Years 9-10: Key understandings — Overview

Curriculum overview

The emphasis in Australian Curriculum: Geography and (its’ variations HASS-based iterations) for Years 9–10 is on biomes and food security, exploring interconnections, environmental change and geographies of wellbeing.

All seven of the key geographical concepts are now being developed at this level. Some examples of their development in the content are:

• Place – perception of place and the effects of people on places
• Space - the distribution of biomes, mapping human wellbeing and spatial variations in human wellbeing
• Environment – environmental factors that affect crop yields in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' approaches to custodial responsibility and environmental management
• Interconnection – transport and ICT connecting people and places
• Sustainability– sustainable food production, sustainable economic production and identifying the challenges of a sustainable future, human-induced change affecting sustainability
• Scale – responding to a geographic issue at a range of scales, and examining wellbeing within and between countries
• Change – the application of human-environment systems thinking to the causes of environmental change.

About the illustrations

Illustration 1: Sustainability considers the geographical concept of sustainability together with the cross-curriculum priority sustainability in relation to the curriculum in Years 9 and 10. The interconnections of sustainability and sustainable development are explored. A range of materials and resources is provided. 

Illustration 2: Perceptions of places focuses on people's perceptions of places, which are informed by the geographical imagination. Humanistic geography (people's relationships, feelings and attitudes towards space and place) and behavioural geography (that makes the distinction between an objective observation and perceptions of places). A range of resources are provided.