Geographical skills

The following skills are essential to geographical inquiry. Students use geographical skills to develop their knowledge and understanding of geographical concepts, such as interconnection and sustainability, within a specific context. Developing and extending their range of geographical skills enables students to analyse change and make recommendations for improvements to human and physical environments. These skills are integrated into the learning and assessment requirements of Stage 2 Geography.

Students develop and use a range of geographical skills, including:

• develop a hypothesis or inquiry question appropriate for fieldwork
• plan and select appropriate fieldwork and data-collection techniques
• collect and record fieldwork data, using techniques such as observation and recording, measuring, counting, testing, sketching and annotating, photography, interviewing, mapping, and surveying
• evaluate the usefulness and accuracy of fieldwork techniques
• evaluate the limitations of data collected
• choose and interpret secondary sources of data and information
• use maps and spatial technologies (latitudes, longitudes, grid references, legends or keys, directions, and contours)
• interpret images, including aerial, oblique, and ground photographs, and satellite images
• understand and apply scale (enlargement, reduction, area, and distance)
• analyse and interpret statistics, fieldwork data, maps, profiles, cross-sections, and transects
• identify and analyse patterns and trends, infer relationships, and make predictions
• communicate geographical information, using visual representations such as tables, graphs, diagrams, sketches, photographs, and maps
• make recommendations, form conclusions, and solve problems
• use subject-specific terminology
• acknowledge sources appropriately.