🐟 Year 5 HaSS Learning Resource

🐠 Sydney Fish Market:
Exploring Choice, Movement & Sustainability

A place-based digital learning resource for Year 5 students

Student Number: S00394070 Name: Jeongmin Jeong Unit: EDSS661
Welcome

👋 Welcome to Your Learning Journey!

A place-based digital learning resource for Year 5 students

Hi Year 5! My name is Jeongmin Jeong, and I visited Sydney Fish Market to build this learning resource for you. When I walked through the market, I was genuinely surprised — the place is huge, loud, and full of real people making real decisions about what to buy. That's exactly why I chose it. In this resource, you'll explore the market just like I did: first, you'll find out what the Fish Market is and why it matters. Then you'll use a $30 budget to make your own consumer choices. After that, you'll trace where seafood actually comes from using maps. Finally, you'll decide what it means to be a responsible consumer. Let's go!

✅ Word count: 109
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Step 1 — Explore the Place

Learn about Sydney Fish Market — what it looks like, who goes there, and why it exists.

🛒

Step 2 — Make Choices ($30)

You've got $30. Compare prices and choose seafood for your family's dinner — just like a real consumer!

🌊

Step 3 — Trace the Journey

Explore where the seafood comes from and how far it travels to reach the market.

🌱

Step 4 — Think Sustainably

Does it matter where our food comes from? How do our choices affect the environment?

📷 My Site Visit

Jeongmin at Sydney Fish Market waterfront — Anzac Bridge behind

My selfie at the Sydney Fish Market waterfront — Anzac Bridge and Blackwattle Bay behind me!

Site Context

📍 Site Context: Sydney Fish Market

Understanding the place where our learning begins

Sydney Fish Market is one of the largest seafood markets in the Southern Hemisphere, located at Pyrmont beside Blackwattle Bay in Sydney. It was established in 1966 and recently got a brand-new building, which opened in 2024. During my visit, I noticed just how busy and varied the market was — fishers from across Australia bring their catch here every morning, and by the time shoppers arrive, there are hundreds of different seafood products on display, each with prices and origin labels. The market trades over 14,500 tonnes of seafood each year. It's a real, working place — not a museum — and that's what makes it so useful for learning about consumer choice, the movement of goods, and sustainability.

✅ Word count: 108

📍 What is Sydney Fish Market?

One of the largest fish markets in the Southern Hemisphere. Located at Pyrmont, right beside Blackwattle Bay. Every day, fishers, sellers, and shoppers come together to buy and sell fresh seafood. It's a real, working marketplace — not a museum or a theme park.

👥 Why is it important?

The market is a place where consumers make real decisions every day. They look at different types of seafood, compare prices, think about what their family likes, and choose what to buy. This is exactly what economists call consumer choice.

🚚 Where does the seafood come from?

Not all seafood here comes from nearby. Some comes from waters around Australia, while other seafood travels from places like New Zealand, Vietnam, or Norway. This is the movement of goods — products travelling from where they are caught to where they are sold.

🌱 Why is this site useful for learning?

From the photos I took at the market, you can see prices, labels, and real consumer behaviour all in one place. This is place-based learning — learning that happens because of where you are, not just what's in a textbook.

📸 Site Photos — From My Visit

Sydney Fish Market exterior

The new Sydney Fish Market building at Blackwattle Bay

Main hall timber roof

Inside the main hall — the iconic timber roof and busy shoppers

Live Lobster tanks

Live Lobster tanks — seafood kept fresh for customers

Crustaceans section

The Crustaceans section — Lobster, Crabs and Scampi on display

Prawns display

Customers lining up at a popular seafood stall

Christie's Sushi bar

Christie's Sushi/Sashimi bar — seafood prepared and ready to eat

Teacher Page

📚 Teacher Page & Curriculum Links

Curriculum alignment and pedagogical rationale

This resource is designed for Year 5 students studying the Economics and Business strand of the Australian Curriculum: Humanities and Social Sciences (Version 8.4). Sydney Fish Market was selected because it gives students a real, observable example of the three core concepts in this unit: consumer decision-making, the movement of goods, and sustainability. Both learning experiences connect directly to Economics and Business content descriptors, with supporting links to Year 5 Geography. The Cross-Curriculum Priority of Sustainability runs through both activities via Organising Ideas OI.2, OI.5, and OI.7. General Capabilities covered include Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, and ICT Capability.

