Contact - Significance, Evidence and Perspectives

Historical exploration involves discovering many different stories or parts of stories. These can be found in a variety of sources of information.

The Historical Exploration Toolkit will help you to understand more about sources of information, gathering evidence and ways to think about the information you encounter. The toolkit will also provide some ways of assessing how relevant the information you encounter is to the questions you are asking about an historical period.

There are four main sections to the toolkit. In Making Contact you will find out about some of the ways that one culture or time period impacts on another. In Approaching History you will discover the types of information that are available and learn new ways to think about information. The third component consists of actual Instructional Modules for educators to use with students. Included in the first module for students is a unit, which helps students go through the toolkit with supported material. Finally, the toolkit contains some explanation of how to navigate the site and begin a personal exploration Journal in which interesting and relevant pieces of information can be captured and stored and eventually used as evidence in an historical study.

Vignettes

The Introduction vignette will provide support on how to explore the different sections of the site. Educators can access the instructional modules developed for grades 7-9. The Making Contact and Approaching History will support the research process and greater understanding of how cultures can impact each other over time.

You may need Adobe Acrobat to view these vignettes:

• An Introduction
• Instructional Modules