Geography
OVERVIEW:
Geography allows students to explore, analyse and understand the features of places that make up our world. Geographers are interested in key questions about places and geographic phenomena: What is there? Where is it? Why is it there? What are the effects of it being there? How is it changing over time? How could, and should, it change in the future? How is it different from other places and phenomena? How are places and phenomena connected? Students must undertake fieldwork in Units 1, 2 and 3 to various locations within Melbourne/Victoria to collect data and use this to create fieldwork reports.
Students demonstrate a wide range of Geographic Skills across Units 1 to 4 including: cartography (map creation), analysis of block diagrams/terrain/landscape visualisations and transects, coordinate systems (grid references, latitude and longitude), GPS coordinates and compass points, creation and analysis of cross-sections, analysing geospatial information on diagrams using layers and GIS, use and interpretation of satellite images and aerial photographs, use and interpretation of various types of maps, interpretation of graphs and tables of data and designing and undertaking surveys and interviews.
Unit 1: Hazards and Disasters
This unit investigates how people have responded to specific types of hazards and disasters. Hazards have the potential to cause harm to people and or the environment, whereas disasters are serious disruptions of the function of a community involving human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts. Hazards can be geological (earthquakes, volcanic activity and landslides for example), hydro-meteorological (droughts, bushfires and floods for example), biological (alien animal invasion, water borne diseases and malaria for example) or technological (oil spills, rising sea levels from climate change and radiation leaks for example)
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Fieldwork, class discussions, creation and interpretation of geographic data, research tasks, group work
KEY SKILLS REQUIRED
Gather and interpret primary data from fieldwork and secondary sources and the geospatial skills listed above
ASSESSED TASKS
Fieldwork and a fieldwork report and a research report
Unit 2: Tourism - Issues and Challenges
In this unit students investigate the characteristics of tourism: where it has developed, its various forms, how it has changed, and continues to change, and its impact on people, places and environments, issues and challenges of ethical tourism. Students select contrasting examples of tourism from within Australia and elsewhere in the world to support their investigations. Students investigate how the growth of tourism requires appropriate management to ensure it is environmentally, socially, culturally and economically sustainable.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Fieldwork, class discussions, creation and interpretation of geographic data, research tasks, group work
KEY SKILLS REQUIRED
Gather and interpret primary data from fieldwork and secondary sources and the geospatial skills listed above
ASSESSED TASKS
Fieldwork and a fieldwork report and a multimedia presentation
Unit 3: Changing the Land
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 the natural state of the environment as a result of the interconnection between climate, soils, landforms and flora and fauna and, increasingly, interconnections with human activity. Natural land cover is altered by many processes such as geomorphological events, plant succession and climate change. Students investigate two major processes that are changing land cover in many regions of the world: melting glaciers and ice sheets, and deforestation.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Fieldwork, class discussions, creation and interpretation of geographic data, research tasks, group work
KEY SKILLS REQUIRED
Gather and interpret primary data from fieldwork and secondary sources and the geospatial skills listed above
ASSESSED TASKS
Analysis of geographic data, a case study, fieldwork and a fieldwork report and structured questions
Unit 4: Human Population - Trends and Issues
Students investigate the geography of human populations. They 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 examine the dynamics of populations and their environmental, economic, social, and cultural impacts on people and places. Factors impacting population movements and changes such as fertility and mortality, life expectancy, government policies, war, hazard events and economic conditions will be investigated. Students then evaluate strategies developed in response to a growing population trend in one country and an ageing population trend in another country.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Class discussions, creation and interpretation of geographic data, research tasks, group work
KEY SKILLS REQUIRED
Gather and interpret secondary geographic data from various sources and the geospatial skills listed above
ASSESSED TASKS
Analysis of geographic data, a research report and case studies.
VCAA ASSESSMENT
The overall Study Score will consist of: School Assessed Coursework Unit 3 (25%), School Assessed Coursework Unit 4 (25%), Unit 4 School-assessed Coursework: 25 per cent, 2-hour end of year examination (50%)