Geography Overview, Semester 2

GEOGRAPHY OVERVIEW, SEMESTER 2

Unit Title:

/ Unit 2: Features of Places
Achievement Standard / By the end of Year 1, students identify and describe the natural, managed and constructed features of places at a local scale and recognise that people describe the features of places differently. They identify where features of places are located and recognise that spaces can be arranged for different purposes. Students identify changes in features and describe how to care for places.
Students respond to questions about familiar and unfamiliar places by collecting, recording and sorting information from sources provided. They represent the location of different places and their features on pictorial maps and present findings in a range of texts and use everyday language to describe direction and location. They reflect on their learning to suggest ways that places can be cared for.

Geographical Concepts

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Content Descriptions

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Assessment (A)

Place
Space
Environment
Interconnection
Sustainability
Scale
Change / The natural, managed and constructed features of places, their location, how they change and how they can be cared for (ACHGK005)
The ways the activities located in a place create its distinctive features (ACHGK007)
Pose questions about familiar and unfamiliar places (ACHGS007)
Collect and record geographical data and information, for example, by observing, by interviewing, or from sources such as photographs, plans, satellite images, story books and films (ACHGS008)
Represent data and the location of places and their features by constructing tables, plans and labelled maps (ACHGS009)
Draw conclusions based on the interpretation of geographical information sorted into categories (ACHGS010)
Present findings in a range of communication forms, for example, written, oral, digital and visual, and describe the direction and location of places, using terms such as north, south, opposite, near, far (ACHGS011)
eflect on their learning and suggest responses to their findings (ACHGS012) / ·  ASSESSMENT TASK 1: What are the features of the local park? Students are provided with three photographs to identify as natural, managed or constructed and write a sentence to explain.
·  ASSESSMENT TASK 2: Analysing photographs - What changes can I observe? Students are provided with an historical and current photograph of a familiar place. They are asked to consider “What changes can I observe?” and annotate the photographs to record these observations
·  ASSESSMENT TASK 3: How we can care for an important place? Students annotate a photograph of the local environment to show how and why places can be cared for.
Learning Framework / Community Contributor
Leader and Collaborator / Active Investigator
Effective Communicator / Designer and Creator
Quality Producer
Cross Curricula Priorities / Catholic Ethos
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures / Social Emotional Learning
Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia / Inclusive Education
Sustainability Education
General Capabilities / Literacy
Critical and Creative Thinking / Numeracy
Ethical Understanding / Information and Communication Technology
Personal and Social Competence
Links to other LA’s / English, Maths, Religion, History, Information Technology

