gully, Hill End, N.S.W., Australia

Family History

I love the idea one of you has a speeding ticket as a memory of being a baby. I have nothing so unusual, only photos. 🙂

It’s very true, family history connects us with the past and if we could go back far enough we would find every person in the world is a distant relative. You would probably have seen this before but in July, 2012 I wrote a post about Genealogy (family history). In it I showed the numbers of relatives would be impossible unless we were all connected through time. Here is the link…

We're All One Big Family

Memories

Our memories can be like  a movie from the past as we remember our experiences but the movie has sometimes big parts missing.

My first memory goes back to when I was about two. I can remember walking out of our laundry, falling over and crying but I couldn’t remember at the time the doctors found I had a slight problem with my legs and I had to wear a brace to correct it. My patellas (kneecaps) needed repositioning.

The next memory is of being three. I was sitting on our large dining room table. My mother had been cutting beans but had to get something from the kitchen. I wanted to help so I picked up the sharp knife and cut my thumb. I still have the scar.

The time in between these two memories was blank but photos can fill in some gaps. When scanning a recent batch of photos I found this one taken of my mother, older brother and me during the in between time…

This photo is not to be used without written permission.

Location: Unknown

Can you see it shows me what we looked like back then, how we dressed and what we were doing? Without the photo, I wouldn’t have any memory of that day in 1957 but one more section of my life movie has been added.

Old Cameras

Danny’s family friend would have a very interesting camera collection if it includes one of the first cameras ever made. I suspect it could be something like a glass plate camera. They were big and used glass plates coated in chemicals. Here is a Wikimedia Commons image of a glass plate camera.

Photography by: Frank Gosebruch

I also found a number of glass plate camera photos on Wikimedia Commons…

This image is of the Ipswich Photo Society in Queensland, Australia and was taken in the early 1900s.

This image is in the public domain.

Making Change

Making change doesn’t only mean working out what coins to give someone when they buy, the money itself can change over time. I can see why Mrs. Renton isn’t happy about not being able to use an old song that has worked so well.

For Australia, there is talk of another change, the end of our 5c coin may be in our future. We already round up or down to the nearest 5c but, if the 5c coin ends, we will be rounding up or down to the nearest 10c.

When I was your age, Australia didn’t use dollars and cents. Like England, we had pounds (£), shillings (s) and pence (d).

Twelve pennies (12d) made a shilling.
Twenty shillings (20/- or 20s) made a pound.

On the 14th February, 1966, Australia changed to decimal currency. Our coins were 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c and 50c. Out notes were $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20. A $50 note was issued in 1973 the $100 note in 1996. We lost the 1c and 2c coin in 1992. The $1 coin came in 1984 and the $2 coin in 1988.

An international group of classes are taking part in an online activity known as “Our World, Our Numbers”. One activity looked at the different currencies of each country. When the Australian class wrote of their money and compared it to others, I wrote a post for them showing the money I grew up with.

Older Australian Currency

Copyright and Sharing

It is important for people to be aware of the need to give credit. I know two companies very strong on protecting their rights are Disney and Apple. For them and many others, what they create, whether as ideas, words, art, music or inventions, is the way they make money.

In my case I don't set out to make money from most things I do. My payment comes when I find people enjoy what I share or find it useful. Under most of my photos I add a message saying the photos can be used by schools and students. Sometimes, as in the family photo, I restrict permission to needing written approval to use them as I don't wish them used.

I'll share one more graphic on this post. On another of my blogs, I was writing a short, fictional 104 word story for a writing group. In it I wrote of a humpback whale named Solana. While they can be seen along our coast, I didn't have a decent photo of my own so I drew one using Photoshop. As it hasn't appeared on this blog, I thought I would share it with Battalion Hawk Bloggers...

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Yunus left a comment on an earlier extended comment where he commented and asked for more information. Here is a link to the post. scroll down to find his comments...

Yunus on "What technology did I use when younger?"

Hello again Yunus,

"The Video Cameras were really small but very interesting."

Rather than the video (movie) cameras being small, it was the film used in them. The cameras really worked by taking many small photos. They were one after the other on plastic film. Each photo in the film was only 8mm wide. When they were run through a movie projector, they flashed on the screen one after the other quickly enough so we saw them as moving pictures (movies).

