What is Geography about?
In conversation with
Louise Richards
Sam Wallace
Rebecca Sweney-McKee
Transcript below:
My hope as a passionate geographer and educator is that assessment is not going to be the priority and the focus for teaching and learning that happens in the classroom.
Yeah, that the significant learning will be the main crux of what's going on in the classroom and the assessment will simply fall out of that.
I like how we're going to be able to go broader, and deeper, and spend longer on things. That we're going to be able to interweave ideas. Out of that falls that aspect of assessment. It's going to take a back seat. It's been disheartening, over the last few years, where our geography is referred to in numbers. We talk about Standards. We talk about 2.1, 1.4. That geography, I feel, has been lost in that approach. Which is not the fault of the teacher by any means, but perhaps more the process and the structure of NCEA.
Those changes that we're looking at, I think are going to make a real difference. I think the students, the ākonga, are going to see a change in that approach as well. That they're going to have a more creative license to show their learning. How they go about their learning, a lot more collaborative, aromatawai sort of concepts coming through. That's going to be a big change for a lot of our ākonga.
I think the mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori is going to be totally explicit in the language of the Standards, the language of the significant learning. It is going to be front and centre for people to teach. That is exciting.
It's exciting, we had a meeting yesterday, the ākonga team came in. They said they were able to see themselves in the learning. That was a real defining point for me in the process. When the person said, I can see myself in your learning matrix. For me, that was exactly how we need to approach the teaching and learning that we do from now on.
I'm really excited about it. I think it's time. I can see how it's being embedded in everything that we're doing. Not just in the wording and the tasks. Like the pedagogy that we're looking at.
It's been awesome to think of different ways, being creative with how they can present their work, and talk about their experiences. I think with the way that we're trying to interweave everything as well in our learning matrix really reflects those principles, too.
For me being part of the SEG has been hugely rewarding. I feel it's a real privilege to work alongside some of my geography heroes, who before this I knew in name only, in emails, on publications and things.
But it's also been really rewarding to be part of the whole process. It's been amazing professional development for myself. It has been challenging. I don't think any of us will deny that. But what has been absolutely at the forefront for all of us has been our passion for the subject and for our learners.
For me mostly it's a terrifying experience. Because it's so important that we're representing our sector. We're responsible for getting it right.
The pilot scheme is going to be so important in making sure that it's all correct. It's not just the now. It's also thinking about as we move into the future. Will this stand the test of time. We're not just thinking about learners now in 2021. We're thinking long term, and that can be a challenge, definitely.
Be bold, be brave. Be open.
Yeah. Be willing to change. Look at the changes for the positives that are there. We have to go away from "this is the way I've always done things", "and it's always worked for me in the past". Thinking about, my job is to prepare my students to be good citizens of Aotearoa New Zealand. I think these changes we're making are going to allow that to happen.
Teachers need to be brave and bold enough to take that challenge on themselves. Because they're going to have to take on the challenge, we all have to work. They're not alone. No one is going to be alone, we are going to be well supported. We're going to ensure that teachers feel that support, and that they don't feel alone. That we are all here together as a community to support each other.
Subject-specific terms can be found in the glossary.
Geography is the study of place. Geography seeks to interpret the physical (and human) environment and how it changes over time: the past, the present, and the future. Ākonga and kaiako of Geography consider how time, space, place, and people are interrelated. Geography investigates the ways in which features are arranged on the Earth’s surface. Students of Geography study the patterns and processes that create these features.
Geography observes how differing opinions and perspectives on land and land management influence physical and human environments. Geography considers the impacts of people's behaviour and explores how different environmental worldviews are shaped. Features and patterns on the Earth’s surface have consequences for how people make decisions and their use of land and water.
Students of Geography explore the relationships and connections between people and their environments. Ākonga learn to think spatially and use maps, visual images, and inquiry processes, as well as geographical information systems (GIS), to obtain, present, and analyse information. Students of Geography explore multiple and multi-layered perspectives and knowledge systems such as mātauranga Māori, science knowledge systems, and Pacific values and knowledge systems.
Big Ideas and Significant Learning
This section outlines the meaning of, and connection between, the Big Ideas and Significant Learning, which together form the Learning Matrix. It then explains each Geography Big Idea.