Learning and Teaching Strategies

Week / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
Cross Curricular Priorities / Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures
General Capabilities / Literacy, Numeracy, ICT, Critical and Creative thinking
Engage ⇒ / Explore ⇒ / Explain ⇒ / Elaborate ⇒ / Evaluate
ENGAGE / Resources
·  Read an Aboriginal Dreamtime story and/or a Legend of the Torres Strait that identifies the natural features of a place (for example “The Rainbow Serpent” by Dick Roughsey)
·  Pose questions: What do you notice in the illustrations about the landscape? How is it different to where we live? Are there any shops? Parks? Buildings? Signs? I wonder how the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders knew where to go? How did they get to places and find their way living in their natural environment?
·  Ask: How can we find places? What do we use so we know where to go? Elicit discussion about different types of maps students are familiar with and how they are useful.
·  Display “Places” multimodal presentation to review the purpose of maps and stimulate ideas about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders use of artwork as maps.
·  Invite students to view Aboriginal artwork as maps (Google search: Aboriginal artwork as maps). What did the Aboriginal peoples use maps for? Why did they need them? Elicit the term ‘place’ in discussions. Recall the purpose and value of maps.
·  Discuss the significance of the symbols used by Aboriginal peoples to identify features of places. If possible, invite an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person to share their knowledge as a guest speaker.
·  ‘Read’ and interpret Aboriginal artwork as a map using knowledge of symbols as a key, discussing the features of the place described in the artwork (Google search Aboriginal art symbols for kids).
·  Select a page from Dreamtime story/Legend and demonstrate how to create an Aboriginal artwork ‘map’ to represent the natural features depicted in the illustrations using traditional symbols.
·  Invite students to select their favourite image from the text and create their own ‘map’.
·  Ask: What is a place? Use shared ideas to define ‘place’. Include ideas and geographical vocabulary relevant to students. [‘Place’ is defined as: parts of the Earth’s surface and can be described by location, shape, boundaries, features and environmental and human characteristics.]
·  Explain that, for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, connection to ‘Place’ is important to who they are and their way of life (culture, identity and spirituality). / ·  Aboriginal Dreamtime story or Torres Strait legend
·  “Places” presentation
·  Displays of Aboriginal artworks and symbols (use Google Search Engine)
·  Student books/A4 paper
Geographical Language / Assessment Opportunities
Dreamtime story, legend, maps, place, symbols, features, location,
Reflection
Week / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
Cross Curricular Priorities / Catholic Ethos, Sustainability, Social and Emotional Learning
General Capabilities / Literacy, ICT, Critical and Creative thinking, Personal and Social Competence
Engage ⇒ / Explore ⇒ / Explain ⇒ / Elaborate ⇒ / Evaluate
EXPLORE / Resources
·  Recall terms: ‘natural’ and ‘constructed’ features from previous unit.
·  Display photographs of a ‘managed’ landscape. Pose question: Would this landscape be natural or constructed? Lead students to the understanding that some environments are managed by humans to produce food, conserve habitats for animals, provide recreational activities and cater for our human needs eg farms and parks.
·  Ask: What places have you been to that were really special to you? Allow students to share their ideas with peers and encourage variety and difference of ideas.
·  Invite students to draw and name one place of personal significance onto a sticky note and stick labels onto a table to sort their place as ‘natural’, ‘managed’ or ‘constructed’. Display as a class resource.
·  Provide a series of photographs from Geogspace: My Place Photos, demonstrating natural, managed and constructed environments.
·  Organise students in small groups to analyse and compare photographs by recording answers to the following:
·  What things have been built here?
·  What things in the picture are natural?
·  Is any part of this place managed?
·  What is similar between the two places?
·  What is different between the two places?
·  Groups share their landscape photographs and discuss their observations of the landscapes. / ·  Photograph of managed landscapes (sugar cane field, botanic gardens)
·  Sticky note paper
·  ‘Natural, Managed, Constructed’ table page enlarged to A3
·  Print-out of photographs from ‘geogspace’ site: my place photos
·  Print out of questions to consider (optional)
Geographical Language / Assessment Opportunities
Natural, constructed, managed,
Reflection
Week / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
Cross Curricular Priorities / Catholic Ethos, Sustainability, Social and Emotional Learning
General Capabilities / Literacy, Numeracy, ICT, Critical and Creative thinking, Personal and Social Competence
Engage ⇒ / Explore ⇒ / Explain ⇒ / Elaborate ⇒ / Evaluate
EXPLAIN / Resources
·  Participate in a walk around the school grounds or an excursion through the local neighbourhood as a field study.
·  Allocate groups of children to locate examples of natural, managed and constructed features observed in the area.
·  Use field sketches (drawings, diagrams) or photographs to identify and record their observations.
·  Students share their findings and collate the data, by adding field sketches/photographs to the ‘natural’, ‘managed’ and ‘constructed’ table from previous lesson.
