This resource will help teachers and schools identify strong links between Geography and the capabilities. It will also help teachers design learning activities.
The resource assumes familiarity with the Geography curriculum. It links aspects of this curriculum with Ethical Capability, Critical and Creative Thinking, Intercultural Capability and Personal and Social Capability.
Note: It is a school decision as to which capabilities are linked to which learning area(s). To help support these decisions, this resource provides general advice on teaching and assessment, as well as specific illustrative advice related to Geography.
The knowledge and skills learnt through the capabilities are highly transferable across learning areas and are applicable throughout schooling and in later life.
The capabilities support Geography in its endeavour to help students question why the world is the way it is, reflect on their relationships with and responsibility for that world, and propose actions to shape a socially just and sustainable future.
Identifying a strong link between a capability and Geography supports learning in both curriculum areas. There is strong justification to link a learning area and a capability in instances where:
Looking over each capabilities curriculum, we begin to see broad links between the strands in different capabilities and in aspects of various strands and sub-strands of the Geography curriculum.
Linking the Critical and Creative Thinking strands to Geography
Critical and Creative Thinking consists of three interrelated strands. The table below provides an overview of each strand and how it links to Geography.
Questions and Possibilities
Explore the nature of questioning and a range of processes and techniques to develop ideas
Geography and Critical and Creative Thinking mutually support students to …
develop their curiosity and construct effective questions for a range of purposes
Reasoning
Explore how to compose, analyse and evaluate arguments and reasoning
Geography and Critical and Creative Thinking mutually support students to …
collect and evaluate evidence, communicate findings, and develop arguments
Meta-Cognition
Explore the use of strategies to understand, manage and reflect on thinking, problem-solving and learning processes
Geography and Critical and Creative Thinking mutually support students to …
manage their learning, thinking and use of geographical methods and skills to respond to geographical issues
Linking the Ethical Capability strands to Geography
Ethical Capability consists of two interrelated strands. The table below provides an overview of each strand and how it links to Geography.
Understanding Concepts
Understanding and applying key concepts and ideas concerned with ethical issues, outcomes, principles and values
Geography and Ethical Capability mutually support students to …
identify and analyse values and world views underpinning perspectives of places, spaces and interconnections; and identify ethical problems associated with relevant geographical issues
Decision Making and Actions
Understanding ways to respond to ethical problems and factors and challenges that influence ethical decision-making and action, and applying this understanding to different contexts
Geography and Ethical Capability mutually support students to …
respond to geographical issues, identifying, analysing and evaluating the geographical and ethical implications; and make connections between geography and the broader questions of how we ought to live and where our responsibilities lie
Linking the Intercultural Capability strands to Geography
Intercultural Capability consists of two interrelated strands. The table below provides an overview of each strand and its broad links to Geography.
Cultural Practices
Describing, observing and analysing characteristics of their own cultural identities and those of others; and using critical reflection to better understand the perspectives and actions of individuals and groups in specific situations and how these can be shaped by culture
Geography and Intercultural Capability mutually support students to …
learn about the diversity of the world’s cultural practices and how interconnections between people and places has a dynamic influence on culture and cultural identity
Cultural Diversity
Understanding the nature of cultural diversity and critically examining the concept of respect, challenges and opportunities created by cultural diversity and the way in which cultural diversity shapes and contributes to social cohesion
Geography and Intercultural Capability mutually support students to …
appreciate the value of and understand the nature of cultural diversity in different places, and apply the concept of interconnection to understand how the causal relationships between places, people and environments change their characteristics
Linking the Personal and Social Capability strands to Geography
Personal and Social Capability consists of two interrelated strands. The table below provides an overview of each strand and its broad links to Geography.
Self-Awareness and Management
Develop the knowledge and skills to regulate, manage and monitor their emotions and interpret and assess their personal characteristics in the context of development of resilience
Geography and Personal and Social Capability mutually support students to …
develop knowledge and skills to work independently and show initiative when analysing data and evaluating appropriate responses to manage geographical challenges
Social Awareness and Management
Learn to participate in positive, safe and respectful relationships; critique societal constructs and discrimination; and negotiate with others and work collaboratively
Geography and Personal and Social Capability mutually support students to …
develop skills for collaborative fieldwork and other geographical investigations
Asking the following questions can be a first step in identifying strong links:
- Which of the learning area content descriptions reflect concepts or other knowledge and skills in a capability?
- Would explicit teaching and learning related to the identified link support progress towards the achievement standards for the learning area and/or the capability?
The example below identifies a link between the content descriptions in the Levels 9 and 10 Geography sub-strand Data and Information and a Levels 9 and 10 Critical and Creative Thinking content description. The identified link is between holistic thinking regarding the process of collecting and interpreting data and information (Critical and Creative Thinking) and the specific methodology used for geographical investigations (Geography).
Once a strong link is identified, a learning activity can be designed that enables progression towards the appropriate Geography achievement standard as well as the appropriate capability achievement standard (again, see the example below). This may involve incorporating other relevant content descriptions to create a sequence of learning.
