HaSS

• Geographers use a range of key concepts and skills to answer questions about the world around us
• Space:

  • Location: where things are located on the Earth's surface
  • Absolute location of Kalgoorlie: exact location
  • Relative location of Kalgoorlie: approximately 600km north-east of Perth
  • Spatial distribution: shapes and patterns in which things are arranged on the Earth's surface, such as linear, clustered, or scattered distribution
  • Organisation: how and why things are managed on the Earth's surface by people
• Place:

  • Places are parts of the Earth's surface identified and given meaning by people
  • Places are given meaning based on cultural, spiritual, aesthetic, and economic significance
• Interconnection:

  • Geographers use the concept of interconnection to understand links between places and people
  • Links can be natural processes (e.g., water cycle) or human activities (e.g., movement of people, production and trade of goods and services)
• Change:

  • Using time to understand a place, environment, spatial pattern, or geographical problem
  • Change can result from natural forces or human activity
  • Changes occur at different levels, rates, and can have positive or negative consequences
• Environment:

  • Natural environments: soils, rocks, climate, plants, and animals untouched by humans
  • Built/human environments: altered by humans, include cities, towns, farmland
  • Environment consists of living and non-living components and their interrelationships
• Sustainability:

  • Capacity of the environment to support lives of current and future generations
  • Developing ways to use and manage earth's resources responsibly for future sustainability
  • Types of environmental resources: non-renewable, renewable, managed, continuous
• Scale:

  • Examining geographical phenomena and problems at different spatial levels
  • Range of scales: local, regional, national, international, global