Rationale: 

Geography is a subject for those students interested in going places. It is suitable for students wishing to undertake tertiary study in courses involving studies of the natural environment, human activity, planning and design, visual representation and research skills. Each place on the Earth’s surface possesses characteristics that make it unique and subject to change. The following ideas are also important: people–environment relations, management and conservation, and the spatial implications of the exercise of power. 

Unit 1: Hazards and Disasters

This unit investigates how people have responded to specific types of hazards and disasters. Hazards represent the potential to cause harm to people and or the environment, whereas disasters are defined as serious disruptions of the functionality of a community at any scale, involving human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts. Hazards include a wide range of situations including those within local areas, such as fast-moving traffic or the likelihood of coastal erosion, to regional and global hazards such as drought and infectious disease.  This unit focuses on 4 types of hazards and disasters:  Hydrometeorological, Geological, Biological and Technological.

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. Tourism involves the movement of people travelling away from and staying outside of their usual environment for more than 24 hours but not more than one consecutive year (United Nations World Tourism Organization definition). The scale of tourist movements since the 1950s and its predicted growth has had and continues to have a significant impact on local, regional and national environments, economies and cultures. The travel and tourism industry is directly responsible for a significant number of jobs globally and generates a considerable portion of global GDP.

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, bare lands and wetlands, as well as land covered by ice and water. Land cover is the natural state of the biophysical environment developed over time 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.  At a local scale students investigate land use change using appropriate fieldwork techniques and secondary sources. They investigate the processes of change, the reasons for change and the impacts of change.

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 study 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 environmental, economic, social, and cultural impacts on people and places.  The growth of the world’s population from 2.5 billion in 1950 to over 7 billion since 2010 has been on a scale without parallel in human history. Much of the current growth is occurring within developing countries while the populations in many developed countries are either growing slowly or are declining.

ASSESSMENT:

Unit 3 school-assessed coursework: 25%

Unit 4 school-assessed coursework: 25%

End-of-year examination: 50%

Contact Time:

Lessons per week: 

5 periods

Subject duration: 

Year Long

Further information:

Head of Humanities:

Michelle Ladhams