How are people and places connected to other places? Why are interconnections important for the future of places and environments?

This Term in Geography, year 8 students have studied the topic ‘Interconnections’ and have been addressing theses important questions.

Our students have focused on the connections people have to places across a range of scales and examined the factors that shape people’s perceptions of places and how this influences their connections to places. Significantly, they have explored the effects of human activities, such as production, recreation and travel, on places and environments in Australia and across the world and investigated sustainability initiatives and possible futures for these places.

For their Assessment Task in this topic, students were given the following brief:

“A new start-up company, Ethical Travel.com, has commissioned you to make a website aimed at young adults to communicate the positive and negative impacts of tourism on one natural tourist site. Your brief is to describe the positive and negative environmental, economic and social impacts of travel to the tourist site and suggest ideas to turn it into a sustainable tourism destination.”

As a class, they engaged with the relevant content and developed their mastery of a range of geographical skills, used scaffolds and a purpose built sample website to demonstrate their understanding of Interconnections using a 21st century platform to communicate their knowledge and skills.

We hope you are as impressed with their work as we are!

Nicholas, the Grand Canyon:

  https://sites.google.com/education.nsw.gov.au/8onicholashgrandcanyononicholashgrandcanyon