Stage 2 Geography - Full Year (20 Credits)

Topic 1: Globalisation

• Patterns of globalisation and how globalisation is measured.

• Factors influencing globalisation and localisation.

• finance and investment flows, such as investment by multinational companies and foreign governments, foreign aid patterns, labour flows and remittances, ‘buy local’ initiatives

• technology, such as growth of the Internet, information flows, internet commerce, connections to the local community

• transport, such as time–space compression, expansion of shipping and air networks, public transport, lifestyle choices.

 Topic 2: Transforming Global Inequality

• indicators used to measure global inequality

• global patterns of inequality

• global economic power structures, multinational companies, and corporate responsibility

• government, non-government organisation (NGO), community, and corporate responses to global inequality.

• access to health care, education and family planning

Topic 3: Climate Change

• the enhanced greenhouse effect and key causes

• impacts and responses to global warming.

• environmental consequences, such as atmospheric and biological hazards, desertification, and sea-level rise

• socioeconomic consequences, such as increasing numbers of environmental refugees (including Indigenous communities), lifestyle changes, and the rising cost of food

• political and community responses, such as carbon trading, energy-policy development, international cooperation, buying local products, and recycling

Topic 4: Population change

• changing birth and death rates

• increased life expectancy and ageing

• changing population structures

• consequences of changing population structures

• economic and sociocultural factors influencing population trends

• contemporary case studies of population trends in economically developed countries and economically developing countries.

Topic 5. Migration

• global distribution of the human population

• types of migration within countries and between countries

• causes of migration, including push and pull factors

• the impacts of migration at origin and destination

• community and political responses to the voluntary and forced movement of people

Topic 6. Ecosystems

• characteristics of ecosystems and ecosystem functions, including the interconnections between water, soil, atmosphere, vegetation, and other living things

• resources provided by ecosystems, including food, water, wood, and medicines

• services provided by ecosystems, including the regulation of climate, natural hazard mitigation, water purification, nutrient cycling, and erosion control

• the impacts of people on ecosystems, including land-cover changes, land degradation, and biodiversity loss

Topic 7. The Ecological Footprint

• an ecological footprint and how it is measured

• the relationship between population change, resource use, biocapacity, biodiversity, sustainability, and ecological footprints

• analysis of variation of ecological footprints between countries

• contemporary case studies of strategies to reduce the ecological footprint of people and improve sustainability of ecosystems.

Topic 8. Fieldwork

Students undertake independent fieldwork on a local topic or issue of personal interest. Fieldwork topics must be independently chosen, have a geographical context, and be posed as a question or hypothesis.

The selected topic or issue should enable students to use a range of fieldwork techniques to collect primary data. Students integrate and communicate the data in a variety of spatial and graphical presentations, and analyse their findings.