How and why do governments forget?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 political science.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of political scientists Associate Professor Alastair Stark (University of Queensland, Australia), Professor Heather Lovell (University of Tasmania, Australia) and Professor Rodney Scott (Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission of New Zealand). They are investigating how an organisation’s memories of the past can influence the policies made in the present.

• This resource also contains an interview with Al, Heather and Rodney and offers an insight into careers in public policy. If your students have questions for Al, Heather and Rodney, they can send them to them online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Al, Heather and Rodney will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Al, Heather and Rodney’s research and challenges them to consider the difference between the formal and informal information about their community.

• An animation about the team’s research is available through the weblink, along with a downloadable script.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

If you like these free resources – or have suggestions for improvements –, please let us know and leave us some feedback. Thank you!