LOOK! UP IN THE SKY YEAR 3 - UNIT PLAN > Living in Australia’s Outback Royal Flying Doctor Service Tasmania Building 90 Launceston Airport, 305 Evandale Road Western Junction TAS 7212 Prepared by Jocelyn McLean PO Box 140, Evandale TAS 7212 P: 03 6391 0512 E: [email protected] W: www.flyingdoctor4education.org.au RFDS Education Ocer LOOK UP INTO THE SKY > Living in Australia’s Outback Year 3 Australian Curriculum Humanities and Social Sciences Focus Topic of the unit Inquiry Questions Using the interactive resources located ‘www.flyingdoctor4education.org.au‘, > How do people contribute to their communities, past and present? students explore the development of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the impact the organisation has on communities in the outback of > How has our community changed? Australia. They will investigate how the communities have changed over time and the role the Royal Flying Doctor Service has played in these > What is the nature of the contribution made by different groups and changes. Students will identify how the characteristics of a place shape individuals in the community? the industry, community and the lives of the people who live there. > What are the main natural and human features of Australia? Students Develop and Understanding of > How and why are places similar and different? > How the community has changed and remained the same over time and the role that the Royal Flying Doctor Service has played in the development and character of the local community (ACHASSK063) > The similarities and differences between places in terms of their type of settlement, demographic characteristics and the lives of the people who live there, and people’s perceptions of these places (ACHASSK069) Look! Up in the Sky | RFDS Year 3 Unit > Living in Australia’s Outback 2 GROWING UP AN INLANDER > The content provides opportunities for students to develop humanities and social sciences understanding through key concepts including Aim of the Unit: significance; continuity and change; cause and eect; place and The Royal Flying Doctors (RFDS) Living in Australia’s Outback is a space; interconnections; roles, rights and responsibilities; and Humanities Social Science Year 3 unit of work. The content descriptors for perspectives and action. These concepts may provide a focus for this unit are from the Australian Humanities and Social Science Curriculum inquiries and be investigated across sub-strands or within a particular v8.2 (www.australiancurriculum.edu.au). The unit is designed to build sub-strand context. student’s knowledge of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the Year 2 Achievement Standard contribution they made to the development of communities in Inland By the end of Year 3, students identify individuals, events and aspects of Australia. Throughout the lessons students should gain an understanding the past that have significance in the present. They identify and describe of how the RFDS came to be, why the service is necessary for those living aspects of their community that have changed and remained the same in the outback areas of Australia and the help they provide. They will over time. They describe the diverse characteristics of different places at identify the characteristics of a place and compare the similarities and the local scale and identify and describe similarities and differences differences to where they live, thus coming to an understanding of the between the characteristics of these places. They identify connections challenges of living in a remote location. Students will draw conclusions between people and the characteristics of places. Students explain the on the importance of the organisation to these communities both in the role of rules in their community and the importance of making decisions past and today. democratically. They identify the importance of different celebrations and Year 3 Level Description commemorations for different groups. They explain how and why people curriculum focuses on the diversity of people and places in their local participate in and contribute to their communities. community and beyond, and how people participate in their communities. Students study how places are represented geographically and how Students pose questions and locate and collect information from sources, communities express themselves culturally and through civic including observations, to answer these questions. They examine participation. Opportunities are provided to learn about diversity within information to identify a point of view and interpret data to identify and their community, including the Country/Place of Aboriginal and Torres describe simple distributions. They draw simple conclusions and share Strait Islander Peoples, and about other communities in Australia and their views on an issue. They sequence information about events and the neighbouring countries. Students compare the climates, settlement lives of individuals in chronological order. They record and represent data patterns and population characteristics of places, and how these affect in different formats, including