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The workshop examines the question of what it means to think geographically. With the Australian Curriculum: Geography to be taught in many Australian schools by non-geography teachers, the issue of what it means to think geography will need to be explored during professional learning activities in coming years. Through the use of the Australian Curriculum: Geography concepts and a range of thinkpieces, the workshop will develop with participants a model of geographical thinking, which identifies the teaching of geography as a unique experience, quite different to the thinking in other disciplines.
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A GEOGRAPHY CURRICULUM FOR AUSTRALIA Malcolm McInerney: AGTA Chair
THINKING GEOGRAPHICALLY WITH A 21ST CENTURY GEOGRAPHY CURRICULUM
THROUGH THE GEOGRAPHICAL LENS
GEOGRAPHICAL THINKING
We know what it is but can we articulate how a geographer thinks?
The public perception of geography is as a fact-based rather than conceptual discipline. Peter Jackson 2006
•The geographers headset•Through the eyes of a geographer•Thinking geographically
.”“I’m a geographer, frankly, I’m proud of that fact even if I have to explain when I meet someone exactly what it is a geographer does.”
Can you spot a geographer from just looking at them?
It was decided that it is through the concepts that we can identify
geographical thinking
What is a concept? • A general idea derived from specific instances or occurrences• Something formed in the mind, a thought or notion• An abstract or psychological thing that can be understood, operate with, and apply• May lead into judgments, propositions or even theories• Concepts have a tendency to be referred to in connection with the general rather than singular terms• Are often used to organise/group and classify thoughts• May be based on a generalisation, abstraction or occurrence
THE CONCEPT SMORGASBOARDfrom the AC: Geography Shape Paper
• change•distance
• diversity
• interaction
• interdependence
• landscape
• location
• pattern
• perception
• place• process• proximity• relationship• risk• scale• space• spatial distribution• sustainability• system
Fine tuning the concepts
• What are the key Geographical concepts to build a curriculum around?
• What concepts best reflect and enhance geographical thinking?
• How many can we say are major and imperative concepts for geographical thinking?
• The 7 major concepts have related concepts dovetailed into them.
• What then are the related concepts?• Are they just geographical concepts – does
geography own them? • Are these concepts what makes geography
geography and unique?• Are all of the 7 concepts of equal importance?• Geographical thinking is more than just spatial
thinking!
Conceptual questions to muse over
CONCEPTS: THE LENS AND KEY TO GEOGRAPHICAL THINKING
• As a discipline, geography is based on a series of concepts that fundamentally underpin the geographical approach to the world.
• They provide a framework and common language to thinking geographically.• These concepts are the lenses through which geographers view the features,
activities, processes, phenomena and issues of our earth in the past, present and future.
THINKING AND QUESTIONING USING THE GEOGRAPHICAL CONCEPTS
CONCEPTS: THINKING GEOGRAPHICALLY
meaning
identity
links
Location
local-global
human
time
uniqueness
pace
justice
trends
association
interdependence
Non-living
Generational equity
zoom
living
distance
Human-physical
processes
natural
biosphere
Triple bottom line
intangible
characteristics
pattern distribution
equilibrium
dynamic
consistency
directions
hierarchies
measurementchange
processes
interconnection
change
system
Impact of change
flowsystem
Human-environment
diversity sustainability
system
interconnection
relative
virtual
proximitydensity
biodiversity
sustainability
sustainability
futures
movement
ecology
futures
local-global
space
maps
The geographical concept wheel
interconnection
• Place describes specific areas of the Earth’s surface, and range from a small place such as a classroom, through to a local area, to a country to a major world region and the solar system. The uniqueness of places is closely linked to identity and culture
• The characteristics of places that are studied in geography include population, climate, economy, landforms, built environment, soils and vegetation, communities, water resources, cultures, minerals, landscape, and recreational and scenic quality.
• Some characteristics are tangible, such as rivers and buildings, while others are intangible, such as wilderness and socioeconomic status.
