Geography (Version 8.4)

Select All
Unit 1: Natural and ecological hazards
Unit 2: Sustainable places
Unit 3: Land cover transformations
Unit 4: Global transformations

Understand how Geography works

Rationale/Aims

The study of Geography draws on students’ curiosity about the diversity of the world’s places and their peoples, cultures and environments. It enables students to appreciate the complexity of our world and the diversity of its environments, economies and cultures.

Structure of Geography

In Senior Secondary Geography, students develop their understanding about themes of immediate relevance to them and which have scope for application at a variety of scales, from the local to the global.

Links to Foundation to Year 10

The senior secondary Geography curriculum builds on the knowledge, conceptual understandings and inquiry skills developed in the Foundation to Year 10 Australian Curriculum: Geography.

Representation of General capabilities

The general capabilities encompass the knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that, together with the Geography curriculum content and the cross-curriculum priorities, will help students to live and work successfully in the twenty-first century.

Representation of Cross-curriculum priorities

While the significance of the cross-curriculum priorities for Geography varies, there are opportunities for teachers to select contexts that incorporate the key concepts from each priority.

Achievement standards

Unit 2: Sustainable places

Unit 2: Sustainable places Description

This unit examines the economic, social and environmental sustainability of places. While all places are subject to changes produced by economic, demographic, social, political and environmental processes, the outcomes of these processes vary depending on local responses and adaptations.

At a global scale, the process of urbanisation is not only affecting the rate of world population growth and human wellbeing, it has created a range of challenges for both urban and rural places. How people respond to these challenges, individually and collectively, will determine the sustainability and liveability of places into the future.

The interconnected challenges faced in places, including population growth and decline, employment, economic restructuring, transport infrastructure needs, housing, demands for improved health and education services, and other matters related to liveability, are a particular focus of this unit.

In Australia’s metropolitan and regional cities, the challenges may also include managing economic growth, urban sprawl, car dependency, environmental degradation, abandoned land, and deficiencies in urban planning, service provision and management. In rural and remote places the challenges may include lack of employment for young people, lack of educational services, poor transportation connections to major centres, closure of a major industry, lack of service provision, isolation and remoteness.

Students examine how governments, planners, communities, interest groups and individuals try to address these challenges to ensure that places are sustainable. They also investigate the ways that geographical knowledge and skills can be applied to identify and address these challenges.

This unit includes an overview of places and the challenges faced by cities in the developed and developing world. The unit also includes two depth studies: one focusing on challenges faced by a place in Australia, and one focusing on challenges faced by a megacity in a developing country. The scale of study for this unit, unless specified, can range from local to global, as appropriate.

The scale of study in this unit begins at the global, through an examination of the process of urbanisation and its consequences, before focusing on the challenges facing places in Australia, with the opportunity to undertake a local area study. The scale of study then shifts to national and regional to investigate megacities in developing countries. This approach enables students to develop an understanding of the challenges for places in both the developed and developing worlds. It also enables them to compare and contrast the way in which the challenges are addressed at a variety of scales and in different contexts.

In undertaking these depth studies, students develop an understanding about using and applying geographical inquiry, tools such as spatial technologies, and skills, to investigate the sustainability of places.

Unit 2: Sustainable places Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students will:

understand the processes resulting in change in places and how the places investigated can be made more sustainable
understand the outcomes of the processes creating change in different communities
understand and apply key geographical concepts – including place, space, environment, interconnection, sustainability, scale and change – as part of a geographical inquiry
gather and analyse primary and secondary data to reveal trends in and relationships between the processes resulting in changes in places
apply geographical inquiry and a range of skills, including spatial technologies and fieldwork, to investigate a challenge associated with the sustainability of places
evaluate alternative strategies or proposals to manage the selected challenge.

Unit 2: Sustainable places Content Descriptions

Geographical Inquiry and Skills

Observing, questioning and planning

formulates geographical inquiry questions (ACHGE028)

plans a geographical inquiry with clearly defined aims and appropriate methodology (ACHGE029)

Collecting, recording, evaluating and representing

collects geographical information incorporating ethical protocols from a range of primary and secondary sources (ACHGE030)

records observations in a range of graphic representations using spatial technologies and information and communication technologies (ACHGE031)

evaluates the reliability, validity and usefulness of geographical sources and information (ACHGE032)

Interpreting, analysing and concluding

analyses geographical information and data from a range of primary and secondary sources and a variety of perspectives to draw reasoned conclusions and make generalisations (ACHGE033)

identifies and analyses relationships, spatial patterns and trends and makes predictions and inferences (ACHGE034)

Communicating

communicates geographical information, ideas, issues and arguments using appropriate written and/or oral, cartographic and graphic forms (ACHGE035)

uses geographical language in appropriate contexts to demonstrate geographical knowledge and understanding (ACHGE036)

Reflecting and responding

applies generalisations to evaluate alternative responses to geographical issues at a variety of scales (ACHGE037)

proposes individual and collective action, taking into account environmental, social and economic factors; and predicts the outcomes of the proposed action (ACHGE038)

Geographical Knowledge and Understanding

Overview of places and their challenges

Places:

The process of urbanisation, its implications for world population growth, human wellbeing and urban and rural places. (ACHGE039)

The economic and environmental interdependence of urban and rural places. (ACHGE040)

The spatial distribution of metropolitan, regional, rural and remote places in Australia, and the factors that have contributed to this. (ACHGE041)

The changing demographic characteristics and economic functions of metropolitan, regional, rural and remote places in Australia. (ACHGE042)

Challenges facing places:

An overview of challenges for rural and remote places in Australia, including Indigenous communities. (ACHGE043)

An overview of challenges in metropolitan and regional cities in Australia. (ACHGE044)

An overview of the challenges faced in megacities in developing countries. (ACHGE045)

Students complete both depth studies which are to be taught with the requisite geographical inquiry and skills described as part of this unit:

Depth study of challenges facing a place in Australia

A depth study, using fieldwork and/or secondary sources, to investigate significant related challenges faced in one Australian place and how these challenges are being addressed.

Students select significant related challenges in a metropolitan, regional, rural or remote place, to investigate:

the nature, scope and causes of the selected challenges being confronted and the implication for the place (ACHGE046)

the range of strategies used to address the selected challenges and how these compare with, and/or have been informed by, responses implemented in other places both within and outside of Australia (ACHGE047)

the extent to which the strategies adopted have been, or could be, informed by the concept of sustainability (ACHGE048)

the strategies adopted and an assessment of how these have enhanced the sustainability and liveability of the place. (ACHGE049)

Depth study of challenges facing a megacity in a developing country

A depth study investigating significant challenges faced by one megacity in a developing country.

Students select significant selected challenges in a megacity to investigate:

the nature, scope and causes of the selected challenges being addressed and the implications for the selected megacity (ACHGE050)

the range of strategies used to address the selected challenges and how these compare with, and/or have been informed by, responses implemented in other developing and developed world megacities (ACHGE051)

the extent to which the strategies adopted have been, or could be, informed by the concept of sustainability (ACHGE052)

the strategies adopted and an assessment of how these have enhanced the sustainability and liveability of the megacity. (ACHGE053)