Example: Linking Levels 9 and 10 Geography content descriptions and a Levels 9 and 10 Critical and Creative Thinking content description
This table includes selected content descriptions and an achievement standard extract for both Geography Levels 9 and 10 and Critical and Creative Thinking Levels 9 and 10, plus linking notes and an activity idea.
| | Geography, Levels 9 and 10 | Linking notes and activity idea | Critical and Creative Thinking, Levels 9 and 10 |
|---|
Content descriptions | Collect and record relevant geographical data and information, using ethical protocols, from reliable and useful primary and secondary sources
(VCGGC130) Select, organise and represent data and information in different forms, including by constructing special purpose maps that conform to cartographic conventions, using digital and spatial technologies as appropriate
(VCGGC131) Analyse and evaluate data, maps and other geographical information using digital and spatial technologies and Geographical Information Systems as appropriate, to develop identifications, descriptions, explanations and conclusions that use geographical terminology
(VCGGC132) | Can both Critical and Creative Thinking and Geography help us to understand and critically reflect on the collection and interpretation of data and information as a process? Yes. Critical and Creative Thinking can help us consider the collection and interpretation of data and information holistically, as a process, and Geography can help us understand how to collect and interpret data and information for geographical investigations. Students undertake a geographical investigation linked to a sub-strand from the strand Geographical Knowledge. They collect data and information through fieldwork and wider research; select, organise and represent their data and information; and analyse and evaluate it to develop a response. They complete activities to plan and reflect on the process for the investigation, including to develop understanding of how the component parts connect together to create an overall investigation process. | Critically examine their own and others’ thinking processes and discuss factors that influence thinking, including cognitive biases
(VCCCTM051) |
Achievement
standard extract | By the end of Level 10, students … ethically collect relevant geographical data and information from reliable and useful sources. They select, organise and represent data and information in different forms, using appropriate digital and spatial technologies and through special purpose maps that conform to cartographic conventions. They analyse and evaluate geographical data, maps and information using digital and spatial technologies and Geographical Information Systems as appropriate to develop identifications, descriptions, explanations and conclusions that use geographical terminology. | By the end of Level 10, students … identify, articulate, analyse and reflect on their own and others’ thinking processes.
|
How do we assess the capabilities?
Student understanding of a capability’s knowledge and skills is assessed against its achievement standards. The key to formative and summative assessment is explicit teaching of the discrete knowledge and skills underpinning the capability’s content descriptions in such a way that students are supported to progress towards the targeted achievement standard. Explicit teaching builds shared understanding of knowledge and skills, which provides a foundation for setting transparent expectations of what should be shown in student work and for feedback.
For general advice on teaching and assessment and transfer of learning, see
General resources for the capabilities.
Examples of learning activities that link Geography and the capabilities
All examples are illustrative only and assume familiarity with the Geography curriculum.
Learning activity idea: As part of a sequence of lessons on how people in Australia are connected to other places in Australia and across the world, students identify and discuss the cultural diversity in their school and engage with people in the school community from similar and different cultural backgrounds to explore what is similar and different in the ways individuals and families from culturally diverse backgrounds live.
This activity would strengthen learning in both Geography and Intercultural Capability through:
- helping students to identify the nature of cultural connections (see Intercultural Capability content descriptions
VCICCD003 and
VCICCB001)
- providing an opportunity to identify and build cultural connections in their local place (see Intercultural Capability content description
VCICCB002).
Learning activity idea: Students undertake a series of activities to investigate the similarities and differences between their local place and a place in a neighbouring country. They collaborate in small groups to develop a response and present it to the class and reflect on both the investigation and the collaboration.
This activity would strengthen learning in both Geography and Personal and Social Capability through introducing knowledge and skills for effective participation in group tasks, and using this understanding to enable a high-quality investigation and for reflection to improve investigations in the future (see Personal and Social Capability content description
VCPSCSO023).
Learning activity idea: Students investigate a local planning issue and, as part of the task, they investigate through fieldwork, which could include surveys, the geographical factors that are influencing people’s opinions on the issue. Students investigate how to select and use criteria to help decide which questions to include in a manageable survey and which are lower priority or should be left out.
This activity would strengthen learning in both Geography and Critical and Creative Thinking through introducing knowledge and skills to help students understand that criteria are used to help make decisions between competing ideas and that selection of criteria is affected by contexts, such as time-sensitive fieldwork (see Critical and Creative Thinking content description
VCCCTR028).
Learning activity idea: Students investigate the reasons for and effects of international migration to Australia and internal migration within Australia and China. As part of this investigation, students explore the contested meaning of concepts such as freedom, justice, and rights and responsibilities, and the extent they are and should be valued by different individuals and groups in reference to international and internal migration.
This activity would strengthen learning in both Geography and Ethical Capability through introducing criteria underpinning ethical concepts as a tool to help analyse the reasons for and effects of international migration, including the perspectives of different people and groups (see Ethical Capability content description
VCECU014).
Learning activity idea: Students investigate issues affecting the development of places and their impact on human wellbeing, and responses to these issues, drawing on a study from a developing country or region in Africa, South America or the Pacific Islands. As part this investigation, students consider initiatives by an international non-government organisation (NGO) to improve human wellbeing in the developing country or region, including analysing key intercultural relationships within the NGO and between the NGO and the local people; and analysing the way these relationships influence how responses to issues are identified and resolved.
This activity would strengthen learning in both Geography and Intercultural Capability through introducing knowledge and skills to identify and analyse the intercultural relationships that exist within the context of human wellbeing (see Intercultural Capability content description
VCICCB018).
For more resources to support the teaching of all four capabilities, see the individual capability resources webpages and
General resources for the capabilities