Educational Aims(top)

Ida's Quest is designed to engage learners in an exploration of history. Although the website is based around a fictitious narrative, it uses real people and places.

The content and approach of the website is devised to assist teachers of Stage 2 and 3 students (8 - 12 year olds) for Human Society and Its Environment in the content area of Change and Continuity and Environments.

Ida Traill was a fourth generation descendant of William Lee and Thomas Kite, both of whom settled in Bathurst by 1818. Ida became interested in family from childhood contact with her grandfather George Lee and his wife, Emily (nee Kite) who lived at Leeholme, a large homestead close to Bathurst.

Through inheritance and purchase Ida acquired a significant collection of artefacts relating to four generations of the Lee family in Bathurst. These items, together with her own furniture, furnishings, paintings and ceramics were left to the National Trust in 1976 along with the house and grounds at 321 Russell Street, Bathurst.

The Ida's Quest narrative uses the characters of Miss Ida Traill as an 11 year old girl, her grandparents George and Emily Lee as well as other real characters of historical Bathurst to provide a richly textured portrait of Bathurst in 1901.

This web site can be used with Stage 2 and 3 as there are syllabus overlaps. Through the students' exploration of the website and accompanying links and classroom activities, the following syllabus outcomes can be achieved.

Ida's Quest assists Stage 2 students to:

• Understand the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal people
• Investigate the environment and history of their local community and make comparisons with other areas.
• Understand the roles of individuals, families, groups and events in maintaining, developing, strengthening and changing communities
• Use maps to identify key features of natural and built environments
• Develop skills in the location and evaluation of information from a variety of sources
• Use family trees and timelines to communicate information

Ida's Quest assists Stage 3 students to:

• Understand the principles of Australian parliamentary democracy and State and Federal systems of government
• Investigate the discovery of gold and colonial exploration and expansion
• Locate information from a variety of primary and secondary sources and present this information in a variety of ways.

Structure(top)

The website contains three levels - the story, the link pages and the classroom activities.

The Story
The quest that 11 year old Ida undertakes, starts when she receives a letter from her grandfather in Bathurst. This letter contains 6 riddles for her to solve based on the family history. The answers to these riddles involve the identification of different people, places and things that are encountered during Ida's 5 day visit to the Bathurst district.

Together the answers to the riddles help to tell the family history which Ida presents to her grandparents on the final day. Students are also invited to solve these riddles with Ida and are given clues if they have problems.

The link pages and Glossary
Relevant objects, people, places and events that appear in the narrative are linked to further information pages with additional images and text.

Students should be encouraged to visit these links as they go or at the end of the day's narrative. Visits to the link pages will enable students to complete the activities more effectively and add to their understanding of the historical themes associated with the Bathurst district. The link pages also include information on Bathurst pre 1901 and after.

There is also a brief glossary to help explain some historical terms and references. Encourage the students to use the glossary when needed.

Activities
All of the activity pages can be printed out.

The activities are designed to compliment and extend the different themes that are introduced over the 5 days. You may choose to do these activities when the whole class has completed Ida's Quest or you may like to introduce them sequentially if the class is exploring the site together a day at a time.

The activities should only be completed if the students have visited the link pages for additional historical background.

Themes covered in the activities include:

Day 1
Transport
Built heritage and conservation

Day 2
Bathurst's Pastoral Heritage

Day 3
Wiradjuri heritage
Oral traditions
Early history of the Bathurst district

Day 4
Bathurst and Federation
Aging

Day 5
Family heritage

The activities are mostly off-line suggestions for group and individual work involving research, discussion and presentation. In order to explore these suggestions more fully in the classroom please refer to Teaching Strategies and Practices in Human Society and Its Environment Support Document from the Board of Studies.

• Go through the site and become familiar with the content, links and activities. You may like to print out this page and the activities for reference.
• Determine how much preparation your class needs according to their existing knowledge and development.
• The story is set in 1901 just after Federation. Make sure the students are familiar with the concept of the past and the background to Bathurst being a Federation town.

Students should not be encouraged to jump days, but to follow the narrative from Day 1 through to Day 5. Before students start Day 5 they will be asked if they have attempted to guess all of the Riddles before they proceed.

Observe how students are using the site and the progress they are making. Remember that students can also access the site from home and may like to work through Ida's Quest for homework to speed up the progress of the class through the narrative. Try and discourage the sharing of the answers to the riddles so that all students remain challenged and interested.

Family Treasures invites students to form small groups and engage in three different activities where they can:

• Explore the house looking for the objects and images from Ida's Quest and find out more about Ida's life.
• Take on the role of detectives to determine the story of the owners of three different suitcases and trunks. Students examine objects and images, letters, diaries and books to piece together a story.
• Interpret a map of the property to explore and document garden and house design, ornaments and features.