VCE Geography

Unit 1: Hazards and disasters

Hazards represent the potential to cause harm to people and/or the environment. In this unit, students undertake an overview of hazards before investigating two different hazards and how people respond to them. Hazards can occur within local areas, such as fast moving traffic or the likelihood of coastal erosion or at regional and global scale, such as drought and infectious disease. 

Students examine the processes involved in different hazard events (their causes and impacts) and human responses to hazard events, including attempts to reduce the impact of hazards and future vulnerability to hazard events. 

Unit 2: Tourism

Tourism involves the movement of people travelling and staying outside of their usual environment. Over one billion tourists a year cross international boundaries, even more are domestic tourists within their own countries. The scale of tourist movements since the 1950's continues to have a significant impact on local, regional and national environments, economies and cultures. The travel and tourism industry is directly responsible for 5% of world GDP and for one in every twelve jobs globally (UNTWO Annual Reports 2011–2013). 

In this unit students investigate the characteristics of tourism, with particular emphasis on where it has developed, its various forms, how it has changed and continues to change and its impacts on people, places and environments. They investigate examples of tourism in Australia and elsewhere in the world. 

Unit 3: Changing the land

In this unit, students investigate three major processes that are changing land cover in many regions of the world: 

• deforestation 

• desertification, and 

• melting glaciers and ice sheets 

This unit focuses on two investigations of geographical change: change to land cover and change to land use. Land cover includes biomes such as forest, grassland, tundra and wetlands, as well as land covered by ice and water. Land cover is a result of the interconnection between climate, soils, landforms and flora and fauna and, increasingly, human activity. 

Unit 4: Human Population

The world’s population growth from 2.5 billion in 1950 to over 7.6 billion in 2017 is on a scale without parallel in human history. Much of the current growth is occurring within developing countries while developed countries are either growing slowly or declining. Many factors influence population change, including government policies, economic conditions, wars and revolution, political boundary changes and hazard events. 

Students explore the patterns of population change, movement and distribution, and how governments, organisations and individuals have responded to those changes in different parts of the world. Students start by studying population dynamics before undertaking an investigation into two significant population trends arising in different parts of the world. They examine the dynamics of populations and their economic, social, political and environmental impacts on people and places.