The Humanities − Geography – Relationships with other domains

Introduction

The advice for this section focuses on the relationships between the domains to provide students with multi domain learning opportunities that will help support their deeper understanding of the essential knowledge and skills.

The Arts

The Humanities − Geography assists in developing an understanding of social, cultural, political economic and historic concepts and constructs. The Arts position students within society, both constructing and deconstructing world around them through different art forms. Arts education frequently takes human behaviour as its subject matter, and gives a complementary way of understanding the world to that understood in The Humanities − Geography. The Humanities − Geography can provides a stimulus for generating ideas for Arts works based on experiences and understandings; for example through investigation of issues like sustainability in Geography. The Arts provide opportunities for students to develop understanding about how they are being positioned by world markets and economies, develop skills of societal critique that enable them to reason and interpret, create budgets based on economic predictions and to assist students to see the world from another person’s point of view. The Arts frequently challenge the status quo and raise more questions than they answer. The Humanities − Geography provides research skills and the literacy to engage with some of these questions. Arts skills like visual analysis, technical drawing, storyboarding, illustration, representation and spatial awareness can be used to complement geographic and economic skills and skills of reasoning and interpretation in History.

Civics and Citizenship

Geography is the study of physical and human environments from a spatial perspective. Through the study of a range of natural processes such as floods, drought, bushfires and natural hazards, students learn about the management of natural disasters and how citizens can contribute to decision-making processes that ensure sustainability. Students study how humans have affected the environment and consider issues such as forest use, global warming, climate change, air and water pollution, and the policies for managing these issues. These policies can be those of local, state and national government, and involve international organisations such as the United Nations. Students learn about the role of governments at various levels in solving environmental problems and ensuring sustainability. They also research possible solutions to current and future challenges, and the actions that ordinary citizens can take.

Communication

In Geography, students learn to use and apply language specific to the domain, including a range of key spatial concepts, and demonstrate an understanding of these, such as the distinction between absolute and relative locations. They use geographic language to identify and describe the human and physical characteristics of local and global environments. They learn to use primary sources in fieldwork, and secondary sources including scales, photographs, satellite images and statistical data. They record, represent and interpret data in different types of maps, graphs, tables, sketches, diagrams, and photographs.

Design, Creativity and Technology

In the Design, Creativity and Technology (DCT) domain, students develop their spatial awareness, enabling them to visualise and represent design ideas. They investigate issues around the sustainable use and management of world resources when developing designs for products and systems. They consider the impact of using particular materials and energy sources on the environment, and make choices about manufacturing products based on this. Students consider the interrelationship of patterns of distribution and occupation on physical features with human activities such as farming, fishing and manufacturing. In Geography students have the opportunity to use knowledge and understanding and skills developed in DCT while for example, considering proposals and solutions to development issues.

English

Geography involves students in reading, viewing, writing, comparing, researching and talking about environments and issues at a scale from local through to global. In English, students study texts which place actors and events in a variety of environments that form part of the context of the ‘story’. English students read and respond to geographical texts using an inquiry method: What? Where? How? Why? What impact? Students develop a geographic vocabulary to assist in identifying and discussing the geographic aspects of a topic. In presenting their information, they sequence and organise complex ideas using a variety of multimedia styles.

Health and Physical Education

Geography is the study of physical and human environments from a spatial perspective. Students develop skills in reading and interpreting maps of different kinds and at different scales. The same knowledge and skills are reinforced in physical education during orienteering or outdoor education activities. The investigation of local and global health issues involves collecting information from maps, satellite images, statistical data, and information and communications technology based resources. These types of investigations require the recording and representation of data in different types of maps, graphs, tables, sketches, diagrams and photographs. An outcome of this type of activity is that students have the necessary knowledge, skills and behaviours to understand themselves and their world, to apply their understanding in their present lives as well as make evidence based lifestyle decisions that lead to the future they desire.

Health and Physical Education provides the opportunity for students to:

• develop geographical knowledge and geospatial skills to read and interpret maps through orienteering activities and outdoor adventure activities
• investigate the impact of development and globalisation on poverty, the links between food, hunger and technology or the consequences of global health epidemics such as the spread of HIV/AIDS
• identifying and locating facilities and services that contribute to the health and safety of communities on a local and national level.

The Humanities – Economics

Understanding different perceptions of resources, the development and use of resources by different cultures in different locations, and the different systems that organise these resources provides strong links between Economics and Geography. Patterns and interactions of physical and human phenomena on the surface of the Earth provide insights into aspects of resource allocation and ecological sustainability. The use of inquiry methodology is an essential part of both domains.

