Geography

= HSC GEOGRAPHY =



Welcome to Bankstown TAFE's HSC Geography wiki. My name is Corinne Gaston. You can contact me in the following ways if you miss a class or need to find out anything at home.

Email: Corinne.Gaston@tafensw.edu.au Phone: 9780-5625 Staffroom: E1.09

Not all class materials will be uploaded however you can plot the course this subject going to Lesson Plans and see a day by day account of what has taken place. Some lesson materials have been withheld from this site to avoid plagiarism problems.

Your course covers Year 11 and 12 in one year.

Messages or difficulties should be conveyed to Ken Enderby, the Head Teacher and HSC Co-ordinator. His office is J1.05, and his number is 9780-5588.

Your classroom is E1.10, located behind the elevators on the 1st Floor of E Block.

It is a refurbished classroom with a smartboard and a classroom computer, overhead projector, whiteboards, wall maps. It is designed to make your learning more interesting, exciting, visually stimulating and gives us the internet at our finger tips to look at all sorts of wonderful source material.

You will be required to buy a textbook for this course : Please buy Global Interactions 2, by Grant Kleeman. You will also need equipment such as a 360 degree protractor, ruler, pens, good quality lead pencils (eg. Derwent or Faber Castel), a 30 cm ruler, a small pack of coloured pencils, a highligher pen and a calculator, as well as an A4 loose leaf folder and A4 paper and plastic sleeves.

On this site, you'll find all the materials handed out in class in Geography this year. All files are in Word or PDF form, meaning they can be downloaded easily. What this means is that you can get access to the teaching materials for this subject if you are absent from class or have misplaced your handouts.

The website covers:
 * assessment tasks
 * lesson outlines
 * reading materials
 * class exercises
 * model essays.

These will be added to the site as they are given out during the year.

Syllabus
For a copy of the HSC Geography syllabus, click on

Click on for a copy of the HSC Geography syllabus, 2017 assessment guide and past exam questions. Please keep this kit close to hand, as you will find it very useful throughout the year.


 * Assessment **

Click on to get copies of the assessment tasks for this year. You will also find detailed reading lists for each assignment.

**Topics**

Click on the following links to see what we have been doing in class, and to get the handouts from each lesson:

Preliminary course:
 * Biophysical interactions
 * Global challenges

HSC course:
 * Ecosystems at risk (now completed - assessment on 12th May, 2015 worth 20%)
 * Urban places (begun - completed World Cities, now studying Mega Cities)
 * Economic activity

HSC exams
Click on HSC Geography exam for tips for this years exam.

PLEASE DISREGARD THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL. THE WIKI SITE IS BEING REDESIGNED.

YEAR 12 - integrated unit on BIOSPHERE from Year 11 and the start of Year 12 Ecosystems at Risk topic

You need to buy the Macquarie Revision Guides for HSC GEOGRAPHY by Paine textbook asap! Better students might prefer to buy the G. Kleeman book : Global Interactions. I will contact the local bookshop in Centro and order the books so that supplies will be available. You cannot do this course without a textbook! Therefore you must purchase the text book by week 4 so save your money up and buy it by then.

= YEAR 12 - THESE ARE THE TOPICS YOU WILL COVER = = = =ECOSYSTEMS AT RISK.=

CORAL REEFS - CASE STUDY 1: ECOSYSTEMS AT RISK. As I have been away this week I have included a powerpoint of key information you may wish to view as this week you are starting work on your first ecosystem case study : Coral Reefs - focussing on the Great Barrier Reef.

Good web sites to view include the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and Queensland University's Professor Ove Hoegh Guildberg (he has a number of videos on MySpace about coral reefs)..

Video on the history of change on the Great Barrier Reef and threats to coral reefs globally. It is a good film focussing on how fragile ecosystems cope with human induced change and respond to change. Video is called: 50 Million Years Under the Sea. There will be notes and a worksheet to complete.


 * Biophysical Interactions
 * Spatial Patterns and dimensions
 * Management

INTERTIDAL WETLANDS OF HOMEBUSH BAY - CASE STUDY 2 : ECOSYSTEMS AT RISK See Kleeman - Global Interactions earlier edition for chapter on this. A visit to Bicentennial Park Homebush Bay is also suggested as there are excellent signs showing changes over time, management strategies and biophysical interactions. Walk around the Badu Mangrove site and Bird Refuge especially as the signs around that area update the Kleeman chapter.

= = //**You can also email me to: Corinne.Gaston@tafensw.edu.au**//

Fieldwork is an important part of the course. So far we have been to Salt Pan Creek at Padstow as part of the Preliminary component but it also serves to introduce students to ecosystem interactions in both mangrove and saltmarsh environments. A number of scientific tests were made using a range of equipment such as Horiba, wind meter, light meter as well as doing bird, weed and plant identification. Good books include: 1. Mapping and Statistical Skills or 2. Atlas Skills Workbook by Malcolm Stacey (you could even purchase this small book - publisher is Pearson Longman)
 * __FIELDWORK SKILLS__**

MA

You need to particularly learn the following complex mapping skills as soon as possible..... a. Vertical Exaggeration which is a measurement of how exaggerated a cross-section (graph showing heights across a section taken from a topo map) - you must consider putting the vertical scale used on the graph over the horizontal scale taken from the map used. It is a complex calculation but important and often used in exams with very poor success rates. b. Cross-sections (drawing a cross section from a topographic map's contour lines onto a graph based on the heights of the contours) c. Gradient - difference in the vertical height of two points on contours divided by the distance between the two points (rise over the run)

YOUR URBAN STUDIES SECTION HAS MANY PARTS TO LEARN. THIS IS A SHORT LIST....YOU MUST REFER TO YOUR SYLLABUS OUTLINE OR LOOK UP THE BOS WEBSITE FOR GEOGRAPHY:

1. WORLD CITIES 2. MEGACITIES 3. CASE STUDY OF A LARGE CITY IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD - SYDNEY (WHOLE CITY CASE STUDY UNDER SEVERAL HEADINGS - URBAN DYNAMICS, SUSTAINABILITY, CHANGES IN ECONOMIC CHARACTER, CULTURE OF PLACE........) 4. CASE STUDY OF A SUBURB OR COUNTRY TOWN - PYRMONT (NEAR DARLING HARBOUR) AND LOOKING AT URBAN CHANGES 5. CHANGES IN REGIONAL CENTRES AND COUNTRY TOWNS

=MEGACITIES=





=WORLD CITIES=

Note these powerpoints are only outlines primarily....use them as a framework to add on from your text to Explain, Discuss and Evaluate. You need to also consider the global recession and economic crisis which is directly linked to globalisation and the role of powerful financial centres in the USA and UK.