Content focus:

Students examine natural and human features of Australia and the diverse characteristics of Australia’s neighbouring countries. They explore the different climates, settlement patterns and demographic characteristics of places and use this information to imagine what it would be like to live in different places. Students consider how people’s perceptions of places are the basis for actions to protect places and environments.

Geographical concepts:

• Place: the significance of places and what they are like. For example: places students live in and belong to and why they are important.
• Space: the significance of location and spatial distribution, and ways people organise and manage the spaces that we live in. For example: location of a place in relation to other familiar places.
• Environment: the significance of the environment in human life, and the important interrelationships between humans and the environment. For example, how and why places should be looked after.
• Interconnection: no object of geographical study can be viewed in isolation. For example: local and global links people have with places and the special connection Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples maintain with Country/Place.
• Scale: the way that geographical phenomena and problems can be examined at different spatial levels. For example: various scales by which places can be defined such as local suburbs, towns and large cities.
•  Sustainability: the capacity of the environment to continue to support our lives and the lives of other living creatures into the future eg ways in which people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, use and protect natural resources; differing views about environmental sustainability; sustainable management of waste.
  

Key inquiry questions:

• How and why are places similar and different?
• What would it be like to live in a neighbouring country?
• How do people’s perceptions about places influence their views about the protection of places?

Outcomes:
A student:

• examines features and characteristics of Australian places and environments
• describes the ways people, places and environments interact
•  examines differing perceptions about the management of places and environments
• acquires and communicates geographical information using geographical tools for inquiry.

Inquiry skills:
Acquiring geographical information

• pose geographical questions
  

Processing geographical information

• draw conclusions based on interpretation of geographical information
  

Communicating geographically

• present findings in a range of communication forms
• reflect on their learning and suggest responses to their findings
  

Geographical tools:
Maps

• large-scale maps, world map, globe, sketch maps

Graphs and statistics

• tally charts, pictographs, data tables, column graphs, simple statistics

Spatial technologies

• virtual maps, satellite images, GPS

Visual representations

• photographs, illustrations, story books, multimedia, web tools

Lessons and worksheets:

Lesson 1: Introduction – The Australian continent :: PowerPoint :: Worksheet 1 :: Worksheet 2
Lesson 2: The Australian continent :: PowerPoint :: Worksheet 1
Lesson 3: Australia’s neighbours :: Worksheet 1 :: Worksheet 2
Lesson 4: Australia’s neighbours – Climate of places :: PowerPoint 1 :: PowerPoint 2 :: Worksheet 1 :: Worksheet 2
Lesson 5: Similarities and differences between places 1 :: Teaching Resource 1 :: Teaching Resource 2 :: Worksheet 1
Lesson 6: Similarities and differences between places 2 :: Worksheet 1 :: PowerPoint 1
Lesson 7: Similarities and differences between places 3 :: Teaching Resource: Sydney Information Sheet
Lesson 8: Perception and protection of places :: PowerPoint :: Worksheet 1