Place
• Space refers to the location of human features, such as a town or a specific building. Space also refers to the location of natural features, such as a rainforest or a specific habitat. • Human and natural features have locations within space. • Space is also about the distribution of human and natural features, including the pattern of those distributions. • The world is organised spatially i.e. location, distribution and pattern.
Space
What is the difference between place and space? A fundamental question for teachers teaching geography.
•The concept of environment refers to the biosphere including living and non-living elements. •The environment has intrinsic value and is essential to, and interconnected with on-going human wellbeing.
•Environments which have been significantly altered and created by human activities such as rural or built environments (constructed urban places) are sub sets of the bio-physical environment
Environment
• Places, environments and spatial patterns alter over time. • Changes may be quite slow as is the movement of the tectonic plates or they
might be quite rapid as the advancement of a bushfire. • Places, environments and spatial patterns may be in a state of equilibrium or
inertia with little change occurring over a long period of time until an event such as a flood, cyclone or political decision occurs, which rapidly alters the place, environments or patterns.
• Social changes may be rapidly accepted, gradually accepted or actively and passively resisted.
Change
•Interconnection refers to the linking of places, environments and spatial patterns either by tangible links such as roads, railways or by intangible links such as political, economic systems or electronic systems. •Places, environments and systems may also be linked by cause and effect relationships between them.•Interconnections are important in understanding why things are changing or need to be changed in different places or environments. •Interconnections may occur between environmental and environmental (effect on water on soil), human and human (impact of political decision on industry) or between environmental and human processes (impact of water on cities).
Interconnection
• Sustainability addresses the ongoing capacity of Earth to maintain all life.
• Sustainability is a broad social goal linking on-going natural environmental (ecological) wellbeing with human (social and economic) wellbeing
Sustainability
Scale is about the hierarchy of divisions from the personal to the local, regional, national, world, regional, global and sometimes, universal.
Scale
Where are the 4 corners of the earth
meaning
identity
links
Location
local-global
human
time
uniqueness
pace
justice
trends
association
interdependence
Non-living
Generational equity
zoom
living
distance
Human-physical
processes
natural
biosphere
Triple bottom line
intangible
characteristics
patterndistribution
equilibrium
dynamic
consistency
directions
hierarchies
measurementchange
processes
interconnection
change
system
Impact of change
flowsystem
Human-environment
diversity sustainability
system
interconnection
relative
virtual
proximity density
biodiversity
sustainability
sustainability
futures
movement
ecology
futures
local-global
space
maps
The geographical concept wheel
The deconstruction and subsequent construction of knowledge/content using the key concepts when
studying geography = geographical thinking
Developing geographical understanding
2. View through the geographical concepts of: Place
Space
Environment
Change
Interaction
Sustainability
Scale
A GEOGRAPHICAL INQUIRY OF BRISBANE WATER SUPPLY
1.Collect all the information you know about Brisbane water supply.
3. Based on the concepts pose the geographical questions for inquiry (can?, should?, what if? why not?)
Harvest
Deconstruct
Question
Construct
Foundation Year: People live in places
Year 1: Places have distinctive features
Year 2: People are connected to many places
Year 3: Places are both similar and different
Year 4: People have a relationship with the environment
Year 5: Human and environmental processes shape places
Year 6: People belong to a diverse worlddra
ft
PRIMARY STAGES OF LEARNING IN GEOGRAPHY
• Water in the world (7)• Places in which to live (7)
• Landforms and landscapes (8)• Shaping the Nation (8)
• Biomes and food security (9)• People experiencing and making geography (9)
• Environmental challenges and geography (10)• Global geographies of human well-being (10)
7 – 10 Year Level Units
draft
WHAT IS 21ST CENTURY GEOGRAPHY?
http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/
SINGH
HAN
So what!
This is data attached to place – we call it spatial data and it is the raw material for modern geography.
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/