The Humanities – History

The History and Geography of places is closely linked. Natural processes and features such as rivers, earthquakes, floods and droughts have a significant impact on societies and their political, economic and social features.  Investigation of past societies and change and continuity over time includes location and geographic features which impact on and interact with human activities. Geography provides students with knowledge and skills to observe and describe places on the Earth and to provide explanations of physical and human phenomena from a spatial perspective.

Information and Communications Technology

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is a key part of many social interactions and the development of relationships. ICT assists students to work cooperatively through providing tools for managing collaborative projects and communicating, recording, presenting and modifying thoughts and ideas. Decisions arrived at through negotiating different viewpoints and resolving conflicts are recorded with ICT tools for later reference and reflection. Students use online ICT tools to complete projects in virtual teams with people from different cultures, values and beliefs. They understand the protocols for participating in virtual teams, respectfully relating to others from diverse backgrounds, and resolving conflicts in a fair and effective manner in a special social context of the online world.

Interpersonal Development

Through fieldwork and other activities, students develop their interpersonal skills in working cooperatively with others in teams to provide a broad range of perspectives and insights on issues. Students are encouraged to respect individuality and empathise with others in both local and global contexts, acknowledging the diversity of individuals and responding with appropriate sensitivity. Students explain how local and global values and beliefs determine their own and others’ social relationships.

Language Other Than English (LOTE)

Languages are relevant to geography due to topographical and place names, to the cultural significance of land forms, to different ways in which geospatial skills and knowledge have evolved over time and to different ways in which these are practiced today.

Geography teachers can support the intercultural knowledge and language awareness dimensions of language study. Language teachers can incorporate activities in the target language that build on and enrich learners’ geographical knowledge and understanding and their geospatial skills.

Students can work with actual maps or street directories from cities or countries using the target language. They can learn direction-giving and direction-receiving language. They can learn to calculate distance and relationships between landforms, landmarks and other features of urban and rural settings. They can study cultural and popular ways to talk about space and relationships, such as the arrangement of villages in Bali, or medieval European cities. Students can also gain intercultural knowledge and some vocabulary from the mapping and exploration of Australia, and its near neighbours, such as the role of Dutch, French and Portuguese explorers, the use of French and Latin naming by these explorers. Students should also explore non-European encounters with early Australia – such as the Macassar traders and possible early Chinese encounters with Australia. Students can also make links between languages and geography by studying population distribution, housing and urban patterns and living arrangements in target language countries.

Mathematics

Geography and Mathematics are related through the use of mathematics to model a broad range of economic, political and social phenomena. Examples include the use of statistical modelling and analysis in a census, sampling populations to predict election outcomes, and modelling and forecasting economic indicators such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and business confidence.

The application of mathematical skills plays a key role in financial literacy, in particular the use of ratio, proportion and percentage in related calculations such as percentage increase or decrease in price of a commodity or personal income.

Mathematics provides the basis of measurement, scale and spatial representation used in maps and plans. Geography also uses the concepts of direction, length, angle and bearing, gradient and contour and area.

Personal Learning

Geography provides numerous opportunities for students to develop as individual learners. For example, when investigating local, global and national patterns of development and development issues, students can be made aware of how their personal values may impact upon their analysis and evaluation and that their personal values may differ from other class members’. Geography can also support development in managing personal learning. For example, an inquiry based approach is fundamental to Geography and this kind of approach provides opportunities for goal setting and time and resource management. Fieldwork also sits within this approach and provides a context outside the classroom for development and application of personal learning skills, including working independently. In developing activities with an inquiry based approach there is scope for students to reflect on how their learning preferences may impact upon or shape the inquiry. In Geography, students may investigate and discuss contestable issues and be exposed to views that oppose their own, providing opportunity to develop strategies for the management of emotions. 

Science

In Science and Geography, observations are made of the natural and built environments. Students collect and present data appropriately, identify patterns and make predictions. They explore the relationships that exist between systems in the environment and the impact of human activities on the environment, including global warming, deforestation, pollution and resource depletion. Students examine the policies for managing these issues to ensure sustainability, and consider how they can contribute to these decision-making processes. They study the occurrence and management of natural disasters, and gain an appreciation of the different environmental and sustainability issues that confront people within different societies, considering their cultural values and beliefs.

Thinking Processes

The study of human behaviour requires the application of a range of thinking skills. Originally students will apply them in a discrete manner to a specific set of tasks. As students mature and become capable of managing more abstract information, they use these skills to analyse and form patterns and theories about people, environments and societies, developing an understanding that is more conceptual. Through developing research skills, students use open-ended questions, developing their ability to question the relevance of, synthesise and apply information. They use thinking strategies and tools to organise information and provide reasons for their position. They use their conceptual understandings to develop formal processes that may be used to create definitions, make predictions, devise and/or test theories and to form beliefs.