Food and fibre: Geography

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Geography

The Australian Curriculum: Geography identifies the concepts of place, space, environment, interconnection, sustainability, scale and change, as integral to the development of geographical understanding. These are high-level ideas or ways of thinking that can be applied across the subject to identify a question, guide an investigation, organise information, suggest an explanation or assist decision-making. These concepts also relate strongly to the food and fibre connection and are integrated with geographical inquiry and skills.

Geographical inquiry is a process by which students learn about and deepen their holistic understanding of their world. It involves individual or group investigations that start with geographical questions and proceed through the collection, evaluation, analysis and interpretation of information to the development of conclusions and proposals for actions. Inquiries may vary in scale and geographical context. Geographical skills are the techniques that geographers use in their investigations, both in fieldwork and in the classroom. Key skills developed through Geography in the Australian Curriculum include formulating a question and research plan, recording and data representation skills, using a variety of spatial technologies and communicating using appropriate geographical vocabulary and texts.

From Foundation to Year 10, students build on their understanding of place, space, environment, interconnection, sustainability and change and apply this understanding to a wide range of places and environments at the full range of scales, from local to global, and in a range of locations.

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Year 7

Geographical knowledge and understanding

Water in the world

Content descriptions with elaborations:

The classification of environmental resources and the forms that water takes as a resource (ACHGK037)

  • classifying resources into renewable, non-renewable and continuous resources, and investigating examples of each type
  • describing how water is an available resource when it is groundwater, soil moisture (green water), and surface water in dams, rivers and lakes (blue water), and a potential resource when it exists as salt water, ice or water vapour

The way that flows of water connect places as it moves through the environment and the way this affects places (ACHGK038)

  • explaining how the movement of water through the environment connects places (for example, the melting of snow in spring, feeding rivers and dams downstream)
  • investigating the environmental, economic and social effects of water as it connects people and places (for example, the effects of water diversion in the Snowy Mountains)

The quantity and variability of Australia’s water resources compared with those in other continents (ACHGK039)

  • investigating the main causes of rainfall and applying their knowledge to explain the seasonal rainfall patterns in their own place and in a place with either significantly higher or lower rainfall
  • interpreting the spatial distribution of rainfall in Australia and comparing it with the distribution of that of other continents
  • using the concept of water balance to compare the effect of rainfall, run-off and evaporation on the availability of water in Australia and other continents

The nature of water scarcity and ways of overcoming it, including studies drawn from Australia and West Asia and/or North Africa (ACHGK040)

  • investigating the causes of water scarcity (for example, an absolute shortage of water (physical), inadequate development of water resources (economic), or the ways water is used)
  • discussing the advantages and disadvantages of strategies to overcome water scarcity (for example, recycling (‘grey water’), stormwater harvesting and re-use, desalination, inter-regional transfer of water, transfer and trade in virtual water, and reducing water consumption)
  • examining why water is a difficult resource to manage and sustain (for example because of its shared and competing uses and variability of supply over time and space)

Economic, cultural, spiritual and aesthetic value of water for people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and peoples of the Asia region (ACHGK041)

  • examining and comparing places in Australia and countries of the Asia region that have economies and communities based on irrigation (for example, rice production in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in NSW and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam)
  • exploring the multilayered meanings (material, cultural and spiritual wellbeing) associated with rivers, waterways, waterholes, seas, lakes, soaks and springs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

Causes, impacts and responses to an atmospheric or hydrological hazard (ACHGK042)

  • explaining the physical causes and the temporal and spatial patterns of an atmospheric or hydrological hazard through a study of either droughts, storms, tropical cyclones or floods
  • explaining the economic, environmental and social impacts of a selected atmospheric or hydrological hazard on people and places, and describing community responses to the hazard
     

Year 8

Geographical knowledge and understanding

Landforms and landscapes

Content descriptions with elaborations:

Different types of landscapes and their distinctive landform features (ACHGK048)

  • identifying different types of landscapes, for example, coastal, riverine, arid, mountain and karst, and describing examples from each in Australia

Causes, impacts and responses to a geomorphological hazard (ACHGK053)

  • discussing the extent to which human alteration of environments has contributed to the occurrence of the geomorphological hazard
  • researching how the application of principles of prevention, mitigation and preparedness minimises the harmful effects of geomorphological hazards or bushfires