The Social Sciences Learning Area curriculum, including its Whakataukī, informs this subject's Significant Learning – learning that is critical for ākonga to know, understand, and do in a subject by the end of each Curriculum Level. This covers knowledge, skills, competencies, and attitudes. It also includes level-appropriate contexts students should encounter in their education. The Learning Area's Whakataukī is:
Unuhia te rito o te harakeke kei whea te kōmako e kō? Whakatairangitia – rere ki uta, rere ki tai; ui mai koe ki ahau he aha te mea nui o te ao. Māku e kī atu he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!
Remove the heart of the flax bush and where will the kōmako sing? Proclaim it to the land, proclaim it to the sea; ask me, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” I will reply, “It is people, people, people!”
The subject's Big Ideas and Significant Learning are collated into a Learning Matrix for Curriculum Levels 6, 7, and 8. Teachers can use the Learning Matrix as a tool to construct learning programmes that cover all the ‘not to be missed’ learning in a subject. There is no prescribed order to the Learning Matrix within each level. A programme of learning might begin with a context that is relevant to the local area of the school or an idea that students are particularly interested in. This context or topic must relate to at least one Big Idea and may also link to other Big Ideas.
There are four Big Ideas in Geography. The nature of this subject as a discipline means aspects of Significant Learning often cross over multiple Big Ideas, and vice versa.
Horizontally across the Geography Learning Matrix is a kete of Geographic Practices, or skills. These inform how ākonga engage with the four Big Ideas sitting vertically down the Learning Matrix.
Geography Kete
Ākonga of Geography use a range of practices and skills to learn about places and environments. Weaving geographic practices into teaching and learning at different scales, times, and places is the ‘how’ of Geography. These can be found in the Geography Kete in the Learning Matrix. Ākonga of Geography engage in robust inquiry processes to explore environments.
Ākonga visit and explore environments to understand how landscapes are formed, engaging with Māori and Indigenous Pacific narratives of land formation to explain phenomena. Ākonga map these environments to show understanding of current patterns and to predict futures. Ākonga of Geography use data and knowledge from a variety of sources to understand how our world works. Ākonga also consider and create conceptual models and theories.
Students of Geography explore environments by utilising and integrating different knowledge systems. The Geography kete includes mātauranga Māori: recognising te ao Māori narratives in the formation of environments, and in how decisions might be made for the future through kaitiakitanga. Geographic practice is shaped by empirical evidence that is interpreted to make sense of places and environments. Acknowledgement and use of multiple knowledge systems is a strength of Geography in Aotearoa New Zealand, giving kaiako and ākonga extended and holistic knowledge.
Geographic practices are integrated as students develop their understanding of the Big Ideas.
Environments shape people and people shape environments
Our understanding of ourselves, our communities, and our cultures is inextricable from the land and waters. Students of Geography investigate these connections between place and space at local, regional, national, and global scales. In te ao Māori, tangata whenua are part of the natural world and consider key features of the land as living beings. This informs our geographic knowledge of places and spaces, and encourages people to assume the role of kaitiaki. Kaitiakitanga, is central to the Big Idea because it demands knowledge of relevant ture, and the identification, mitigation, and management of opportunities for land use and risks to te taiao.
Mana whenua and tūrangawaewae underpin and strengthen Geography, as a Social Science, in Aotearoa New Zealand.
As geographers, we investigate natural and cultural connections between place and space. People and resources flow between places, and connections are established. This relationship with the environment is dynamic and reciprocal: the environment shapes us as we shape the environment. Different environments may present opportunities or obstacles for people. It is the geographer’s role to know, understand, and map these key natural and cultural characteristics of environments.
Through such investigations we can make sense of the differences in how people use and interact with the natural world. We can also understand the effects and consequences of these interactions. For example, in conducting an examination of how our relationship with place and space has meaning for us (and may influence how we interact with environments), we may better grasp the motivations and causes behind the significant environmental changes that have occurred since the beginning of the Anthropocene (the current epoch).
