After listing as many Australian Indigenous representations in the superhero worlds, I noticed that many of the early characters' powers are connected to the conceptual 'Dreamtime'. Although this is presented in different ways, it's often done using separate dimensions within the extended comic multiverses. Very little have any mention of actual Aboriginal nations, and do not seem to have had much research or thought towards any level of authenticity.
However, the more recent characters appear to have had much more understanding put into these characters; their origins, and their characteristics. But sadly, very few entries here are designed by Aboriginal artists or written by Aboriginal authors themselves, but given the positive development from the 1980s to today, hopefully this is something we will see more of in future.
The National Centre for Australian Children's Literature (NCACL) is contributing to this focus by celebrating and promoting children's books by and about Australia's Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Peoples, including books in Indigenous languages.
"The concern goes beyond tertiary studies. We conducted a project exploring secondary school teachers' engagement with Australian texts. We found Australian books are not consistently taught in classrooms and, when they are, they more often than not marginalise female, refugee and Indigenous authors. "
"One thousand school students worked with their classes to send in 273 questions about climate change. We got together 57 experts to answer them.
We asked climate scientists, conservation biologists, fire scientists, chemists, lawyers, engineers, psychologists, oceanographers, Indigenous knowledge specialists and health experts.
You can search for questions about a particular topic, or look at the questions we've organised into themes: most asked, looking ahead & taking action. You can also see what questions each class asked.
And we've added some resources on what's being done about climate change at a global level, how to handle feelings about climate change, and what you can do to be part of the solution."
This free database is available to everyone anywhere in the world. It is especially useful for those working with children. Besides annotations for each of the 300+ books and hyperlinks to free teaching resources, we have included many different ways to find just the 'right' books. There are Australian curriculum links, the Early Years Learning Framework links, author, title, publisher, date, subject access and free text searching. You can find books in specific languages, books written and illustrated by children, or books by your favourite authors and illustrators, for example. You can share what you find with colleagues using social media links.
Dust Echoes is a series of twelve beautifully animated dreamtime stories from Central Arnhem Land, telling stories of love, loyalty, duty to country and aboriginal custom and law. Supporting resources available.