Look at this animation I made showing a drawing of a projector. On the left you can see a small movie playing. It was made with an 8mm movie camera. When using a movie projector, you would make in look larger  when the projector showed the movie on a screen. Until recently, cinemas used movie films and large projectors. The only difference is their film used a 35mm series of photos. There were some cinemas using even larger film.

Now I will show you some photos. I still have the movie projector I used in schools back in the 1970s. An uncle also gave me his old 8mm movie camera. I have put a ruler in the photos so you can see their size.

Super 8mm Movie Camera. This one also recorded sound. There was a tiny magnetic strip on the film for the recording of sound. It was like a tiny strip of cassette tape if you have seen them. You can see a reel of 8mm movie film beside the camera.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

The second photo is the 8mm movie projector I used in schools all those years back. You can see a blue film reel and a black one on the projector in the left. Many projectors had one reel at the front and one at the back like the cartoon drawing in the video clip above. The film would be loaded into the projector. Little cogs would catch into the holes on the side of the film and the film would be pulled through  the projector and out of the projector. The extra film reel would be winding the film up as it came out of the project after being seen.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

The next photo shows you a scan of some 8mm movie film and a ruler. You will see the film is 8mm wide. I have shown four sections of the film.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Now let's look closer at four pieces of 8mm film I have magnified. You can see it is a series of pictures. To save on drawing of cartoons, cartoon films like this used two of each picture. You can see slight changes in the frames. When each picture is projected quickly in turn, we see them as a moving picture. Click on the film to see it larger so you can have a closer look at each frame (picture). The third strip of film shows a scene change after two frames. You can see a car on a road changes to a flying saucer.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

To show you how the brain is fooled by the pictures, here is a video clip looking at the eight frames of the first of the pieces of scanned film.

Let's look at another video clip made using 14 frames from an 8 mm showing a person. You will see the film at 2 fps (frames per second), 6 fps and 12 fps. When we had film taken on a camera and not a cartoon, each frame is different as a person or thing moves.

"How did you have to use the Hole Punchers?"

I think you must mean the holes punched in the film. If you look at the film scan above, you can see holes on the left hand side of each film strip. The projector cogs would grab these holes to pull the film through. Notice each hole is in the middle position to each frame. This makes certain  each picture appears correctly.

Why were the videos silent like Charlie Chaplin?

Film history reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_film

Charlie Chaplin reference:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin

The first movie camera appeared in the 1880s. The camera operator would wind a handle. A shutter would open then close to expose a frame of film. The film would then move to the next frame. Frame after frame the films were made as the camera operator turned the handle. At this early stage, movie cameras were more like a novelty. The earliest known film comes from 1888...

The first films were just of everyday scenes but some realised films could be made to tell stories. Here is a film made in 1902. Again there is no sound. Cinemas would have musicians playing music and possibly people making sound effects as the movie played. This clip has no sound. The film is called "Le Voyage dans la Lune" (A Trip to the Moon).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH0hKrOsBvo

There were attempts to record sound but it wasn't recorded by the camera. The early attempts had trouble keeping the sound in synch (in the right place) in the movie*. By 1923, they had worked our how to synch sound and in 1927 "The Jazz SInger" was released as the first movie with sound.

Charlie Chaplin first appeared in a film in 1914. When sound came along he, like many others, thought it wouldn't last. People, they thought, would always prefer silent films. He continued making silent films into the 1930s but in 1940 he produced what was probably his first talking movie, "The Great Dictator". He wanted to make a film condemning Adolf Hitler before America entered World War II. I have this film in my DVD library. It is my favourite of all of his films.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* Synching sound means putting the sound to a film so the people's mouths move to the sound as they should and music plays in time with dancers or people playing musical instruments. From my first video camera I owned I was able to record sound but the quality wasn't always good. There could be, and still is, a problem with noises from the audience.

In 1985 I filmed my first school production. A high school known as Prairiewood High in Sydney knew of my filming and asked me to make a VHS tape for them. Wanting better sound, they gave me an audio cassette tape of the production. It contained the sound from the microphones so little could be heard of the audience. In order to synch the sound, I had to drill a hole through a cassette player and tighten or loosen a screw to slow (tighten) or speed up (loosen) the sound.

