Year 9 Technologies – Term 1 (WA Curriculum): Digital Systems and Data Management

What this unit covers

In Term 1, Year 9 Technologies in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Digital Systems and Data Management”.

Students explore digital systems through data representation, compression techniques, data management, and privacy principles to develop comprehensive digital literacy skills.

Lesson sequence (20 lessons)

The unit breaks down into the following lesson-by-lesson sequence — each title below is a teachable lesson, in order:

1. Introduction to Digital Systems and Data Types
2. Understanding File Formats and Their Purposes
3. Exploring Image File Formats and Storage Requirements
4. Audio and Video File Manipulation Techniques
5. Investigating AR and VR File Storage Demands
6. Introduction to Data Compression Algorithms
7. Run Length Encoding for Image Compression
8. Comparing Lossy vs Lossless Compression Methods
9. Analysing Audio Compression: MP3 vs WAV Quality
10. Video Compression: MP4 Format Impact on Storage
11. Virtual Reality File Types: FBX, OBJ and GLTF
12. Data Collection Methods: Surveys and Interviews
13. Digital Data Sources: Browser History and Phone Logs
14. Using Spreadsheets for Data Acquisition and Analysis
15. Database Systems for Data Storage and Validation
16. Creating Data Validation Rules and Input Forms
17. Australian Privacy Principles: Data Collection Rights
18. Evaluating Social Media Privacy Settings
19. Website Privacy Policies: Analysis and Comparison
20. Protecting Personal Data from Security Breaches

Curriculum codes in this unit

Content codes:

Skills codes:

Reading the codes: WA codes (the ones starting with WA) pack the year level, learning area, strand and content number into one string, while the national Australian Curriculum v9 uses a different anatomy that starts with AC9 — same content family, different labels. Our complete WA Curriculum guide decodes both, character by character.

Planning notes for Term 1

WA terms run roughly 9–11 weeks, and in 2026 Term 1 runs from Monday 2 February to Thursday 2 April — 9 weeks for WA public schools. With 20 lessons in this unit, that leaves breathing room for assessment, moderation and the weeks that disappear to carnivals, camps and public holidays — plan the assessable work to land two to three weeks before the end of term rather than in the final week.