Australian Gold Rush Teaching Resources
Browse Australian Gold Rush worksheets, Google teacher slide templates and more resources created by teachers for teachers like you. Each resource is aligned with the Australian HASS curriculum and designed to save you time as you build your lesson plans.
But we didn't stop there. Whether this is your first year teaching about the Australian gold rushes or you're just looking for a refresher, read on for a primer from our teacher team, including a handy gold rush timeline and fun facts to share with your students.
When Was the Australia Gold Rush?
The gold rushes of the 1800s had a significant impact on Australia as a nation, drawing people from all over the world, many whom stayed and became permanent residents.
But what started the rush in the first place, and when did it all happen?
Here's a look at a timeline that can help you shape your lesson plans and explain this question to your students:
- 1823 — Rumour has it the first gold was actually found in Bathurst in New South Wales in 1823, but the local people were able to keep the discovery quiet for more than two decades!
- 1851 — The gold rush officially started in 19851 when gold was discovered in New South Wales by a miner named Edward Hargreaves. More gold was found soon after in Ballarat, Victoria, and the news spread like wildfire overseas.
- 1853 — Two years after the first major gold discovery, officials in Victoria decided to begin imposing a miner's fee which required prospectors to acquire a license. This was the start of a rift between the miner's and the local authorities.
- 1854 — A year after the licensing fee requirements began, tensions boiled over between the two sides. The result was the Eureka Rebellion, an armed confrontation between miners and government officials in Ballarat.
- 1890s — Although gold discoveries slowed in the years after the Eureka Rebellion, they didn't end entirely. Gold was still being found, with more significant discoveries in places like Kalgoorlie in Western Australia in the 1890s.
4 Fun Australian Gold Rush Facts for Kids
Are you looking for some fun facts you can use to hook your class on this era of Australian history? Look no further! We've put together some facts sure to get kids' attention!
- There's no way to tell just how much gold was found over the years of the gold rush, but it's estimated miners found as much as 240 metric tonnes!
- The Welcome Stranger, a gold nugget discovered in 1869 in Victoria, is the largest nugget ever found anywhere in the world. It was found by Cornish miners and weighed approximately 72 kilogrammes. The nugget was worth about 10 000 British pounds. That's about $3 to $4 million in modern AUD.
- Miners came from as far away as the United States, Poland, Germany, Ireland and China, hoping to strike gold and get rich here in Australia.
- It's estimated that half a million people rushed to the goldfields to pan for gold.
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Eureka Stockade Fact Sheet and Comprehension Questions
A fact sheet and comprehension task to use when learning about The Eureka Stockade.
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Gold Miners' Bulletin Project
A creative writing newspaper project in which students design and write the front page of an imagined newspaper from the Australian Gold Rush era.
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Australian Gold Rush: A Golden Democracy – Teaching Presentation
A 13-slide teaching presentation about the political struggles gold miners faced in their efforts to obtain wealth.
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Australian Gold Rush: Map Where It's At - Worksheet
A fun mapping activity for students to pinpoint gold finds and gold rush locations between 1851 to 1893 on a map of Australia.
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Australian Gold Rush: Eureka Stockade – Teaching Presentation
A 16-slide teaching presentation about the events leading up to and including the Eureka Stockade and the positive and negative impacts it had on Australian politics and people.
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Australian Gold Rush: Gold Fever – Teaching Presentation
A teaching presentation that explores the origins of the Australian Gold Rush.
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Australian Gold Rush: A Digger's Life – Teaching Presentation
A 17-slide teaching presentation that explores the challenges, hardships and glory of a life spent digging on the Australian goldfields.
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Australian Gold Rush: Advent Calendar
An advent calendar style poster for students to identify, inquire about and collect information that relates to the Australian Gold Rush.
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Australian Gold Mines: Y-Chart – Template
A Y-chart template students can use to reflect on what working on the goldfields looked like, sounded like and felt like.
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Australian Gold Rush - Timeline Banner
A timeline to display the gold rush in Australia from 1821 to 1867.
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A Letter from the Goldfields - Writing Task
A writing task where students explain life on the Australian goldfields during 1852.
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Australian Gold Rush: Living Wax Museum – Project
An inquiry project in which students research personalities from the Australian Gold Rush and portray them as part of a Living Wax Museum.
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Location of Australian Goldfields Poster and Mapping Task
A set of posters and worksheets to use in the classroom when locating Australian goldfields.
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Australian Gold Rush: Melting Pot – Teaching Presentation
A 10-slide teaching presentation that explores immigration and diversity during the Australian Gold Rush and how it shaped the multicultural Australia we know today.
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Australian Gold Rush – Flip Book
A flip book designed to integrate interesting facts about Australian history into a unit of learning.
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Australian Gold Rush Display Banner
A classroom display banner to use on your 'Australian Gold Rush' display board.
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Australian Gold Rush: Eureka Stockade Still Frame – Worksheet
A worksheet that enables students to design and share a story using still frame images.
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Australian Gold Rush: First Nations – Teaching Presentation
An 11-slide teaching presentation discussing the impact the Australian Gold Rush had on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
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Australian Gold Rush: That's Gold! – Teaching Presentation
A 13-slide teaching presentation that includes interesting facts about gold, why it is such a prized metal, and how its use shaped modern currency and trade.
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Australian Gold Rush - Immigration Poster
A poster explaining the increase in Australia's population during the Gold Rush.
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Australian Gold Rush: Race to Eureka – Game
An interactive gold-panning game in which students explore scenarios of reward, penalisation and inequality.
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Australian Gold Rush - Posters and Decorations
A set of Australian Gold Rush themed posters and cut out decorations.
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Australian Gold Rush: Native Police Venn Diagram – Template
A Venn diagram template designed to allow students to compare and contrast the pros and cons of Indigenous peoples helping miners and the establishment of the Native Police Force during the Australian Gold Rush.
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Australian Gold Rush – Word Wall 2
Thirty-one content-specific vocabulary cards for a word wall based on the Australian Gold Rush.
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Australian Gold Rush - Word Wall
An Australian Gold Rush themed word wall to use in the classroom.
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What is Gold Poster
A poster highlighting information about gold.
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History of Gold Poster
A poster outlining the history of gold in Australia.
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Gold Mining Methods
5 posters outlining gold mining techniques used during the Australian Gold Rush.
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Australian Gold Rush — Teaching Resource Pack
A resource pack containing a range of posters, worksheets and activities to use in your classroom when teaching a unit of work on the Australian Gold Rush.
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Australian Gold Rush Unit Plan
This Australian Gold Rush unit investigates the historical discovery of Australia’s Gold Rush period, from the mid-to-late 1800s. Ideas include the discovery of gold, mining lifestyle, wealth and success, social consequences, and how these shaped the Australia we live in today.
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A Golden Democracy – Laws, Taxes and Voting Equality
A 60-minute lesson designed to explain how events during the gold rush influenced Australian laws, taxes, equality and voting rights, and how they shaped our current democracy.
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A Digger's Life – Exploration of Life on the Goldfields
A 60-minute lesson in which students learn about the working and living conditions of miners on the Australian goldfields.