✅ Word count: 100

📋 Curriculum Alignment

Year Level:Year 5
Learning Area:Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) — Australian Curriculum v8.4
Main Focus:Economics and Business
Supporting Links:Geography
Cross-Curriculum Priority:Sustainability (OI.2, OI.5, OI.7)
General Capabilities:Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, ICT Capability

📌 Content Descriptors

ACHASSK121

Influences on consumer choices and methods that can be used to help make informed personal consumer and financial choices

This is the central descriptor for this resource. At Sydney Fish Market, students observe real consumer behaviour — people choosing seafood based on price, quality, preference, and availability. Learning Experience 1 asks students to make their own choices within a $30 budget. Learning Experience 2 extends this by showing how a product's origin and sustainability record can also influence what a responsible consumer decides to buy.

ACHASSI094

Develop appropriate questions to guide an inquiry about people, events, developments, places, systems and challenges

Both learning experiences are built around student inquiry questions. In Learning Experience 1: "Why would I choose this product over another? What makes something good value?" In Learning Experience 2: "Where does this seafood come from and why does it matter?" These are questions real consumers and geographers ask — and students are asked to investigate them in the same way.

ACHASSI095

Locate and collect relevant information and data from primary sources and secondary sources

Students collect data from real photographs taken during the site visit, including price labels and origin information (primary sources). In Learning Experience 2, they use Google Earth to locate places and gather geographical data about seafood origins (secondary source), building practical research and data-collection skills.

ACHASSI100

Interpret data and information displayed in a range of formats to identify, describe and compare distributions, patterns and trends

In Learning Experience 1, students interpret price labels to compare seafood options and identify what represents good value. In Learning Experience 2, they interpret map data to compare travel distances for different seafood items, identifying patterns between locally caught and imported goods.

ACHASSI103

Present ideas, findings, viewpoints and conclusions in a range of texts and modes

Throughout both activities, students present findings by explaining their consumer choices, mapping seafood journeys, comparing products, and writing reasoned responses. The worksheets and response areas scaffold this process across written and visual modes.

🌍 Geography Connection

ACHASSK112

The influence of people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, on the environmental characteristics of Australian places

Learning Experience 2 connects to this Geography descriptor by exploring how fishing, aquaculture, transport, and retail all influence environments. Students consider how the sourcing and movement of seafood affects marine and land environments — linking consumer behaviour to environmental impact on Australian and global places.

🌿 Cross-Curriculum Priority: Sustainability

Sustainability runs through both learning experiences (OI.2, OI.5, OI.7). In Learning Experience 1, students start thinking about the value of goods and what it means to consume responsibly. In Learning Experience 2, this gets more specific — students look at the environmental cost of transporting seafood over long distances and ask whether there's a more responsible way to shop. The inquiry questions are designed to push students beyond simply describing sustainability to actually thinking critically about their own role as consumers.

⚡ General Capabilities

Literacy: Students read and interpret price labels, origin information, and map data. They communicate findings through written explanations and structured responses.

Critical and Creative Thinking: Students compare options, justify decisions, and evaluate sustainability impacts across both learning experiences.

Personal and Social Capability: Students reflect on their own values and preferences as consumers and consider how individual choices affect broader communities and environments.

ICT Capability: Students use Google Earth to locate seafood origins, measure distances, and visualise how goods travel from source to market.

💡 Pedagogical Rationale

Why Year 5? Year 5 students can compare, justify, and think critically about real situations. Consumer choice and sustainability are concepts they can engage with genuinely at this age — especially when they're grounded in a real place they can visit.

Consumer Decision-Making: The learning experiences move students through authentic consumer scenarios — choosing, comparing, and justifying — which builds the kind of economic literacy the Year 5 HaSS curriculum is after.

Geographical Thinking and Sustainability: By tracing where seafood comes from and thinking about what that journey costs the environment, students develop both spatial thinking and ethical reasoning skills.

Inquiry and Place-Based Learning: Every section of this website asks students to investigate, not just receive information. Using Sydney Fish Market as the anchor makes the inquiry feel real, not hypothetical — because it is.

Learning Experience 1

🛒 What Would You Buy?

