Geography is the study of physical and human environments from a spatial perspective. It provides students with the knowledge and skills to observe and describe places on the surface of the Earth and to analyse and provide explanations from a spatial perspective of human and physical phenomena and their complex interactions. Students’ evolving understanding of their world provides a basis for evaluating strategies for the sustainable use and management of the world’s resources.
Geographers use a number of spatial concepts (such as location, distribution, spatial interaction and scale) as tools to help them to investigate, interpret and explain patterns on the surface of the Earth and the processes that created them. These spatial concepts provide a unique conceptual structure and framework of ideas for a geographic investigation of phenomena and provide the key to determining measures of the spatial variation between places. The essence of the Geography domain is that it is an inquiry-based approach which focuses on questions of what, where, how, why, what impact, what ought.
The fundamental tool of geography is the map, and in a world where over 75 per cent of data is referenced spatially to a location, geographic understanding is a vital skill. The essential skills students develop in Geography are the ability to:
