big ideas in the australian curriculum: geography, mark easton, oxford university press
DESCRIPTION
Are you worried that your favourite topics have become an endangered species? Or that the vital skills that make geography have melted away? As leading author of the upcoming Oxford Big Ideas Geography Australian Curriculum series, Mark has spent many hours picking over the draft curriculum and he believes he has found the missing topics and skills, along with many other new opportunities. He will share with you an approach to teaching and learning geography that embeds the key skills in the key concepts of the subject.TRANSCRIPT
Mark Easton
Big ideas in the Australian Geography Curriculum
A quick journey throughthe present and future
geography curricula
What will change?
Place and space• Australian environments are defined by patterns of natural processes, by human activities and by the relationships between them, including climate and natural resource distribution, resourceuse, and settlement patterns• Natural hazards are a result of natural processes, and human activity can affect the impacts of these occurrences• Sustainability requires a balance between using, conserving and protecting environments, and involves decisions about how resources are used and managed• Physical and human dimensions are used to define global environments• Distribution maps, climate zone maps and weather maps have specific features to convey information, including latitude, longitude, eight compass points, scale and distance, a legend and shading and/or symbols.
Place and space• Australian environments are defined by patterns of natural processes, by human activities and by the relationships between them, including climate and natural resource distribution, resourceuse, and settlement patterns• Natural hazards are a result of natural processes, and human activity can affect the impacts of these occurrences• Sustainability requires a balance between using, conserving and protecting environments, and involves decisions about how resources are used and managed• Physical and human dimensions are used to define global environments• Distribution maps, climate zone maps and weather maps have specific features to convey information, including latitude, longitude, eight compass points, scale and distance, a legend and shading and/or symbols.
• Australia, the Asia–Pacific region and other global settings are defined by a range of natural characteristics and processes, including landforms, vegetation and climatic zones, and human activities, including cultural, economic and political activity.• Interrelationships between human activity and environments result in particular patterns of land and resource use, and can cause environmental problems• Governments and communities need to balance economic, social, political and environmental factors through sustainable development, consumption and production• Physical environments are defined by spatial patterns, including the arrangement of elements on the Earth’s surface, the definable areas of the Earth’s surface, the space between different locations, and absolute and relative location.• Maps, including topographic, political and thematic maps, are developed with particular features, including scale, contour lines and human-created boundaries, and use the specific skills of observing, visualising, estimating, sketching and measuring.
• Australia, the Asia–Pacific region and other global settings are defined by a range of natural characteristics and processes, including landforms, vegetation and climatic zones, and human activities, including cultural, economic and political activity.• Interrelationships between human activity and environments result in particular patterns of land and resource use, and can cause environmental problems• Governments and communities need to balance economic, social, political and environmental factors through sustainable development, consumption and production• Physical environments are defined by spatial patterns, including the arrangement of elements on the Earth’s surface, the definable areas of the Earth’s surface, the space between different locations, and absolute and relative location.• Maps, including topographic, political and thematic maps, are developed with particular features, including scale, contour lines and human-created boundaries, and use the specific skills of observing, visualising, estimating, sketching and measuring.
Theme 1: Managing the natural environment Focus unit 1: Responding to natural hazards Focus unit 2: Managing catchments Theme 2: Social environments Focus unit 3: Sustaining communities Focus unit 4: Connecting people and places Theme 3: Resources and the environment Focus unit 5: Living with climate change Focus unit 6: Sustaining biodiversity Theme 4: People and development Focus unit 7: Feeding the world’s people Focus unit 8: Exploring the geography of disease
So these essential learnings and standards became the chapters of our text books and our course content.
1. Geospatial skills2. Australian Environments3. Water4. Endangered species5. Geospatial concepts6. Disasters7. The Asia-Pacific region8. Antarctica
1. Geospatial skills and concepts2. Tectonic hazards3. Coasts4. Pollution5. Climate change6. Consumption7. Megacities8. Tourism
Text book contents
Essential learnings:Place and space (7-9)
Australian environmentsNatural hazardsSustainabilityGlobal environmentsMapsAustralian regionAsia-PacificEnvironmental problemsSustainable developmentPhysical environments
What’s next?
