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STAGE 1 (YEARS 1&2): TOPIC 1: FEATURES OF PLACES

Content focus:

Students investigate the natural and human features of places. They describe the reasons places change and identify the active role of citizens in the care of places. They learn about how people describe the weather and seasons of places. Students explore activities occurring in places and how the spaces within places can be used for different purposes.

Content:

Features of places
Students investigate features of places and how they can be cared for

Weather and seasons
Students investigate the weather and seasons of places

How places are changed
Students investigate changes that occur within places

Key inquiry questions:

  • What are the features of, and activities in, places?
  • How can we care for places?
  • How can spaces within a place be used for different purposes?

Geographical concepts:

  • Place: the significance of places and what they are like. For example: places students live in and belong to and why they are important.
  • Space: the significance of location and spatial distribution, and ways people organise and manage the spaces that we live in. For example: location of a place in relation to other familiar places.
  • Environment: the significance of the environment in human life, and the important interrelationships between humans and the environment. For example, how and why places should be looked after.
  • Interconnection: no object of geographical study can be viewed in isolation. For example: local and global links people have with places and the special connection Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples maintain with Country/Place.
  • Scale: the way that geographical phenomena and problems can be examined at different spatial levels. For example: various scales by which places can be defined such as local suburbs, towns and large cities.

Outcomes:
A student:

  • describes features of places and the connections people have with places
  • identifies ways in which people interact with and care for places
  • communicates geographical information and uses geographical tools for inquiry

Inquiry skills:
Acquiring geographical information

  • pose geographical questions
  • collect and record geographical data and information, for example, by observing, by interviewing, or using visual representations

Processing geographical information

  • represent data by constructing maps
  • draw conclusions based on interpretation of geographical information sorted into categories

Communicating geographically

  • present findings in a range of communication forms
  • reflect on their learning and suggest responses to their findings

Geographical tools:
Maps

  • pictorial maps

Fieldwork

  • observing and recording data

Graphs and statistics

  • tally charts, pictographs

Spatial technologies

  • virtual maps

Visual representations

  • photographs, illustrations, story books, multimedia