Making smart choices at Sydney Fish Market

Imagine you're at Sydney Fish Market with $30 to spend for your family's dinner. What would you pick? When I visited, I stood in front of the prawns section and genuinely had to think about it — there were at least four different types of prawns with very different prices! In this activity, you'll do the same thing. You'll look at real photos and prices from the market, choose one or two items, compare the value, and explain your thinking. There's no single right answer — it depends on what your family likes, what fits the budget, and what you think is worth it.

Step 1 — Look at the Seafood 🔍

Look closely at the photos below. Notice the types of seafood, the prices, and how they are displayed.

Prawns display

🍤 Prawns display — can you spot the prices?

Tiger Prawns label $41.99

🏷️ Tiger Prawns at $41.99/kg — "Fresh Australian" label

Live Lobster tank

💎 Live Lobster — $119.99 each! Would this fit in your $30 budget?

Crustaceans section

🦀 Crustaceans section — Lobster, Crabs and Scampi on display

Price Guide — From My Visit 💲

These are the prices I recorded during my visit to Sydney Fish Market. Use this to plan your $30 shop!

🐟 Seafood Item💲 Price📍 Origin
🍤 Cooked Tiger Prawns$41.99/kgFresh Australian
🦐 Raw King Prawns$14.99/kgAustralian
🦞 Live Lobster$119.99 eachWestern Australia
🦑 Scampi$129.99/kgAustralian
🦀 Mud Crab$64.99/kgQueensland
🦪 Sydney Rock Oysters$32.99/dozenNSW
🐟 Salmon Fillet$38.99/kgTasmania
🐠 Barramundi Fillet$42.99/kgNorthern Territory

* Prices I recorded during my visit — March 2026

Activity 1: Choose Your Seafood 🛒

🛒 What Would You Buy? — $30 Budget

✏️ My Choice & Explanation

Activity 2: Compare Products 📊

📊 Compare Two Seafood Items

Pick two items and compare them. Think about:

🤔 Is "good value" always the cheapest option? Explain your thinking.

💭 Thinking Deeper

📋 Worksheet

Complete the worksheet to record your choices and comparisons.

📥 Download Worksheet 1 (PDF)
Learning Experience 2

🌊 From Ocean to Market

Tracing the journey of seafood to Sydney Fish Market

Have you ever wondered where your seafood comes from before it ends up at the market? When I was walking around Sydney Fish Market, I started reading the origin labels on the products. Some prawns said "Fresh Australian" — but that doesn't tell you much, does it? Other labels pointed to specific places: Tasmania, Western Australia, Queensland, even Norway. In this activity, you'll trace the journey of seafood — from the oceans, rivers, and farms where it is caught or grown, all the way to the stalls at Sydney Fish Market. You'll use maps, think about distance and transport, and consider what this means for the environment.

Step 1 — Identify the Seafood 🔍

Look at the seafood photos below. Read the labels carefully. Can you find where each item comes from?

Fresh Australian Prawns with origin label

🍤 Fresh Australian Prawns — look for the origin label

Crustaceans section — where do they come from?

🦀 Crustaceans — where do lobsters and crabs come from?

Salmon and mixed seafood stall

🐟 Mixed seafood — sourced from different regions of Australia

Step 2 — Find It on the Map 🗺️

Use the map below to see where different types of seafood come from around Australia. Notice how far some products travel to reach Pyrmont.

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Interactive Map — Seafood Origins

Use Google Earth to locate where your seafood comes from and estimate how far it has travelled to reach Sydney Fish Market.

🌏 Open Google Earth

💡 Try searching: "Spencer Gulf SA", "Huon Valley Tasmania", "Broome Western Australia", or "Moreton Bay Queensland"

Step 3 — Trace the Journey 🚚

🚚 How Does Seafood Get Here?

✏️ My Journey Comparison

Step 4 — Think About Sustainability 🌱

🌱 Is Closer Always Better?

💭 Thinking Deeper

Sydney Fish Market bay and city skyline

View from Sydney Fish Market — Blackwattle Bay and the Sydney skyline

Market interior seafood stalls

Inside the market — stalls showing seafood from across Australia and beyond

📋 Worksheet

Complete the mapping and comparison worksheet for this learning experience.

