Content focus:
Students investigate how the environment influences the characteristics of places in Australia and other places around the world. In doing so, students examine ways people influence the characteristics of places and the management of spaces. They study the pattern of natural vegetation in Australia and this pattern is influenced by climate. They also have an opportunity to develop their skills in graphing and interpreting climate data.
Students compare the climate and vegetation of Australia with the island of Borneo and examine how people are impacting on the habitat of the orangutan. They then apply their knowledge of human impacts on habitats within the local environment and reflect on people’s needs and the significance and protection of 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. For example: 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.
- Change: explaining geographical phenomena by investigating how they have developed over time. For example: changes to environmental and human characteristics of places.
|
Outcomes:
A student:
- describes the diverse features and characteristics of places and environments
- explains interactions and connections between people, places and environments
- compares and contrasts influences on the management of places and environments
- acquires, processes and communicates geographical information using geographical tools for inquiry.
|
Inquiry skills:
Acquiring geographical information
- develop geographical questions to investigate and plan an inquiry
- collect and record relevant geographical data and information, from secondary information sources
Processing geographical information
- represent data in different forms, for example, graphs and tables
Communicating geographically
- present findings and ideas in a range of communication forms as appropriate
- reflect on their learning to propose individual and collective action in response to a contemporary geographical challenge and describe the expected effects of their proposal on different groups of people
|
Geographical tools:
Maps
- Small-scale maps, political maps
- maps to identify location, latitude, direction, distance, spatial distributions and patterns
Fieldwork
- observing, measuring, collecting and recording data
Graphs and statistics
- column graphs, line graphs, climate graphs
- statistics to find patterns
Visual representations
- photographs and illustrations
|