These days I use a digital audio recorder and can line up sound on the computer.

• 9 Comments

I had written a post on plate tectonics and continental drift for Mrs. Yollis and her class. Two students, Heather and Keira, challenged me to explain how the Earth began. This post is an attempt to provide an explanation according to my understanding of the science. To see the comment and challenge, click the link and scroll down to the comments.

Plate tectonics and our dynamic continents

How Did the Earth Begin?

Dear Heather and Keira,

There are so many stories of how the Earth began if we look though the amazing cultures in our world. It would be remiss of me not to mention one or two. Because of my home and yours, I have chosen stories from the native people of Australia and North America.

The Aboriginal People of Australia

Many people think there was one Aboriginal (native Australian) culture and one language but, before the coming of European colonists, there were many, many of those cultures now lost. One of the best sites I have seen comes from the Yolngu people of Ramingining in the northern part of Central Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory.

For one of their creation stories, click the link Twelve Canoes and wait for the site to load. The picture below will appear. Once loaded, click on the picture indicated by the arrow to see a creation story.

This graphic should not be copied.

I think you will find many interesting things on this site as well as one of their creation stories.

Native American People

I found the following You Tube clip telling the story of creation of the Earth through the traditional beliefs of three Native American tribes, the Iroquois, Seminole and Cherokee.

This embedded You Tube clip is not my video.

Let's now start looking at what science is finding...

Let's start with some word learning. You have had many ideas in your life but have you ever heard someone say they have a theory? Many people confuse "idea" and "theory".

A scientist has an idea after looking at the information available through study or research and proposes an explanation for what has occurred. Other scientists look at the conclusions and test the idea against other data or new information. This may lead others to agree with the idea. With other scientists agreeing and available evidence supporting, the idea becomes a theory. Science is a path to discovery. We learn more and more about how things work.

Did you know up until a few hundred years back people thought the Earth was the centre of the universe and all of the stars, planets and our Sun orbited around us? This idea is called Geocentric.

A Geocentric View of the Universe

This drawing is based on a map by Bartolomeu Velho (1568)

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

A second geocentric model has Earth at the centre of the universe. The other planets orbit the sun and the sun and all the planets orbit the Earth.

It wasn't until about the 1500s more and more evidence was being gathered to show Earth isn't at the centre of the universe. It is a planet orbiting our Sun and now we know our Solar System is towards the outer edge of a double spiral galaxy we call, The Milky Way. We also know our galaxy is one of very many, probably billions, in our universe. We know this because of what scientists have been able to observe and because of the theories arising.

Watch the below video to see an explanation of what is thought to have happened to form our planet and others in our Solar System. Remember, you can click on the small box symbol on the bottom right of the video to watch full screen.

 Now let's look at the information in the video

* About 9 billion (9,000,000,000) years after the universe was born a massive start went Supernova - A supernova is an explosion of a star. It might have been caused by the collapse of the massive star's core. Radiation, energy and stellar dust explodes out from the collapsed star. Back in 1987, we were able to look into the sky and see a supernova astronomers named SN 1987A. Where once nothing could be seen, a star bright enough to be seen without a telescope had appeared. It is said to be 167,885 light years distance. This means the light took 167,885 years to reach us. The supernova happened a very long time ago.

* Gravity began its work on regions of the massive dust "cloud" sent out. The "cloud" particles started to gather. Pressure and heat increased. Our Sun was being formed.

* The temperature increased to about 10 million (10,000,000) C or about 18,000,032 F. About 4.5 billion (4,500,000,000) years ago our sun lit up.

* The Sun used much of the "cloud" leaving only 0.1%. Look at this picture. Imagine the cloud was made up of 1000 students in a school. 999 of them would go to make up the Sun. Just one of them would be left to make all of the planets and asteroids in the Solar System. The little guy in red looks a little lonely. 🙂

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

* The left over material was caught in the pool of the Sun's spinning motion. The left over material was spinning (orbiting) around the sun. The spin and gravity of the sun was drawing the material into rings (like Saturn's gravity has drawn material into rings around it). The way the material was orbiting the sun stopped it from being pulled into the Sun. I know this can be hard to understand so look at the next graphic I have prepared.

