A Projective Investigation:
Investigation Darwin’s Coastal Defences
< www.nt.gov.au/defenceofdarwin> | Middle Years
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Were the coastal defences of Darwin in 1942 adequate to repel an
attack from the sea?
Rationale
This investigation uses a ‘what would have happened if…’ approach to engage students in
the historical facts of February 1942 to build student knowledge of the geographical and
political position of Darwin in the Asia-Pacific
Pacific Theatre of World War 2. It uses a fictitious
problem- based scenario to provide an opportunity for students to apply knowledge
developed through the Defence of Darwin Experience and related internet based sources.
The scenario and subsequent questions require students to use knowledge meaningfully by
engaging
g students in complex reasoning processes. These processes require students to
decide on important information, organise and make decisions about gun
gun capabilities. The
classifying and comparison
ison of coastal and ship guns will bring students to the abstracting
abstracti
and inductive reasoning processes to develop conclusions about the effectiveness of the
defensive capabilities of Darwin in 1942.
The activity will also develop connectedness to the world
world outside the classroom through
decision making, problem solving, investigation
i
and inquiry.
The activity takes an interdisciplinary focus bringing together history, geography,
mathematics, ICT and science.
Year levels
This investigation is suitable for year 9/10 students.
Investigation
This investigation requires students
studen to do more than simply gather information or to go to
one resource. Investigating in this context will require students to engage in a number of
related tasks. The investigative activity focuses student activity through ‘key questions’, each
of these keyy questions will allow students to understand aspects of the fictitious scenario.
Key Questions
•
What shore based weapons were in Darwin in 1942?
•
Where were the shore based defences positioned in and around Darwin?
•
What offensive weapons did the Japanese
Japanese Imperial Navy Ships have that could
be used in an attack?
The key questions point students to the acquiring and integrating of new knowledge of the
operational capabilities of the coastal defences and the ships guns to form the basis of
decisions about Darwin’s coastal defensive capabilities. Students will need to
t be guided in
the organising and decisions of relevance of this new knowledge. They will extend and refine
knowledge as they examine, compare and analyse knowledge and information about the
guns in a way that helps them make new connections, gain new insights,
insights, and clarify the
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importance of the types and characteristics of the offensive capabilities of the different types
of guns.
Focusing questions in the table below have been organised to represent the complex
reasoning processes (CRP).
CRP Dimensions
Focusing Questions
DECISION MAKING,
generating and applying criteria
to selected characteristics of to
solve a problem.
What are the important offensive and defensive weapons?
What knowledge needs to be acquired?
What criteria are important for making decisions
dec
about the
effectiveness of the defensive Darwin’s coastal defensive
guns or the Japanese Imperial Navy’s offensive guns?
What characteristics must be classified?
What characteristics of the defensive and/or offensive
capabilities are alike and can or should they be grouped
together?
What are the gun characteristics that are important to the
defence of Darwin?
What are the gun characteristics important to the fictitious
attack on Darwin?
d in the defensive
What characteristics need to compared
and offensive capabilities, what are the important criteria?
How are they the same? How are the different?
What is the theme or pattern evident in the defensive
capabilities of Darwin’s coastal guns?
What is the theme or pattern evident in the offensive
capabilities of Japanese Imperial Navy
avy ships?
CLASSIFYING, the process of
grouping things into definable
categories on the basis of their
attributes.
COMPARING, the process of
identifying and articulating
similarities and differences
between the weapons: it is the
e
process of describing how
things are the same and
different.
ABSTRACTING, identifying
and articulating the underlying
theme or general pattern of
information. It is the process of
finding and
nd explaining general
patterns in specific information
and/or situations.
INDUCTIVE REASONING,
process of inferring unknown
generalizations or principles
from the analysis of information
or observations. Stated more
simply, it is the process of
making general conclusions
from specific information or
observations.
CONSTRUCTING SUPPORT,
the process of building systems
of support for assertions
What
at specific information has been collected? Where are
the knowledge gaps? Is there a need for more
information?
What are the connections or patterns evident between the
defensive and offensive capabilities?
What are the conclusions or predictions that can be made
that are relevant to this fictitious scenario?
What is needed to support the conclusions about the sea
attack on Darwin?
What specific evidence, facts or examples will
wil be needed
to support the argument?
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Resources, pointers and hints
Darwin’s Coastal Based Guns in 1942
•
Types, characteristics and positions for student consideration:
consideration
•
Useful Characteristics: rate of fire, projectile types and dimensions, range,
angles of fire, arc of fire and muzzle velocity.
•
Using a map of Darwin that also shows
show the Tiwi Islands provides
provide
opportunities for students to plot positions of the shore batter
atteries and the
Japanese Imperial Navy ships.