📥 Download Worksheet 2 (PDF)
Resources

🔗 Key Resources

2 digital + 2 physical resources supporting the learning experiences

Digital Resource 1

🌊 GoodFish — Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide

Description

GoodFish is a free, student-accessible seafood sustainability guide produced by the Australian Marine Conservation Society. It rates Australian seafood species as "Better Choice," "Eat Less," or "Say No" based on fishing practices and environmental impact. The website is regularly updated and easy to navigate, even for primary-aged students.

Educational Value

This resource supports Learning Experience 2 by showing students that consumer choices have real environmental consequences. Students can look up specific seafood sold at Sydney Fish Market — prawns, salmon, oysters — to find out whether they are sustainably sourced. This moves the sustainability discussion from abstract to concrete. It directly supports ACHASSK121 (informed consumer choices) and the Sustainability Cross-Curriculum Priority (OI.2, OI.5, OI.7). The rating system gives Year 5 learners a clear, usable framework for thinking about responsible consumption without needing prior expert knowledge.

Supports: Learning Experience 2 (sustainability and responsible choices)
↗ Visit GoodFish.org.au
✅ Word count: 102
Digital Resource 2

🌏 Google Earth — Digital Mapping Tool

Description

Google Earth is a free browser-based tool that lets students virtually explore any location on Earth using satellite imagery. It includes distance measurement tools, geographic labels, and location search — so students can find specific seafood origin regions like Spencer Gulf in SA, salmon farms in Tasmania, or lobster fishing grounds in WA.

Educational Value

This tool builds geographical thinking by making abstract concepts — distance, location, movement of goods — visible and measurable. In Learning Experience 2, students use Google Earth to locate the origins of seafood sold at Sydney Fish Market, estimate travel distances, and compare the environmental footprint of near and far seafood. It directly supports ACHASSI095 (collecting data from secondary sources), ACHASSI100 (interpreting map data), and the ICT General Capability. It also makes the activity genuinely interactive — students aren't just reading about geography, they're exploring it.

Supports: Learning Experience 2 (mapping seafood origins, tracing journeys)
↗ Open Google Earth
✅ Word count: 108
Physical / Visual Resource 1

📸 Original Site Photographs

Description

Original photographs taken during my visit to Sydney Fish Market in March 2026, showing real seafood displays, price labels, stall layouts, signage, and the market environment. The photos include prawns with "Fresh Australian" origin labels, price tags for multiple items, the Crustaceans and Live Lobster sections, Christie's Sushi Bar, and the external building and waterfront.

Educational Value

These photos give students something real to work with. They're not stock images — they were taken at the actual market, which means students are engaging with primary source material. In Learning Experience 1, students use the photos to identify prices and observe consumer behaviour firsthand. In Learning Experience 2, they read origin labels to begin their geographical investigation. This use of primary visual sources supports ACHASSI095 and helps develop the observational skills that are central to HaSS inquiry. The images also make the place feel real to students who haven't visited yet.

Supports: Both Learning Experience 1 and Learning Experience 2
✅ Word count: 108
Physical / Text Resource 2

📋 Student Worksheets (Printable PDF)

Description

Two printable worksheets, one for each learning experience. Worksheet 1 guides students through recording seafood prices, making a $30 budget decision, comparing two products, and explaining their reasoning. Worksheet 2 guides students through identifying seafood origins, comparing near and far seafood journeys, and responding to sustainability questions. A drawing/mapping section is included for tracing seafood routes.

Educational Value

The worksheets give students a structured way to think, rather than just writing whatever comes to mind. They move students step by step through the inquiry process — from collecting information to forming a reasoned conclusion. This kind of scaffolding is particularly useful for students who need support organising their ideas, and it ensures the activities are genuinely classroom-ready with minimal teacher modification needed. Both worksheets can be printed before a site visit or used as in-class follow-up activities after returning from Sydney Fish Market.

Supports: Learning Experience 1 and Learning Experience 2
📥 Download Worksheet 1
📥 Download Worksheet 2
✅ Word count: 113
Critical Reflection

✍️ Critical Reflection

Evaluating the educational purpose and design of this learning resource

Why Sydney Fish Market?