Australian Curriculum
• Now: we have a draft curriculum
• August 6th, revised draft will be released but not available for public comment
• By Christmas (2012) final curriculum released• 2013: some schools• 2014: all schools
A quick overview
DRAFT ONLY
Geographical knowledge and understanding
Year level Unit 1 Unit 2
7 Environmental resources Why people live where they do
8 Landscapes Personal and community geographies
9 Biomes and food security
Navigating global connections
10 Environmental challenges and geography
Global well-being
11 The changing biophysical cover of the Earth
Sustaining Places
12 Environmental risk management
A World in the making
Geographical enquiryand skills
Observing and questioning
Planning, collecting & evaluating
Processing, analysing, interpreting & concluding
Communicating
Reflecting & responding
So what’s in and what’s out?
1. Geospatial skills2. Australian Environments3. Water4. Endangered species5. Geospatial concepts6. Disasters7. The Asia-Pacific region8. Antarctica
1. Geospatial skills and concepts
2. Tectonic hazards3. Coasts4. Pollution5. Climate change6. Consumption7. Megacities8. Tourism
Text book contents
Essential learnings:Place and space (7-9)
Australian environmentsNatural hazardsSustainabilityGlobal environmentsMapsAustralian regionAsia-PacificEnvironmental problemsSustainable developmentPhysical environments
So what’s in and what’s out?
1. Geospatial skills2. Australian Environments3. Water4. Endangered species5. Geospatial concepts6. Disasters7. The Asia-Pacific region8. Antarctica
1. Geospatial skills and concepts
2. Tectonic hazards3. Coasts4. Pollution5. Climate change6. Consumption7. Megacities8. Tourism
Text book contents
Essential learnings:Place and space (7-9)
Australian environmentsNatural hazardsSustainabilityGlobal environmentsMapsAustralian regionAsia-PacificEnvironmental problemsSustainable developmentPhysical environments
SOME INITIAL RESPONSES
“Just ignore it, we’ll just carry on doing what we’re doing”
“Who writes this stuff? They don’t know what they’re doing!”
“I’ll change what I teach if I get given more time to make the changes”
“I hate it when they take away my favourite topics. No wonder kids don’t choose geography.”
“If that’s the way it’s going to be I’d better just get on with it.”
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
and
Acceptance:
The five stages of grief!
So, some of our favourite topics/units have disappeared or moved elsewhere, but don’t throw it all out just yet. It might be just a matter of looking more closely at the curriculum document.
An example: Natural disasters
An example: Natural disasters
Nowhere to be seen in the AC:
Year level Unit 1 Unit 2
7 Environmental resources Why people live where they do
8 Landscapes Personal and community geographies
9 Biomes and food security Navigating global connections
10 Environmental challenges and geography
Global well-being
11 The changing biophysical cover of the Earth
Sustaining Places
12 Environmental risk management
A World in the making
An example: Natural disasters:
‘Hasn’t it all gone to Science’?
An example: Natural disasters:
‘Hasn’t it all gone to Science’?
Year 8: Sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks contain minerals and are formed by processes that occur within Earth over a variety of timescalesYear 9: The theory of plate tectonics explains global patterns of geological activity and continental movement
So where is it?
Natural disastersYear 7, Environmental resourcesEnvironmental hazards such as droughts, or storms, or floods have different causes, frequencies and distributions.There are differences and similarities in the ways that communities manage or adapt to the chosen environmental hazard
Year 8, LandscapesThere are a variety of landscapes throughout the world, which are produced by geomorphic, biotic and cultural processes over time (explaining that landforms are produced by a combination of tectonic (folding, faulting, volcanism), gradational (weathering, erosion and transportation) and depositional processes)
The causes, location, frequency and effects of one or more landscape hazards affects the ways that communities manage or adapt to the chosen hazard(investigating landscape hazards such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, coastal erosion, beach rips, landslides and avalanches)
My advice #1:
Look closely at the curriculum documents, don’t listen to the
doomsayers!