Environments are shaped by natural processes
An understanding of how natural processes shape environments deepens our understanding of, and connection to, the whenua. This is critical to geographic thinking because it highlights how dynamic the environment is and how it is always in continuous change. The understanding of natural processes assists ākonga to know what phenomena are, how phenomena occur, and the impacts they have on tangata whenua.
Aotearoa New Zealand is subject to a diverse range of natural processes and phenomena which give rise to its many environments. It lies on plate boundaries and has a maritime climate. Given its current long, thin shape, most of Aotearoa New Zealand’s inhabitants live within 40 km of the coast. But the land has not always had this form.
Beyond its shores lies the Pacific and its Sea of Islands, which are home to many peoples. The geography of the Pacific is like none other on Earth; it is diverse, complex, and shaped by oceanic and volcanic processes. The relationship between the Pacific and Aotearoa New Zealand extends back a thousand years, and the relationship between the islands is older still, by way of the Pacific plate.
Natural environments have evolved spatially and temporally. Geographers research and investigate how the processes within and between the spheres of the Earth systems shape and affect the natural and cultural environment. Geographers study places across all scales: we study local, regional, national, and global environments.
Tikanga shapes the relationship between ngā tāngata and te taiao
Tikanga is correct procedure and custom. In Geography, it can refer to the indigenous knowledge that we can draw on to regenerate and protect the natural world. Tikanga is a te ao Māori concept that may refer to indigenous best practice, and land and sea management and protection, throughout the world and in Aotearoa New Zealand. The relationship that ngā tāngata have with te taiao (including land and waters) is shaped by tikanga – by the protocols we employ when tending to the world around us.
All things in life are interrelated and are woven into the universe. Therefore, the decisions of all people impact the environment. A holistic and multi-generational worldview can help us as geographers to explore sustainable practices and to protect our natural and cultural resources.
Tikanga, in Geography, includes kaitiakitanga and a holistic approach to interaction with, and enjoyment of, the land. Practising kaitiakitanga ensures control and care, sustainable use and regeneration, and protection of natural and cultural resources. By looking to mātauranga Māori geographic practices we can consider our possible, probable, and preferred futures from an enriched vantage point.
Perspectives and power influence environments
Geography analyses and considers the consequences of differences in perspective and power and how these may influence the natural and cultural environment. Students of Geography recognise that diverse perspectives influence decision making.
Power and privilege can influence and shape change. Students of Geography can become agents of social change by exploring how differences in perspective and power influence processes, places, and people. Geographers make decisions on how communities and groups should act for a better future, through frameworks, models, and social and environmental policy. These decisions are made at a range of scales and across many locations. We recognise also that the relationship between people and the land has been impacted by colonisation and the actions and inactions stemming from Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Key Competencies in Geography
Learning in Geography provides meaningful contexts for developing Key Competencies from The New Zealand Curriculum. These Key Competencies are woven through, and embedded in, the Big Ideas and Significant Learning. Each discipline has its own processes, practices, and ways of knowing and interpreting meaning.
Geography provides learners with opportunities to develop critical and relational thinking, and temporal and spatial awareness. Students of Geography will develop understanding of geographic skills, and will explore different environmental perspectives and worldviews.
Thinking
Students of Geography will:
- use critical thinking to make informed decisions, judgements, and evaluations of land usage
- consider possible, probable, and preferred geographic futures
- make connections between natural and cultural environments, and the way environments relate to each other
- tease out cause and effect connections in physical and human environments
- view and reflect on environments through a tikanga and kaitiakitanga lens
- understand the relationship between geography and indigenous knowledges
- acknowledge global geographic practices and processes, and consider these within the idea that environments shape people and people shape environments
- use relational thinking to analyse how places are shaped, often producing unequal resource distribution
- consider differences in decision-making within the framework of place and space
- understand differences in development and progress, and how people use and interact with the physical world
- learn to collaborate with others and develop self-management skills, such as during fieldwork
- think creatively to consider the future of environments and natural features
- consider differing courses of action to solve geographic challenges facing people.
Using language, symbols, and texts
Students of Geography will:
- use language, symbols, and text to create, read, and understand maps (including Geographic Information Systems (GIS)), graphs, visuals, tables, and texts
- develop spatial and temporal awareness
- communicate ideas using geographic terminology
- use maps to process information
- use data to draw conclusions about processes that shape natural and cultural environments.
