Friday Fun!

Indigenous Astronomers

Did you know that there is such thing as “cultural astronomy”?

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been living in Australia for a very long time and they are considered to have the oldest continuous culture on Earth. As knowledge of the night sky was an important part of their cultures, they are considered to be the world’s first astronomers.

The Milky Way is a spectacular sight in the night sky, with its many stars and dust lanes, stretching across the sky from horizon to horizon. It is, of course, our own Milky Way galaxy, seen from inside, and looking towards the centre, where it is brightest. It is believed to be a spiral galaxy like this:

Some indigenous astronomers called the Milky Way Warambul, which was translated to English as “stream”.

Some indigenous artworks included symbols of  ‘Warambul’ as well as symbols for to represent other important parts of life. Here are some examples:

For today’s lesson you are going to be creating your own artwork of the milky way galaxy ‘Warambul’ and including some made up symbols of things that are important in your life.

You might like to include symbols to represent family, friends, special places or even your home.

Here are some examples of symbols:

For this activity you will need:

  • A glue stick
  • Some Pencils
  • Some sand from your garden or sand pit

First, draw your milky way galaxy (Warambul) across the whole page.

Next, add the symbols that you would like to include to make up your galaxy artwork. You can include a symbol more than once- think about the design of your artwork and try to be creative with the space that you have. You might choose to use earthy colours like that of the indigenous artworks or you could use an array of colours, it is your choice!

Then, trace over your drawing with a glue stick being careful to stick to the outlines of each drawing..

Finally, sprinkle sand across your image so that sand sticks to the glue.

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