YVONNE FLETCHER & JOHN GILLAM: FIND THEM, REMEMBER THEM

Ms JENNY AITCHISON (Maitland—Minister for Regional Transport and Roads)—Local historians, authors and educators Yvonne Fletcher and John Gillam, have developed a historical education program for schools titled Find Them, Remember Them: Creating Citizen Historians. Find Them, Remember Them aligns with both the National and NSW History curricula for Years 6 to 9 helping students to develop historical skills and concepts by learning and practicing historical research as historians would. Find them, Remember Them has been trialled at seven schools and blends Historical Inquiry and Project Based Learning by providing an authentic learning experience accessing online databases such as the National Archives of Australia, the Australian War Memorial and Trove. Students, work as citizen historians, researching a local World War I soldier, using professional skills and concepts, to create historical documents that communicate their research to both the local and national community. In some cases, it is possible to have the unclaimed medals of veterans issued to family members or eligible community institutions such as the local school as a result of the research. I congratulate Yvonne and John for developing this transformative program which skills students to apply these important research skills more broadly to other disciplines.