Imagine you are the Sun. You have a long, strong elastic attached to a tennis ball and you are spinning it around your head.

The ball is orbiting you. The elastic is your gravity trying to pull the tennis ball to you. The tennis ball is one of the planets. If the movement of the ball slows, the elastic draws it closer. If the ball moves faster, the elastic stretches further. Yes, in case you wonder, if the tennis ball was instead a basketball, the amount of stretch would be bigger.

Jupiter is said to be 317 more massive than the Earth. Imagine trying to spin 317 tennis balls on the end of the elastic. You wouldn't need to spin the balls as fast to keep the elastic as stretched as one tennis ball. Our Earth takes one year to orbit the Sun (that's what a year is, the time it takes our Earth to go once around the Sun). Jupiter takes about 12 years. If you could spin the tennis balls fast enough, the elastic would break and "Jupiter" would sail off into space.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

* The debris in the rings around our sun started to collide and come together to form larger masses. Their journey to becoming planets had started.

Have you heard of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter? This ring of debris wasn't able to form a planet because it was being pulled from two sides, the Sun and Jupiter, the largest of our system's planets. Our ring was able to produce a planet which is fortunate for us or I wouldn't be writing this.

* From 4.8 to 3.5 billion years ago (4,500,000,000 to 3,500,000,000 years ago), the Earth was being bombarded from space. Combined with this bombardment, radioactive elements and pressure, Earth became a molten furnace. Heavier minerals like iron and nickel sank into the core and lighter minerals rose to the surface.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

You have probably seen how certain things float while others sink. If you drop stones or pieces of metal into a container of water, they sink to the bottom because they are heavier. Put in olive oil and it will float to the top.

* Around this time a large object about the size of Mars collided with our early Earth. Part of the collided matter broke off to eventually become our moon. The Moon at first was much closer to our planet.

Remember the elastic experiment? Earth's "elastic" isn't quite strong enough so it is gradually "stretching" but the Moon isn't expected to break away, just reach a distance where there is a balance but this is billions of years into the future so we needn't worry.

* Because of all of the heat and volcanic activity throwing out gases, Earth's atmosphere was mostly nitrogen, water vapour and carbon dioxide. We couldn't have survived the heat let alone the poisonous atmosphere.

* As the bombardment of debris from the creation of the Solar System reduced, Earth's surface started to cool. Water vapour cooled and the first ancient ocean formed. The cooling crust of the Earth formed the first land, Pangaea. Remember the layers of the Earth?


Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

In the  final video clip at the end f this post you will hear it said, if the Earth were a basketball, the crust would be thinner than a piece of paper on its surface yet that's where we live.

* The Earth had an atmosphere and water, conditions needed for the first life but that is another story.

Are there any other systems with planets or are our Solar System planets the only ones? Is there life on other planets in our universe?

I have a favourite quote from a man called, Carl Sagan. He was an astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and author. He wrote a novel named "Contact". The quote comes from his book...

"The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space."

Many people had suspected other stars would have planets but it wasn't until 1988 the first planet outside our Solar System was found. Before this we simply didn't have the technology to do this. Now the possibility of around 2400 planets outside our Solar System are being investigated. It would seem planet formation as is said to have happened with our system is much more common that we had thought. You know I like numbers so look at this...

 

If there were only 1 billion galaxies in our universe each with 1 billion star, then there would be...

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars

(one quintillion stars)

Just say of these only 0.1% (like the amount of material left when our sun formed) had planets, then there would be...

1,000,000,000,000,000 stars with planets out there.

That is one quadrillion stars with planets.

Now just say of these only 0.0001% of the planets had life (that is not 1 out of a 1,000. It is 1 out of a million), then there would be...

1,000,000,000 planets with life.

That is one billion planets with life.

But there are probably many more than a billion galaxies in our universe and I suspect life is much more common than the above but reaching planets outside our Solar System to find life doesn't seem likely because of the vast distances between the stars and far greater between galaxies.

As you know, NASA has the Curiosity rover on Mars. Latest news shows it has found rocks on Mars have some of the chemicals necessary for life - sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon. If we find evidence of life on Mars or that it once existed, we have proof we are not alone but don't expect Martian people. If life is found it will most likely only be something like bacteria.