Resources
•
Defence of Darwin Experience and the
the Darwin Military museum
(http://www.defenceofdarwin.nt.gov.au
http://www.defenceofdarwin.nt.gov.au)
The details of the shore defences are spread through both the Defence of Darwin
Experience and the Military Museum. Most obvious is the 9.2 inch coastal
defence gun, however these guns were not in place in February 1942 (there is
enough information for the students to find this out).
out . The military museum has a 6
inch gun that was the main coastal defence, information and positioning can
gleaned from the exhibits in the Military Museum.
•
There were also QF 6 pounder, 57 mm twin-mount
mount coastal defence guns,
guns the
positions and number are not obvious and students will need to investigate these.
•
Photographs of all aspects of the coastal guns are available at the War Museum:
http://www.awm.gov.au/search/collections/ . This is the search engine; you will
need to type your query into the search field. For example: 6 inch guns Darwin
provides:
•
The Naval Weapons of the World site at http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons
provides characteristics of both the ship and shore
hore based guns.
guns You will need to
go to the British section as the guns were made in Britain.
Japanese Imperial Navy Offensive capabilities
•
Battleship: Kirishima had eight 14 inch (356 mm) guns and 16, 6 inch (152 mm)
guns. Useful characteristics for student investigation: rate of fire, projectile types and
dimensions, range, angles of fire, arc of fire and muzzle velocity.
•
Heavy Cruisers: Tone and Chikuma had eight
ght 8 inch (203mm) guns and eight 5inch
(127mm) guns.
•
Kagero Class Destroyers: Urakaze, Tanikaze, and Hamakaze had six 5 inch
(127mm) guns.
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Resources
•
Defence of Darwin Experience (http://www.defenceofdarwin.nt.gov.au
http://www.defenceofdarwin.nt.gov.au)
The characteristics of the Japanese Imperial Navy task force involved in the attack
on Darwin can be found on the video touch screen at the Bombing of Darwin display.
For example: displacement, length, beam, draft, speed
speed and armaments.
•
The Naval Weapons of the World site at http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons
provides characteristics of the Japanese Imperial navy guns, such as rate of fire,
projectile types and dimensions, range, angles of fire, arc of fire and muzzle velocity.
Associated Activities of Interest: Acquiring, Integrating and Extending New
knowledge
1. Information collecting and presentation: The use spreadsheets as a tool to sort
and classify is the most useful tool.
2. Plotting and positions: Plotting the positions on a map of the fictitious incoming
in
Imperial Japanese Navy ships and the coastal defence gun emplacements will give
students the best visual understanding of the scenario. It is also important to have
students scribe the ‘arc range’ of all guns: ship and coastal, again this will visualise
the information collected to lead to some conclusions. Google maps and Smart
boards will be useful here.
Students can also, using the ship speeds,
speeds plot the ships every hour to track their
approach to Darwin. This will take some maths; speed = distance/time, therefore
distance = speed x time, note the need to convert the units, if the speed is not in
kms/hr.
3. Projectile Motion
rojectile motion is the curved path that a projectile takes as it moves through the air.
Projectile
The path of the projectile varies with the angle at which it is fired. The angle of firing
also defines the distance the projectile will travel.
There are a number of learning objects (games and applets) that can be used to
develop the
e concepts of projectile motion.
Games: this can be useful for lower grades
http://www.physicsgames.com/projectile
http://www.physicsgames.com/projectile-games_turkey-fling/
Animations: show the projectile path
http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/Flash/ClassMechanics/Proj
http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/General
Interest/Harrison/Flash/ClassMechanics/Proj
ectile/Projectile.html
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/shwave/projectile.cfm
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/vectors/bds.cfm
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http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph14e/projectile.htm
fendt.de/ph14e/projectile.htm
http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/more_stuff/Applets/ProjectileMotion/jara
pplet.html
http://jersey.uoregon.edu/vlab/Cannon/
Maximum Distance: Projectiles have a maximum distance that is related to the
angle of fire. There are many science investigation activities students can do to test
this principle (as well as using the animations above) such as making catapults
testing the relationship between angle of fire and distance
distance the projectile travels, while
keeping all other variables the same. Some links to look at (remember the safety).
•
•
•
As simple as some rubber bands between fingers
http://www.wikihow.com/Category:Slingshots
http://www.wikihow.com/Category:Slingshots-and-Catapults
Catapults
Bows and arrows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_and_arrow, Ballista
catapults http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catapult; great links to roman and
medieval history
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fairprojects/project_ideas/Phys_p061.shtml : detailed project and will take some
making
4. Distance
istance to the Horizon
The distance
ce to the horizon is important as ships below the horizon are invisible to
people on the shore. The distance to the geometric horizon is 3.57 km times the
square root of the height of the eye of the observer in meters.
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If you wanted to do the mathematics
This calculation should be taken as a guide only as it assumes the earth is a
perfect ball 6378137 metres in radius. It also assumes the horizon you are
looking at is at sea level. A triangle is formed with the centre of the earth (C)
as one point,
int, the horizon point (H) is a right angle and the observer (O) the
third corner. Using Pythagoras's theorem we can calculate the distance from
the observer to the horizon (OH), knowing CH is the earth's radius (r) and
CO is the earth's radius (r) plus observer's
observer's height (v) above sea level.
