Building a bridge into preschool in remote Northern Territory communities. The focus of this project is the engagement of remote Indigenous children and families in a culturally appropriate, evidence-based early childhood education and care program that provides an opportunity to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous school achievement.
Digital noticeboards for remote Aboriginal communities: bringing web 2.0 participation to non-western cultures with low English and technical literacy. Remote Aboriginal communities suffer from geographic and cultural isolation. Web 2.0 offers a solution yet is ill-suited to traditional collective cultures, those with low English and technical literacy, and the poor. This project will produce novel public web-enabled touchscreen noticeboards and table tops suited to traditional cultures.
Building the future for Indigenous students. The relationship of future vision, learning, and motivational profiles to school success. Indigenous students are the most severely disadvantaged group in Australia. Education as currently provided is failing them in the NT. Future Directions for Secondary Education in the NT states that 20% of secondary-aged Indigenous students are not enrolled in school, with only 6% completing the NTCE in 2002. Education is the corner stone of social justice becaus ....Building the future for Indigenous students. The relationship of future vision, learning, and motivational profiles to school success. Indigenous students are the most severely disadvantaged group in Australia. Education as currently provided is failing them in the NT. Future Directions for Secondary Education in the NT states that 20% of secondary-aged Indigenous students are not enrolled in school, with only 6% completing the NTCE in 2002. Education is the corner stone of social justice because it is the basis of opportunity (Burney 03). This research will provide critical hard data on the relationship of Indigenous students' future vision and aspirations, motivation, self-concept and self-regulation, language and culture to school achievement in order to design and provide culturally relevant education to maximise Indigenous opportunities and futures.Read moreRead less
Co-designing a resilient water-energy toolbox with Indigenous communities. The aim is to collaboratively create a toolbox of innovative, community-based approaches for water and energy management in remote Australia. This project will combine digital and cultural approaches to create a novel set of tested and evaluated tools for engaging both community and service providers in transforming water and energy use practises in remote Indigenous communities. The key output will be an empirically-test ....Co-designing a resilient water-energy toolbox with Indigenous communities. The aim is to collaboratively create a toolbox of innovative, community-based approaches for water and energy management in remote Australia. This project will combine digital and cultural approaches to create a novel set of tested and evaluated tools for engaging both community and service providers in transforming water and energy use practises in remote Indigenous communities. The key output will be an empirically-tested and user friendly water-energy toolbox tailored to reduce the currently extreme cost of supplying essential services to remote communities. Application of these outputs will significantly reduce demand on local water sources and diesel-generated energy use while creating a skill base for local employment opportunities.Read moreRead less
Gauging the value of flexible learning options for disenfranchised youth and the Australian community. Investment in flexible learning options (FLOs) for young people who have disengaged from schooling requires understanding of how they work and evidence about their economic and social value. This project will provide both through innovative and integrated methods, analysing FLO sites across three Australian states and the Northern Territory.
Reconstructing the Spencer and Gillen Collection: Museums, Indigenous Perspectives and the Production of Cultural Knowledge. Spencer and Gillen's research placed Australia at the heart of world discourse in anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century and they influenced the paradigm changes that resulted in the development of the modern discipline. Digital technology now enables the material record of their research to be recreated as a whole revealing the richness of Aboriginal socie ....Reconstructing the Spencer and Gillen Collection: Museums, Indigenous Perspectives and the Production of Cultural Knowledge. Spencer and Gillen's research placed Australia at the heart of world discourse in anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century and they influenced the paradigm changes that resulted in the development of the modern discipline. Digital technology now enables the material record of their research to be recreated as a whole revealing the richness of Aboriginal society in central Australia at the turn of the twentieth century and uncovering a crucial period in the history of anthropology. The research project will advance understanding of Australia's role in the history of anthropology and related disciplines in addition to creating a cultural resource of great value not least for the Indigenous communities themselves.Read moreRead less
The effect of genomic variants on Indigenous health. The effect of genomic variants on Indigenous health. This project aims to examine the genetic variants introduced by Europeans (and other groups) into the genomes of the Aboriginal Australian population. The rate of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension is very high in Australia’s Indigenous populations. While an energy-rich Western diet has been suggested as the major cause, the contribution of genomic variants (mutations) rema ....The effect of genomic variants on Indigenous health. The effect of genomic variants on Indigenous health. This project aims to examine the genetic variants introduced by Europeans (and other groups) into the genomes of the Aboriginal Australian population. The rate of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension is very high in Australia’s Indigenous populations. While an energy-rich Western diet has been suggested as the major cause, the contribution of genomic variants (mutations) remains unclear. Anticipated outcomes are better understandings of both the benign and deleterious variants introduced into Aboriginal Australian populations and how these contribute to disease susceptibility.Read moreRead less
Strategies for Sustaining Aboriginal Song and Dance in the Modern World: the Mowanjum and Fitzroy River Valley communities of WA. This project makes a major contribution to the community in which it is based by developing an appropriate and efficient model for cultural maintenance and regeneration through repatriation, recording, documentation, and digital dissemination. National benefit derives from the development of a model to preserve and sustain endangered cultural knowledges associated wit ....Strategies for Sustaining Aboriginal Song and Dance in the Modern World: the Mowanjum and Fitzroy River Valley communities of WA. This project makes a major contribution to the community in which it is based by developing an appropriate and efficient model for cultural maintenance and regeneration through repatriation, recording, documentation, and digital dissemination. National benefit derives from the development of a model to preserve and sustain endangered cultural knowledges associated with song and dance, and a pre-emptive strategy for the recovery of almost extinct traditions. National benefit also derives from establishing Australia at the forefront of international efforts to safeguard intangible cultural heritages, by revealing how access to recordings via digital platforms contributes to cultural maintenance and regeneration.Read moreRead less
Bringing back Australia's lost woodland biodiversity: towards strategic multi-species reintroductions. Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction of any continent on the planet. This has reduced biodiversity and compromised many important ecological processes. What is the best way to re-build depauperate mammal communities with multi-species reintroductions? What effects do multi-species reintroductions have on recipient ecosystems? This project aims to explore these questions by reintr ....Bringing back Australia's lost woodland biodiversity: towards strategic multi-species reintroductions. Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction of any continent on the planet. This has reduced biodiversity and compromised many important ecological processes. What is the best way to re-build depauperate mammal communities with multi-species reintroductions? What effects do multi-species reintroductions have on recipient ecosystems? This project aims to explore these questions by reintroducing three mammal species to a critically endangered temperate woodland: a carnivore (the eastern quoll), an insectivore (yellow-footed antechinus), and a herbivore (the eastern chestnut mouse). Results from this sequenced multi-species reintroduction experiment will have broad applicability to ecosystem restoration in Australia and overseas.Read moreRead less
Integrating fire and predator management to conserve threatened species. This project aims to empower land managers to better conserve Australia’s threatened native animals by developing decision-support approaches that facilitate integrated management of threatening processes. The project will use a combination of novel predictive models, field experiments and data syntheses to assist land managers to better conserve Australia’s threatened native fauna. This project will benefit biodiversity co ....Integrating fire and predator management to conserve threatened species. This project aims to empower land managers to better conserve Australia’s threatened native animals by developing decision-support approaches that facilitate integrated management of threatening processes. The project will use a combination of novel predictive models, field experiments and data syntheses to assist land managers to better conserve Australia’s threatened native fauna. This project will benefit biodiversity conservation by enabling more effective allocation of limited conservation resources.Read moreRead less