Relating to others
Students of Geography will:
- use inquiry processes and collect data in groups
- work with others to identify geographic solutions and possibilities
- follow and work with communities at the frontline of climate change
- understand and respect Māori relationships with place and space as fundamental to the discipline of geography in Aotearoa New Zealand
- develop an awareness of different geographical imaginations
- understand their own biases and those of others
- expand their worldview through knowledge of local to global geography
- question geographic perspectives and decision-making and how these impact people, place, and environments.
Managing self
Students of Geography will:
- use fieldwork and research to manage themselves effectively while collecting, analysing, presenting, concluding, and evaluating data and geographic information
- reflect on skills and knowledge systems to add to their geography kete
- collect primary data through group work to learn from other students and engage with other worldviews
- understand that individuals, communities, and groups have differing views of land management, sustainability, and regeneration.
Participating and contributing
Students of Geography will:
- engage in debate and discussion on geographic questions and problems
- endeavour to make partnerships, relationships, and connections to explore differing geographic understandings
- lead or be part of climate activism and environmental advocacy movements
- raise awareness of natural and cultural geographic changes through presentations, publications, and other platforms for discussion
- understand practices of kaitiakitanga as an inextricable part of their discipline as they contribute to the world around them.
This section of The New Zealand Curriculum Online offers specific guidance to school leaders and teachers on integrating the Key Competencies into the daily activities of the school and its Teaching and Learning Programmes.
Connections
Geography has particularly close links with History, Education for Sustainability, Biology, Agricultural and Horticultural Science, Earth Sciences, senior Social Studies, Sociology, Tourism, Environment for Learning, and Economics.
Learning Pathway
Whatever level that ākonga start studying, Geography offers students the opportunity to learn a range of skills and knowledge that they can apply in their everyday lives. Most school Geography programmes involve students in field trips where they explore their natural and cultural environments beyond the school gate.
Beyond school, Geography can be a pathway to tertiary education and a broad range of careers. At tertiary level students might concentrate on Physical Geography or Cultural Geography or other related subjects such as Geology. Ākonga with a base in Geography can use their knowledge to enrich a career in the arts, law, management, archaeology, and economics.
There are many types of positions that fit well with Geography qualifications. A Geography job is any work that focuses on location.
Geographers work in a wide range of fields, from:
- urban and regional planning
- land management
- industrial location and marketing
- environmental monitoring and resource management
- community development at home and abroad
- as researchers, analysts, consultants, technologists and planners.
The ability to work with data is becoming increasingly important in geography, due, in large part, to technological advances. For example, much of our information about where things are located comes from satellites that continuously beam coordinates to global positioning devices on Earth.
Government and commercial satellites greatly increase the accuracy and amount of geographic data available. At the same time, new Geographic Information System (GIS) software can process those data with greater speed and flexibility. This technology creates new career possibilities for people who understand Geography and who can process and use geographic information.
A few Geography jobs are based almost entirely on the study of location. Remote sensing specialists, photogrammetrists, and surveyors gather data about where things are on Earth. GIS analysts review these data and sometimes use them to make maps. And planners help to determine where buildings and roads should be located.
Many maps rely on photographs or other data taken from airplanes, jets, and satellites. Remote sensing specialists oversee the collection of this information and interpret satellite images. Photogrammetrists interpret the more detailed data from jets and planes.
Introduction to Sample Course Outlines
Sample Course Outlines are being produced to help teachers and schools understand the new NCEA Learning and Assessment Matrices. Examples of how a year-long Geography course could be constructed using the new Learning and Assessment Matrices are provided here. They are indicative only and do not mandate any particular context or approach.
More detailed sample Teaching and Learning Programmes will be developed during piloting.
Assessment Matrix
Conditions of Assessment for internally assessed standards
This section provides guidelines for assessment against internally assessed Standards. Guidance is provided on:
- appropriate ways of, and conditions for, gathering evidence
- ensuring that evidence is authentic
- any other relevant advice specific to an Achievement Standard.
NB: Information on additional generic guidance on assessment practice in schools is published on the NZQA website. It would be useful to read in conjunction with these Conditions of Assessment.
