Unit 2: Investigating Asia

Content focus:

Students explore countries of the Asia region. In doing so, students learn about the diversity of the world’s people, including the indigenous peoples of other countries. Students will explore and reflect upon similarities, differences and the importance of intercultural understanding.

Syllabus content area:
Diversity across Asia
Students investigate the diversity in geographical characteristics within the Asia region
The world’s cultural diversity 
Students investigate the cultures of indigenous peoples
Connections shape perceptions
Students investigate how connections influence people’s perceptions and understanding of places.

Key inquiry questions:

• What are the distinctive geographical and cultural characteristics of Asia?
• In what ways is Asia unique?
• In what ways is Asia like other places?

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.
• Sustainability: the capacity of the environment to continue to support our lives and the lives of other living creatures into the future. For example: ways in which people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, use and protect natural resources; differing views about environmental sustainability; sustainable management of waste.
• Change: explaining geographical phenomena by investigating how they have developed over time. For example: changes to environmental and human characteristics of places.

Outcomes:
A student:

• describes the diverse features and characteristics of Asia’s places and environments
• explains interactions and connections between people, places and environments within Asia
• acquires, processes and communicates geographical information using geographical tools for inquiry.

Inquiry skills:
Acquiring geographical information

• develop geographical questions to investigate and plan an inquiry
• collect and record relevant geographical data and information from primary data and secondary information sources, for example, by using maps, visual representations, statistical sources, and the media or the internet

Processing geographical information

• evaluate sources for their usefulness
• represent data in different forms, for example graphs and tables
• represent different types of geographical information by constructing maps that conform to cartographic conventions using spatial technologies as appropriate
• interpret geographical data and information, using digital and spatial technologies as appropriate, and identify spatial distributions, patterns and trends, and infer relationships to draw conclusions

Communicating geographically

• present findings and ideas in a range of communication forms as appropriate

Geographical tools:
Maps

• small-scale maps, political and physical maps,
• maps to identify location, latitude, direction, distance, map references, spatial distributions and patterns

Graphs and statistics

• statistics presented in a range of formats

Spatial technologies

• satellite images, GPS (Google Earth)

Visual representations

• photographs, multimedia and web-based tools

Lessons and worksheets included in the download file:

Lesson 1: Lesson Plan :: Worksheet 1 :: Worksheet 2
Lesson 2: Lesson Plan
Lesson 3: Lesson Plan :: Worksheet 1
Lesson 4: Lesson Plan :: Resource 1 :: Resource 2
Lesson 5: Lesson Plan :: Resource 1 :: Resource 2
Lesson 6: Lesson Plan :: Worksheet 1
Lesson 7: Lesson Plan :: Worksheet 1 :: Worksheet 2
Lesson 8: Lesson Plan :: Resource ppt
Lesson 9: Lesson Plan :: Worksheet 1 :: Worksheet 2
Lesson 10: Lesson Plan :: Resource ppt :: Resource 1 :: Resource 2 :: Resource 3 :: Resource 4 :: Resource 5