Early Earth & Plate Tectonics

This one talks of the possibility of a number of land masses forming over time and gives them names. This is quite possible but I am happy enough with just Pangaea unless I find further evidence. The clip does show you how our Earth is protected from harmful radiation from our sun by it's magnetic field caused by our rotating liquid iron outer core. Mars's interior cooled a very long time ago. Solar radiation shed much of Mars's atmosphere but Earth has been protected. Our volcanoes, tectonic plates and earthquakes show us our world is still very active and I am thankful it is.

This embedded You Tube clip is not my video.

 New Video Clips to Watch

(added: March 24, 2013)

When checking through You Tube, I found this clip showing an animation of the Big Bang, and the beginning of our system, the Sun, Earth and Moon. This clip has nothing to read just images to watch as billions of years pass.

This embedded You Tube clip is not my video.

You know our Sun is much larger than the Earth. It's said it would take about a million Earths to make the size of the Sun but is our Sun a very big star? I found this video clip to show our Sun is so much smaller than the largest known star. This video clip shows just how tiny our Sun is compared to some other suns (stars).

This embedded You Tube clip is not my video.

• 5 Comments

Christian is interested in Tasmania. Below are some photos from my collection taken in 1988...

Natural Beauty to Discover

 Coastline

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Caves

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Beaches

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Wateralls

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Hiking

A famous hike in Tasmania follows the Overland Track. Starting at Cradle Mountain, you head across mountain and valley until you reach Lake St. Clair. Catching a boat across the lake, you then make your way home. You can go with a group of friends or join a walking tour but allow about six days and make certain you're fit. 🙂

Cradle Mountain and the start of your journey.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, Australia

Lake St.Clair

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Location: Lake St. CLair, Tasmania, Australia

For details about the Overland Hiking Tours... Cradle Mountain Huts Tour details

 

Mining and Logging

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Location: Queenstown, Tasmania, Australia

These are the hills around the town of Queenstown. Mining and smelting of copper had eventually killed the trees on the mountains. The town is proud of its mining past but mining ended in 1994. Tourism is now a big money earner for the community. With the rebuilding of the old mining railway, the West Coast Wilderness Railway offers a wonderful scenic ride across the mountains to Strahan (pronounced "strawn") where tourists can ride boats along the beautiful Gordon River (pictured below).

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Gordon River, Tasmania, Australia

Then There Are the Animals

Bennetts Wallaby

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Location: Lake St. CLair, Tasmania, Australia

Cape Barren Geese

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Location: Lake St. CLair, Tasmania, Australia

Some of the Tasmanian animals in a museum display

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

 

Aboriginal Heritage

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

The picture is a museum display showing the type of shelters used by Tasmanian Aborigines. The animal you see is a Tasmanian devil. Unlike the Bugs Bunny Tassie, he is the size of a small dog. The devils are meat and carrion eaters and, like kangaroos, are marsupials, i.e. pouched animals.

There was once a vibrant Aboriginal culture in Tasmania but, with the coming of colonists, disease and official persecution brought an end to their language and much of their cultural heritage. It was one of Australia's saddest times in history. For more information on Aboriginal Tasmanians

Convict Past

The first Europeans to come to live in Tasmania were convicts sent by England. They have left behind the remains of their occupation at places such as Port Arthur and in bridges and buildings around Tasmania.

Port Arthur

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia

Convict built bridge at Richmond

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Location: Richmond, Tasmania, Australia

Convict built bridge at Ross.

I wonder if your can work out why I like the name of this town? 🙂

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Location: Ross, Tasmania, Australia

 

Tasmania lies about as far south of the equator as Iowa is north of the equator.

• 4 Comments

For A Room With a View's original post...

http://ourworldournumbers.edublogs.org/2013/03/05/topic-2-yorkshire-landmarks-uk/

Hello A Room With a View and Abbey,

I enjoyed watching your presentation on Yorkshire landmarks. It brought back great memories of my visit to Yorkshire. There was so much to see in Yorkshire and York itself. 🙂

I thought I would share some photos of two of your landmarks and a couple other places I enjoyed in Yorkshire.

