Australian History - Great Depression Family experiences Source Usefulness

Teach Source Usefulness with this No-Prep Australian History Worksheet, Slide Deck & Digital Activity on Public Opinion During the Great Depression

Make historical thinking engaging with this digital and printable source usefulness activity designed for middle and high school students studying Australian History. This standards-aligned worksheet and editable slide deck focus on evaluating primary and secondary sources from the Great Depression, helping students build essential skills in source analysis, critical thinking, and historical inquiry.

Students explore real public opinion from 1930s Australia using two contrasting sources—a visual photograph and a personal letter—to determine how useful each is for investigating people’s views during the economic crisis. Perfect for source skills lessons, exam prep, and classroom discussion.

Product Purpose and Benefits

This resource helps students:

• Evaluate historical sources using content and provenance.
• Understand public experiences during the Great Depression.
• Build critical thinking and literacy through scaffolded analysis.
• Gain confidence writing inquiry-based responses.
  

What’s Included in This Resource:

1. Editable Slide Deck – “Understanding Source Usefulness”

The lesson begins with a teacher-guided slide deck that introduces key concepts of source usefulness, including content and provenance, bias, perspective, and purpose, with sample questions, sentence starters, and modelled examples to support discussion and explicit teaching of historical thinking skills.

2. Source Evaluation Worksheet

After the slide deck, students apply their learning to a structured, scaffolded worksheet focused on two real sources.

Students are guided to:

• Evaluate each source’s content (what is being said/shown)
• Analyse the provenance (who, when, where, why)
• Make informed judgments about usefulness for understanding the event
• Use evidence to support their evaluation in a clear, written format

3. Source Usefulness Activity

Worksheet designed to deepen understanding.

This task encourages students to:

• Examine the surface and subtext of both sources
• Explore tone, language, and visual cues

• • Build confidence in engaging with unfamiliar source types