The school's Assessment Policy and Conditions of Assessment must be consistent with the Assessment Rules for Schools With Consent to Assess. These rules will be updated during the NCEA review. This link includes guidance for managing internal moderation and the collection of evidence.
For all Achievement Standards
Internal assessment provides considerable flexibility in the collection of evidence. Evidence can be collected in different ways to suit a range of teaching and learning styles, and a range of contexts. Care needs to be taken to offer students opportunities to present their best evidence against the Standard(s) that are free from unnecessary constraints.
It is recommended that the design of assessment reflects and reinforces the ways students have been learning. Collection of evidence for the internally assessed Standards could include, but is not restricted to, an extended task, an investigation, digital evidence (such as recorded interviews, blogs, photographs or film), or a portfolio of evidence.
It is also recommended that the collection of evidence for internally assessed Standards should not use the same method that is used for any external Standards in a course, particularly if that method is using a time-bound written examination. This could unfairly disadvantage students who do not perform well under these conditions.
A separate assessment event is not needed for each Standard. Often assessment can be integrated into one activity that collects evidence towards two or three different Standards from a programme of learning. Evidence can also be collected over time from a range of linked activities (for example, in a portfolio). This approach can also ease the assessment workload for both students and teachers.
Effective assessment should suit the nature of the learning being assessed, provide opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students, and be valid and fair.
Authenticity of student evidence needs to be assured regardless of the method of collecting evidence. This needs to be in line with school policy. For example: an investigation carried out over several sessions could include teacher observations or the use of milestones such as a meeting with the student, a journal, or photographic entries recording progress etc.
Teachers may:
- determine the timing of the assessment period. This should be based on the anticipated length of time the assessment task should take to be completed in class time
- provide a geographic environment for ākonga, and
- provide some assessment resources with ākonga being encouraged to provide additional resource material or use evidence gathered during learning. This resource material may include specific examples from alternative contexts.
Ākonga may:
- work on their assessment in and out of class time, over the assessment period specified by the teacher
- present their evidence for assessment in any medium that allows them to demonstrate their understanding of the spatial distribution of phenomena in the studied environment
- work collaboratively in groups with planning, gathering, and sharing of additional resource material and in the discussion of spatial distribution, however their submitted response must represent own work.
If providing a written response, it should be between 750-800 words, while oral responses should be between 3-4 minutes in length.
Ensuring Authenticity of Evidence
If students present their evidence digitally, through a website, video, or blog, it is best to disable access to this after marking and moderation have occurred. This helps to ensure that students across the country cannot plagiarise the work or ideas of those who have already completed the assessment for this Achievement Standard.
Teachers should:
- have students sign authenticity forms to verify it is their own work
- monitor student progress closely and familiarise themselves with their evolving work. This might be carried out using checkpoints.
- use oral questioning to confirm a student's understanding if doubts over the authenticity of the student's work arise.
Collection of Evidence
This Achievement Standard focuses on the use of data rather than the collection of it. In the case of fieldwork collection, strict teacher supervision is required to ensure a degree of consistency and then this data may therefore be shared. It is important that all students use the same data set.
Teachers may:
- provide a set of data for students to use for assessment purposes
- determine the timing of the assessment period. This should be based on the anticipated length of time the assessment task should take to be able to be completed in class time.
Ākonga may:
- work on their assessment in and out of class time, over the assessment period specified by the teacher
- present their evidence for assessment in any medium that allows them to demonstrate their understanding of an environment using data
- work collaboratively in groups with planning, collection of evidence (if fieldwork) and in the discussion of data interpretation however their submitted response must represent own work.
If providing a written responses it should be between 750-800 words, while oral responses should be between 3-4 minutes in length.
Ensuring Authenticity of Evidence
If students present their evidence digitally, through a website, video, or blog, it is best to disable access to this after marking and moderation have occurred. This helps to ensure that students across the country cannot plagiarise the work or ideas of other those who have already completed the assessment for this Achievement Standard.
Teachers should:
- have students sign authenticity forms to verify it is their own work
- monitor student progress closely
- use oral questioning to confirm a student's understanding, if doubts over the authenticity of the student's work arise.