This is a view of York Minster's western front taken from Precentor's Court. It is difficult to take a photo showing the entire western front without something such as a tree or building getting into the picture but I wanted to try as this was my favourite entrance.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

In order to show the full western front of York Minster, I took two photos and joined them using Photoshop.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Then there are the city gates or bars through the city walls of York. This is York's southern entrance - Micklegate Bar.

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Ribblehead Viaduct is known to railway fans around the world. Being a rail fan, I had to stop and take a photo. I can imagine this being a snow covered scene in winter but this photo was taken in spring. Behind me, hikers were heading off along a trail.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

While visiting the National Railway Museum in York, I was exploring a store area open to the public. A friend here in Australia was a Harry Potter fan and asked me to photograph anything Harry. I saw a sign hanging below a girder. It simply said, "Platform 9 3/4". I suspected I was on Harry Potter's trail.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is a heritage railway to the north of York. Taking a ride on one of their trains, I came to the station of Goathland. It may seem a little familiar to some of you. It has been used in the "Heartbeat" TV series as well as in the early Harry Potter films when it appeared as Hogsmeade.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

• 2 Comments

 Hello Sadie,

I went through my photo library of pictures I have taken and found a couple I can share. Some were taken in The British Museum and one is of the Luxor Obelisk now found in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. You and your class have permission to use my photos if you find them of use in class work or on blogs. In each photo, you can click on it to see it enlarged.

Some photos from the British Museum

In the first photo, if you look carefully at the display two men are viewing, it looks like there are real ushabti on display.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

This sarcophagus contained the mummy of Priest Hornedjitef.

Wikipedia link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornedjitef

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 The British Museum has a number of mummies and sarcophagi from Ancient Egypt on display.

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Red sandstone relief from the pyramid chapel of Queen Shanakdakhete

Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Shanakdakhete

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

If you visit Paris and go to the Place de la Concorde, you can see this obelisk on display. It is known as the Luxor Obelisk. Enlarge the photo and you can see heiroglyphs engraved on the obelisk.

Wikipedia link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Obelisk

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

The Egypt of today is very protective of their heritage. When most museums and collectors of the world claimed artefacts, they felt the objects were the property of those who found them. The Egyptian Government wouldn't allow this to happen in our modern world.

 

Thank you for sharing your report on your visit to Tullie House. It gave me a chance to do a little research on Egyptology.

@RossMannell

• 2 Comments

"Our World, Our Numbers" is a mathematics collaboration project involving 7 classes in 5 countries. The first post was from 4KM and 4KJ in Australia

Australian Currency

Dear 4KM and 4KJ,

A second of your posts for 2013 started me thinking in different directions again.  Did you know when I was your age I used different Australian money to what we have today?

When I was your age, we used pounds, shillings and pence, not dollars and cents. I have some pictures of the money down below. There was also a £10 (10 pound) note but I don’t have one in my collection. While we aren’t allowed to copy our modern money, I think these are okay because the last time they were used was in 1966.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

From left to right...

TOP ROW

half penny (ha'penny) equal to about half a cent

penny equal to about 1 cent

Three penny - 3d (thrupence) equal to about 2.5 cents

BOTTOM ROW

Sixpence equal to 5 cents

One shilling - 1s equal to 12 pennies and became 10 cents

Florin - two shillings equal to 24 pennies and became 20c

10 shillings - half a pound - 120 pennies - became $1

One Pound - £1 - 20 shillings - 240 pennies - became $2

Five Pound - £5 - 100 shillings - 1200 pennies - became $10

There was a 10 pound (£10) note but I don't have one in my collection. It became $20.

When these pounds (£), shillings (s) and pence (d) were in use and I was your age, my father earned about £20 (20 pounds) a week. That was enough to make payments on the house and car, buy clothes and groceries, save some and go on holidays. That is $40 in today's currency. My pocket money was 1s (one shilling or ten cents) a week. Prices were much lower than today but we earned much less. The money shown above would have been about one third of my father's weekly pay yet it was only £6/13/10 ($13.38). Click below to hear how the money was said...

Money

On the 14th February, 1966, Australia started using decimal currency. We had 6 types of coins and 5 notes. At that time, all notes were paper and not the plastic we use today.