5. Useful Graphic Organisers: This site might be useful to students for the sorting and
organising the knowledge: http://www.pgcps.pg.k12.md.us/~elc/dolgraphicorg.html .
6. How far away: The determining of the distance a ship is from the gun is an essential.
Rangefinders are devices that measures distance and bearing from the observer to
the target. In 1942 the coastal defences
defences had a number of range finders. The
rangefinders used prisms and similar triangle calculations to determine distance. The
rangefinder below consists essentially of a system of optical units assembled in a
long, cylindrical tube. The tube is supported
supported by a mount, which permits training the
rangefinder on the target.
Rangefinder in the Military Museum
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Some indirect measurement activities that utilise mathematics
mathematics to solve problems:
http://www.redmond.k12.or.us/14552011718214563/lib/14552011718214563/Lesson_11
.3.pdf
http://www.ohiorc.org/orc_documents/orc/RichProblems/Discoveryhttp://www.ohiorc.org/orc_documents/orc/RichProblems/Discovery
How_Wide_is_the_River.pdf
And an interactive game from the National Museum of Australia,, ‘The Bombing of
Darwin’, may be of interest.
interest
http://www.nma.gov.au/interactives/ahm/darwin/darwin_v1.ht
http://www.nma.gov.au/interactives/ahm/darwin/darwin_v1.html
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AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM LINKS
This investigation brings the possibility of working with students in an interdisciplinary mode
by combining a number of discipline areas from the Australian Curriculum: History,
Mathematics, Geography and Science. However, the investigations can be discipline based
depending on the class and school modes of curriculum organisation.
The following identifies aspect of the Australian Curriculum relevant to these investigations.
Science Inquiry Skills
SCIENCE
SUB-STRAN
STRAND
Questioning and
predicting
Planning and conducting
Processing and analysing
data and information
Evaluating
DESCRIPTION YEAR 09/10
Formulate questions or
hypotheses that can be
investigated scientifically
Plan, select and use
appropriate investigation
methods, including field work
and laboratory
experimentation, to collect
reliable data;; assess risk and
address ethical issues
associated with these
methods
Analyse patterns and trends
in data, including describing
relationships between
variables and identifying
inconsistencies
Use knowledge of scientific
concepts to draw conclusions
that are consistent with
evidence
Evaluate conclusions,
including identifying sources
of uncertainty and possible
alternative explanations, and
describe specific ways to
improve the quality of the
data
Critically analyse the validity
of information in secondary
sources and evaluate the
approaches used to solve
problems
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Communicating
Communicate evidencebased arguments and use
appropriate scientific
conventions, and
representations
esentations of scientific
ideas and information for a
particular purpose
Science provides an empirical way of answering interesting and important questions about
physical and technological world.
Science as a Human Endeavour
Year 9/10
SUB-STRAND
Nature and development of
science
Use and influence of science
Descriptors
Advances in scientific understanding often rely on
developments in technology and technological advances
are often linked to scientific discoveries
People can use scientific knowledge to evaluate whether
they should accept claims, explanations or predictions
Year 10 Content Descriptions
Physical sciences
Energy conservation in a system can be explained by describing energyy transfers and
transformations.
The motion of objects can be described and predicted using the laws of physics
MATHEMATICS
Learning mathematics creates opportunities for and enriches the lives of all Australians. The
Australian Curriculum:
um: Mathematics provides students with essential mathematical skills and
knowledge in Number and Algebra,
Algebra Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and
Probability.
Year 9
Linear and non-linear
linear relationships
Find the distance between two points located on a Cartesian plane using a range of
strategies, including graphing software
Pythagoras and trigonometry
Year 9
Investigate Pythagoras's theorem and its application to solving simple problems involving
right angled triangles.
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Use similarity to investigate the constancy of the sine, cosine and tangent ratios for a given
angle in right-angled
angled triangles.
triangles
Apply trigonometry to solve right-angled
right
triangle problems.
Year 10
Establish the sine, cosine.
Solve simple trigonometric equations.
equations
Apply Pythagoras's theorem and trigonometry to solving three-dimensional
three dimensional problems in
i rightangled triangles.
GEOGRAPHY
The Geography National Curriculum Shaping Paper suggests that geography will be
structured to produce knowledge and understanding in Years 5–6
5 6 could to include people
and their
heir origins (link with Year 6 History).
History). In Year 9 the focus is on landscapes and
resources. This provides an opportunity to teach geomorphology through the study of a
particular landscape, such as a coast, a mountain area or a major valley. Landscapes can
also be studied as a combination
combination of geological, geomorphologic, biological and cultural
layers that evolve over time, providing a way of integrating several aspects of geography.
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