A visual route into the 1941–42 foreign-policy pivot for students who reason best from maps and imagery.
Starter: the shrinking shield
Show a map of the Asia-Pacific with the "Singapore strategy" drawn as a protective arc from Britain through Singapore to Australia. Then, live, erase Singapore (Feb 1942) and ask: "What's left protecting Australia?" The visual gap does the teaching — students see why Curtin had to look elsewhere.
Consolidation: before/after annotation
Give students two outline maps — "Australian defence, 1939" and "Australian defence, 1942" — to annotate with allies, threats and supply lines. The contrast becomes a single retrievable image for the exam.