labelled maps using basic cartographic communities, past and present. Students examine how individuals and conventions. They reflect on their learning to suggest individual action in groups celebrate and contribute to communities in the past and present, response to an issue or challenge. Students communicate their ideas, through establishing and following rules, decision-making, participation findings and conclusions in oral, visual and written forms using simple and commemoration. discipline-specific terms. Look! Up in the Sky | RFDS Year 3 Unit > Living in Australia’s Outback Overview 3 RFDS BACKGROUND INFORMATION > RFDS John Flynn The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) takes the finest care to the furthest > The RFDS began as the dream of the Rev John Flynn, a minister with corners of Australia. the Presbyterian Church. He witnessed the daily struggle of pioneers living in remote areas where just two doctors provided the only It is one of the largest and most comprehensive aeromedical organisations medical care for an area of almost 2 million square kilometres. in the world, providing extensive primary health care and 24-hour emergency service to people over an area of 7.3 million square kilometres. > Flynn’s vision was to provide a ‘mantle of safety’ for these people and The service began in 1928 as an emergency rescue service and today on 17 May 1928, his dream had become a reality with the opening of delivers extensive primary healthcare and 24-hour emergency services to the Australian Inland Mission Aerial Medical Service (later renamed the those who live, work and travel throughout Australia. The RFDS reaches Royal Flying Doctor Service) in Cloncurry, Queensland. 80% of Australia with no patient more than two hours away from help. Last year the RFDS assisted 282 000 people through emergency rescues, clinic Timeline services, patient retrieval and inter-hospital transfers or tele-health > The very Rev John Flynn OBE (1880-1951), ‘Flynn of the Inland’ lived in services. the Outback for the most of his life, setting up hostels and bush hospitals for pastoralists, miners, road workers, railwaymen and other The RFDS is a federation, with each of the six Sections operating within a settlers. federal agreement, under the governance of the Federation board, > In 1912, he established the Australian Inland Mission to minister to the members of which voluntarily contribute their time. spiritual, social and medical needs of people in the Outback. > In 1917, he received an inspirational letter from Lieutenant Clifford RFDS is funded through a combination of the Australian Government, Peel, a Victorian medical student with an interest in aviation. The State and Territory Governments and our own fundraising initiatives and young man and war hero suggested the use of aviation to bring the provision of other services. medical help to the Outback. Shot down in France, he died at just 24 years of age and never knew that his letter became a blueprint for the Delivered by a dedicated team of professionals, using the latest in aviation, creation of the Flying Doctor Service. medical and communications technology, and supported by a vast > For the next ten years, Flynn campaigned for an aerial medical service. number of volunteers and supporters, the RFDS is vital for those that live, His vision was to provide a ‘mantle of safety’ for the people of the bush, work and travel in rural and remote Australia. and his vision became a reality when his long time supporter, HV McKay, left a large bequest for án aerial experiment’ which enabled Flynn to get the Flying Doctor Service airborne. Look! Up in the Sky | RFDS Year 3 Unit > Living in Australia’s Outback Background Information 4 > At this time, Flynn also met Hudson Fysh, a founder of QANTAS. In Tasmanian Specific 1927, QANTAS and the Aerial Medical Service signed an agreement to > 1960 - RFDS was officially established in Tasmania to provide a 24 hour operate an aerial ambulance from Cloncurry, Queensland. emergency evacuation and inter-hospital aero-medical transfer > When our first pilot, Arthur Affleck, took off from Cloncurry on 17 May service. Aircraft were chartered from Tasmanian Aero Clubs. 1928, he was flying a single engine, timber and fabric bi-plane named > 1993 – The Tasmanian Section purchased its own plane. ‘Victory’ What we do in Tasmania. > He had with him the very first of our flying doctors, Dr Kenyon St > In Tasmania the RFDS works under contract with Ambulance Tasmania Vincent Welch. to fill the vital role in the delivery of essential health care services by > In those days, not much territory was charted, so our pilots were supplying the state’s fixed wing air-ambulance. The RFDS operates 24 forced to navigate by river beds, fences, telegraph lines and other hours a day, 7 days a week and provides Tasmanians with services familiar landmarks. Despite these obstacles, in its inaugural year, the which include emergency trauma evacuations and inter-hospital Aerial Medical Service flew 50 flights to 26 destinations and treated 225 transfers to take patients to the specialist care they need.