Teach all 16 lessons of Stage 1 HSIE Unit 4, Connected Communities, with one ready-to-project PowerPoint that takes students from local celebrations to the people and symbols that connect a community.

This student-facing deck includes 360 slides across 16 lessons, plus 4 consolidation activities for the optional two-week block. Every lesson opens with its learning intention, success criteria and key language, then moves through teacher input, class discussion, a Your Turn task, a challenge and a closing check, so students always know where they are in the lesson.

Across the unit, students explore how celebrations create a shared sense of identity, learn how Aboriginal Peoples share and celebrate their Cultures and Histories, investigate local, state and national symbols and flags, and find out how firefighters, police officers, nurses and volunteers help others. The final lessons turn that learning into action: caring for shared spaces, participating in the school community and recognising volunteers.

The 16 lessons cover

1. Community celebrations

2. National celebrations – ANZAC Day and Australia Day

3. Cultural and religious celebrations

4. Aboriginal histories and NAIDOC Week

5. Sharing and celebrating Culture – Cooee Mittigar and cultural burning

6. Aboriginal festivals – Parrtjima, Garma, Yabun and Mutawintji

7. Symbols in our community

8. State symbols and emblems of New South Wales

9. National symbols and flags

10. Firefighters in our community

11. Police help others

12. Nurses help others

13. School community care

14. Participating in our school

15. Recognising community volunteers

16. Supporting volunteer groups

Each lesson includes

- A title slide with the lesson name and duration

- Learning intention, success criteria and key language cards

- Teacher input slides with think-alouds and sentence stems

- Discussion questions with click-to-reveal answers (100+ across the unit)

- Real photographs, flags and emblems built into the slides

- Linked WATCH and OPEN buttons to every video, gallery and website

- A Your Turn task, a challenge task and an optional assessment slide

- A summary slide and a hyperlinked INDEX button back to the contents

Curriculum alignment

- NSW HSIE K–6 Syllabus (2024): HS1-GEO-01 and HS1-ACH-01

- Focus areas: People are connected to places and groups; People learn about the past by engaging with stories, images, objects and sites

- Suits Year 1 and Year 2 HASS (History and Geography) programs in other states and territories

Perfect for

- Stage 1 teachers delivering the NSW HSIE K–6 Syllabus

- Year 1 and Year 2 History and Geography lessons

- Whole-class explicit teaching on an interactive whiteboard

- Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures and Histories in the early years

- Low-prep HSIE units on community, belonging, symbols and community helpers

- Casual and relief teachers who need a complete lesson sequence

Please note

Teachers will need access to the relevant HSIE Stage 1 Unit 4 lesson materials to gain the full benefit of this resource. This PowerPoint is designed to support the delivery of the unit and does not replace the complete teacher guidance, lesson notes, source materials or professional learning provided with the original unit. Videos and websites are linked rather than embedded, so an internet connection is needed to play them. The resource is adapted from the NSW Department of Education sample unit under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence; syllabus content is © NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) 2024. This is a teaching resource and is not an official NESA or Department product.

File details

- 1 editable PowerPoint file (.pptx), 16:9 widescreen, about 10 MB

- 360 slides across 16 lessons and 4 consolidation activities

- Stage 1, Years 1–2, NSW HSIE K–6 Syllabus

- Opens in PowerPoint 2016 or later

- Instant digital download; single-user licence

Open the deck, project it and teach – every lesson in the unit is already sequenced, structured and ready for your class.