Sydney Fish Market was chosen because it offers something most teaching resources can't: a real, functioning economic environment that students can actually visit. When I went there, I could see consumers making decisions in real time — comparing prices, reading labels, choosing between cheaper and more expensive products. That kind of observable, everyday economic behaviour is exactly what the Year 5 Economics and Business curriculum asks students to understand. As Sobel (2004) argues, place-based education connects students to their local community in ways that abstract classroom learning cannot replicate.

The market is also a good fit because it sits at the intersection of several curriculum areas at once. It naturally connects Economics and Business content (consumer choice, value, resources) with Geography (place, location, movement of goods) and the Cross-Curriculum Priority of Sustainability. Gruenewald (2003) describes place-based pedagogy as a bridge between academic learning and lived experience — and that's what visiting a real working market actually does. The recent redevelopment of the site, with its new building opening in 2024, also adds a contemporary geographical angle: places change over time, and this market is a visible example of that.

Place-Based and Inquiry Learning

This website is structured around place-based learning — the idea that real places and community contexts should drive student inquiry, not the other way around (Smith, 2002). Rather than introducing consumer choice as an abstract concept and then looking for examples, this resource starts with the place — the market — and lets the learning grow from there. Cullen (2020) makes a similar point: community resources give students a context that no textbook can fully recreate.

The learning experiences follow an inquiry structure where students ask questions, collect evidence, compare and analyse, and then communicate their conclusions (Murdoch, 2015). This reflects the HaSS inquiry skills strand and is a more effective approach than simply reading and recalling information. The site visit isn't a bonus at the end of the unit — it's the starting point for genuine student investigation (Reynolds, 2014).

Educational Sequencing

The two learning experiences are deliberately sequenced to move from the personal to the global. Learning Experience 1 starts with something concrete and relatable — you have $30, what do you buy? This grounds the economic thinking in everyday decision-making before introducing more complex ideas. Learning Experience 2 then zooms out, asking students to trace where their food comes from across Australia and the world.

This progression reflects constructivist thinking: students build new understanding on top of what they already know (Vygotsky, 1978). Starting with a budget activity feels manageable. By the time students reach the sustainability questions, they've already done the harder work of comparing products and thinking about value — so the leap to environmental responsibility feels like a natural next step, not a disconnected topic (Biggs & Collis, 1982).

Deepening Understanding

This resource works across three interconnected concepts: consumer choice, movement of goods, and sustainability. These aren't treated as separate topics — they overlap throughout both learning experiences. A student who understands why lobster costs more than king prawns is already thinking about supply chains and transport. A student who realises their prawns came from 2,000 km away is already thinking about sustainability. That kind of connected thinking is what ACHASSK121 and the related inquiry descriptors are designed to develop (ACARA, 2015).

Hattie (2012) argues that the most powerful learning happens when students are asked to do something with information, not just receive it. Both activities in this resource ask students to justify their choices, compare options, and form conclusions — not just describe what they see.

Beyond a Simple Excursion

One thing I kept in mind while building this resource was the difference between a site visit that's educational and one that's just an outing. A visit to Sydney Fish Market is only as valuable as the learning that's built around it. The structured activities, inquiry prompts, and worksheets in this resource are designed to make sure the visit has a clear purpose — before, during, and after the experience. As Marsh (2010) notes, good pedagogical planning is what turns a school excursion into a genuine learning event. This website is the planning made visible.

✅ Word count: 522

References

ACARA. (2015). The Australian Curriculum: Humanities and Social Sciences. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au

Biggs, J., & Collis, K. (1982). Evaluating the quality of learning: The SOLO taxonomy. Academic Press.

Cullen, J. (2020). Teaching and learning through community resources in primary Humanities. Oxford University Press.

Gruenewald, D. A. (2003). The best of both worlds: A critical pedagogy of place. Educational Researcher, 32(4), 3–12.

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. Routledge.

Marsh, C. J. (2010). Becoming a teacher: Knowledge, skills and issues (5th ed.). Pearson Australia.

Murdoch, K. (2015). The power of inquiry. Seastar Education.

Reynolds, R. (2014). Teaching humanities and social sciences in the primary school (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Smith, G. A. (2002). Place-based education: Learning to be where we are. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(8), 584–594.

Sobel, D. (2004). Place-based education: Connecting classrooms and communities. Orion Society.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.