Coins:  1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c

Notes:  $1, $2, $5, $10, $20

Here are pictures of the 1c and 2c coins plus $1 and $2 note no longer used. Australian coins have the face of the ruling monarch on the opposite sides, i.e. Queen Elizabeth II since her coronation in 1952.

1 cent and 2 cent coins

$1 note

$2 note

Australian Decimal Money Timeline

1966 - Decimal currency introduced on February 14

1973 - $50 note introduced

1984 - $1 coin replaces the note

1988 - Australia's first polymer (plastic) notes appeared

1988 - $2 coin replaces the note

1992 - 1c and 2c no longer officially in use

1996 - $100 note introduced

 

Money Links

Royal Australian Mint

Museum of Australian Currency Notes

 

* Schools and students have permission to use the graphics on this post for non-commercial, educational purposes.

None of the notes shown are now legal tender.

• 25 Comments

To see the original 4KM and 4KJ post, here is a link...

What technology did you use when younger?

Dear 4KM and 4KJ,

I just saw your post on technology. I set out to remember how much has changed over the years since I was born in 1954 in Sydney?

1954 - Australia didn’t have television, home computers or the Internet. Telephones had numbers including letters. My first phone number was UY5734. To call long distance, you would contact an operator to be connected. Overseas calls would need to be booked, the operator contacting you when they got through.

We had radios but they were much bigger than the radios of today. Rather than circuit boards and computer chips, they had large glass valves that would take some time to warm up before you heard the radio. Shopping was done at the corner store because we didn’t have supermarkets or shopping centres (malls). Big department stores weren’t in the suburbs and there were no credit cards.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

VALVE

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1956 - Television arrived. They were very expensive to buy but my family had one, not because we were rich, because my grandfather owned the local electrical goods shop. People would come to our house from the neighbourhood to watch television. Sometimes there could be forty or fifty people there even though at first the TV only showed still pictures of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Guess what? They were black and white TVs. We didn’t have colour television. Colour wasn’t available until around 1970.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

 

1960 - I started school. My Kindergarten (Prep/Reception) class had 38 students. There were no photocopiers or computers but we did have slide projectors and movie projectors. We did have pencils and crayons.

I'm the student top left near the teacher. Other faces have been blanked out.

This graphic should not be copied.

1963 - I lost my job as inkwell monitor. It had been my job to make certain there was ink in each desk’s inkwell in the mornings. We were now able to use the latest writing technology in class, ballpoint pens.

1971 - I saw my first computer. It was at the Lucas Heights Atomic Energy Research Centre. It was large and had a room of its own. We didn’t have CDs, DVDs, Bluray, hard drives or disks. The computer used cards with holes punched in them. You might stack a hundred or more of the cards into the computer to run one program.

PUNCH CARD - Not a real One.

Schools and students have permission to use this graphic for non-commercial, educational purposes.

1975 - I was in university and had use of a PDP8 computer. It was like comparing a candle to a theatre spotlight when thinking of computers today. It wasn’t very powerful by today’s standards but it started my interest. We didn’t have a computer screen or sound. The computer just had a big machine like a typewriter, a telex printer.  This is how I would type in programs. Without disks, programs were stored as holes in long tapes of thick paper.

1978 - saw me start as a casual teacher. I would arrive with an overhead projector, movie and slide projector and a cassette player. That was pretty high tech back then.

I thought I would create this little video clip to show what an 8mm movie and projector looked like.

1981 – I used a computer with a class for the first time. It had a floppy disk drive and a printer. We didn’t have many programs so I wrote some for the class. It was also this year I started using a video camera with a class. Home video cameras were very new and people thought I was from a TV station when I used it.

FLOPPY DISK

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1983 – I introduced computers to another school. Children were now writing stories on them and printing them.

1988 – Introduced computers to a third school and the following year bought my first mobile phone. I was at that school until 2000. In that time, I showed children and teachers how to use digital cameras, video camera, scanners, modems, and the Internet. We worked with graphics children created on computers, produced a student newspaper on computers, sent emails and edited videos on computers. This was the first school where I was able to network computers in a room. I was also able to lend some of my computers to children so they could use them at home.  By 2000, our government installed a whole school network and children across the school had access to the Internet.

2000 – 2005 – I was in my final school as a full time teacher. By this time, all schools had computers so it was the first of my schools where I didn’t need to introduce computers or the Internet. I was able to spend more time exploring new things with my students and helping teachers who asked for help.