Even better news!
1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures
and histories
2. Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia
3. Sustainability
That’s us,we’re good
at that stuff!
The new curriculum gives geography a new, fresh relevance: just look at the cross-curricula priorities for a start:
And the general capabilities
literacynumeracy
competence in ICTcritical and creative
thinkingethical behaviour
personal and social competence
intercultural understanding
Intercultural understanding
My advice #2:
Embrace change, see it as an opportunity to renew and refresh
your courses and reclaim the rightful place of geography in your school
And then there are the new opportunities:
Global connections
Personal and community geographies
Food security
Environmental resources
Case study: environmental resources.
This unit focuses on environmental resources, using water as a case study. It examines water as an essential, renewable resource and its role in natural hazards. There is also a study of a non-renewable resource. The unit provides a context for examining different types of resources, the varying issues arising from their nature, distribution and use, perceptions by people, and approaches to managing resource issues. Unless specified, the case studies chosen can be from within Australia and other countries across the region.
Issues for teachers
• There is no equivalent unit in the current course
• The new curriculum is more than a list of topics, it also includes new skills, priorities and capabilities
• This seems a pretty tough introduction to geography for kids
• What happens to my mapping unit?
Making sense of the demands of the new curriculum
Geographical knowledge
and understanding
Geographical enquiry and
skills
Concepts for geographical
understanding
Cross Curriculum Priorities
General capabilities
LiteracyNumeracy
ICT competenceCritical and creative
thinkingPersonal and social
competenceEthical behaviour
Intercultural understanding
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and
historiesAsia and Australia’s engagement with
AsiaSustainability
Making sense of the demands of the new curriculum
ResourcesPopulationLandscapes
Personal geographyBiomes
Global connectionsEnvironmental
challengesGlobal well-being
Observing, questioning
Planning, collecting, evaluating
Processing, analysing, interpreting, concluding
CommunicatingReflecting, responding
PlaceSpace
EnvironmentInterconnection
SustainabilityScale
Change
So where do I find some solutionsto these issues,
problems and challenges?
One of the key objectives of the Australian Curriculum is deep learning:
‘Successful learners are able to think deeply’‘Promoting a world class curriculum and assessment ... Deep knowledge, understanding, skills and values that will enable advanced learning and an ability to create new ideas and translate them into practical applications’
The process of geographic inquiry
Observing and questioning
Planning, collecting & evaluating
Processing, analysing, interpreting & concluding
Communicating
Reflecting & responding
A geographic enquiry therefore begins with a question and then seeks to answer that question through a series of clearly defined steps. This is enquiry learning.
Essential questions, enquiry learning ,deep learning, translating ideas...What does all of this look like?
Mount Chimborazo flora, topography and altitude mapping,source: Alexander von Humboldt, Geography of Plants, 1807
The answer is more than 200 years old!
Source: National Geographic magazine , October 2010
My advice #3:
Deep learning, not wide learning.Use the process of geographic
enquiry and essential questions to develop successful learners.
Geographical enquiry and skills
Remember that:
The draft Australian Curriculum: Geography is organised into two interrelated strands: Geographical Knowledge and Understanding and Geographical Inquiry and Skills.
‘The process of geographical inquiry and the associated geographical skills are described in the curriculum under five headings, which represent the stages of a complete investigation. Over each two-year band, students should learn the methods and skills specified. Every investigation need not follow every step; the inquiry process may follow loops, in which students go back to an earlier stage to ask more questions or to undertake more analysis.’
The process of geographic inquiry
Observing and questioning
Planning, collecting & evaluating
Processing, analysing, interpreting & concluding
Communicating
Reflecting & responding
My advice #4:
Don’t rush in too quickly: be alert, not alarmed!
Mark Easton
Big ideas in the Australian Geography Curriculum