·  Pose questions using where, what, how and why to elicit information about the features observed.
-  Where did you find the most natural features in the school?
-  What constructed features did you find?
-  Who looks after the managed features? How are the managed features cared for/managed?
-  Why are there more … features than … features in the school grounds?
·  Draw conclusions using the student’s responses eg. In our school grounds, there are more constructed features than managed features because...
·  Display one of the field study sketches or photographs and identify as a natural, managed or constructed feature.
·  Model how to analyse and write an explanation including justification: eg. These butterflies are natural features of our school grounds because animals have been created by God and they are free to fly anywhere. etc...
·  Provide students with a variety of photographs from the field study. Students work in pairs to analyse by identifying natural, managed and constructed features, and explain their findings.
·  Students share their explanations with their peers. Discuss the accuracy and reasoning of their judgements.
·  ASSESSMENT TASK 1 – What are the features of the local park? Students are provided with three photographs to identify as natural, managed or constructed and write a sentence to explain. / ·  ‘Natural, Managed, Constructed’ table page – 1 per child
·  Camera/Device to take photographs
·  Print-out of photographs from the field study
·  Assessment Task 1 – one per child
Geographical Language / Assessment Opportunities
Field study, field sketches,
Reflection
Week / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
Cross Curricular Priorities / Sustainability,
General Capabilities / Literacy, Critical and Creative thinking, Personal and Social Competence
Engage ⇒ / Explore ⇒ / Explain ⇒ / Elaborate ⇒ / Evaluate
ELABORATE / Resources
·  View images from Jeannie Baker’s wordless text “Window”. Ask: What changes did you see?
·  As a shared writing experience, create captions for each illustration to produce a class flow chart which depicts a sequence of the changes as seen by the characters.
·  Fold the worksheet entitled “What Changes Can I Observe?” in half to display the photograph of the original St Monica’s church. Ask: What is this place? Do you know where it could be?
·  Reveal the bottom half of the worksheet to display a current photograph of St Monica’s Cathedral. Ask: How has this place changed?
·  Students examine the photographs and identify and describe observable changes with a partner.
·  Share ideas with whole class.
·  Teacher model how to annotate the observable changes using the two St Monica’s photographs.
·  Students complete task independently.
·  ASSESSMENT TASK 2: Analysing photographs - What changes can I observe? Students are provided with an historical and current photograph of the Cairns Esplanade. They are asked to consider “What changes can I observe?” and annotate the photographs to record these observations. / ·  “Window” by Jeannie Baker
·  A3 poster of “What Changes Can I Observe?” – folded in half.
·  Assessment Task 2 – one per child
Geographical Language / Assessment Opportunities
Changes, captions, observe, changes, annotate / Assessment Task 2
Reflection
Week / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
Cross Curricular Priorities / Catholic Ethos, Sustainability, Social and Emotional Learning
General Capabilities / Literacy, Numeracy, ICT, Critical and Creative thinking, Personal and Social Competence
Engage ⇒ / Explore ⇒ / Explain ⇒ / Elaborate ⇒ / Evaluate
EVALUATE / Resources
·  Display a map of the school grounds (may be an aerial map from Google Earth or hand-drawn sketch)
·  Ask:
-  Which places in the school grounds do you like best?
-  Which places in the school do you use most?
-  Which places in the school always look neat and tidy?
-  Are there any places which sometimes look dirty or untidy?
-  Which places in the school need the most care to keep them looking good?
-  Which places in the school could be improved?
-  What things could each of us do to look after these places in the school?
·  Discuss the importance of looking after and valuing places in the school grounds and nearby environment and relate to our responsibility to be ‘stewards’ of the environment. Explain that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples too practised stewardship of the environment as it was vital to their survival.
·  Students brainstorm ideas for how to care for particular areas of the school and local environment.
·  Write each idea on a small piece of paper and discuss why it is important.
·  Organise a ‘treasure hunt’ where children hide the care idea and have peers search for it and read it out.
·  Collect all of the ideas at the end of the treasure hunt and display on a poster titled “How we can care for our important places” (or similar).
·  Encourage students to reflect on their learning about places and how to can care for them and share their reflections with peers in a small group.
·  ASSESSMENT TASK 3: How we can care for an important place? Students annotate a photograph of Crystal Cascades to suggest ways to care for the environment and write why it is important. / ·  Map of the school grounds (aerial view)
·  Small pieces of paper
·  Assessment Task 3 – one per child
Geographical Language / Assessment Opportunities
Google Earth / Assessment Task 3
Reflection

Planning for Differently Abled Students

Student/s / Different Ability / Australian Curriculum Content Descriptions being addressed / Learning and Teaching Strategies / Assessment Strategies

Year One Geography “Features of Places” Criteria Sheet Name: ______