What is happening now I am retired? I now produce CDs and DVDs for schools and community groups using my equipment. I can photograph, film, record sound, edit the video, design and print covers and inserts for CDs and DVDs, order supplies over the Internet if I can’t find them locally, work on blogs, email, Skype, and research on the web. I have never been so in touch with the world as I am now.

What technology will I use in the future? I will use anything I can afford I think will be of help to others or me. How about you?

@RossMannell

Teacher (retired), N.S.W., Australia

• 2 Comments

To see the class blog...

Roadrunners

Hello Roadrunners,

I see you are going to be looking at three native peoples from around the world, namely the Aboriginal people of Australia, the Maori people of New Zealand and the Native American people of your own country. I thought I would see how I might be able to help. Living in Australia, I have had some experiences meeting people from various Aboriginal Cultures (there isn't one Aboriginal culture). I've also been to New Zealand a number of times and experienced some of the Maori (a group of the Polynesian culture also found as far north as Hawaii). I'll start by sharing some things about  the Aboriginal cultures.

There are a number of sites dealing with the Aboriginal people and the culture. Here are some links with  information...

The Aboriginal Culture site has good information on the history, religious beliefs and cultural aspects of Aboriginal society. You will also find it has links to other sites with useful information. Click the picture below to go to the site...

This graphic appears at the top of the site. It isn't my work.

I have often said one of the advantages of visiting blogs, commenting and sharing is what I learn in the process. In researching for this post I have come across a new website I think, even without viewing all its contents, offers a great deal to young students. The next link below is a treasure worth discovering.

This site is from the Yolngu people of Ramingining in the northern part of Central Arnhem in Australia's Northern Territory. Their traditions have been passed from generation to generation and now they offer to share with the world. Click the picture below to visit the 12 Canoes website and start your journey. Listen to their story unfold..

This is the opening screen from the site. The site is interactive by clicking a picture.

A major source of images in Australia comes from the National Library of Australia. You can search for images but here is a link for a search for "Aborigine". There are also book lists and many other resources for viewing and or purchase. Click on the picture below to go to the National Library of Australia site...

A search on the web for Aboriginal art has come up with a wealth of images. You can see modern art influenced by tradition in these mostly Aboriginal modern works. Click the graphic below to see what I found...

We can't forget Wikipedia also has sources of information...

Dreamtime

Indigenous Australian Languages

Indigenous Australian Art

Indigenous Australian Music

 

Now for some videos care of You Tube.

The first video is of a favourite Dreamtime story of mine

 

A traditional instrument played only be men and forbidden for women is the didgeridoo. It is a hollowed out tree branch. Listen to the sounds it can make...

The modern didgeridoo is also used in contemporary music. Here is a famous group from the 1990s named Yothu Yindi

Sad times for the people

The Aboriginal people weren't given the right to be Australian citizens until 1949. It was only by 1962 all states in Australia allowed Aboriginal people the right to vote in state elections. (Source: Wikipedia) . One tragedy for the people was what has become known as the Stolen Generations. During this period (1869-1969) Aboriginal children could be taken from their families and placed with non-Aboriginal families or made wards of the state. When I was growing up I knew a boy named Claude. Many years later I found he had been taken from his family and placed with another. Many people from the Stolen Generation were able to find their real families as did Claude. It was a sad time.

Unlike Native Americans, no formal treaties existed with Aboriginal people. It's only in modern times the status of Aboriginal people as the first Australians has been recognised through land rites and respect of their culture. Times are changing but there is still more to be done.

At official school functions, it is normal for a representative of the local Aboriginal people, in my case the Yuin people, to say the Acknowledgement of Country and recognise the traditional owners of the land. One of my tasks in my local area is to produce DVDs for school performances. During the making of this year's DVD for a performing arts festival, I recorded a high school girl saying the Acknowledgement of Country. Click below to hear this audio recording of what was said...

Acknowledgement of Country

 

 The study and comparison of cultures can enrich our life and help preserve traditional knowledge. I hope this post is of some use in your studies looking at Native Americans, Aborigines and Maoris.

@RossMannell

Teacher (retired), N.S.W., Australia