ECU103: Geography for Schools

Weeks 4 and 5: Geographical Skills and Practice 2 Data collection, Organising and analysing geo-information, Fieldwork, the A. Curriculum, Assignments 1&2 prep

See handouts for Unit Overview and Assignment info

Assignment 1: Discussion and contribution to mini-newspaper on Global Geographic IssuesAssignment 2: Plan a Geo-historical inquiryAssignment 3: Conduct a Geo-historical inquiryStudy Plan

Week 1: What is Geography? Australia’s Place in the World; Geographic Issues; the Australian Curriculum Week 2: Geographical Skills and Practice 1 : 3 stages of geographic enquiry and skills; S1: Asking geographic questions, S2:

Acquiring geographic information- using maps and understanding geometry Weeks 4 & 5: Geographical Skills and Practice 2: S2: Acquiring geographic information- data collection; S3: Organising and

analysing geographic information Week 6 & 7: Geography in Action 1: Applying geographic skills at a study site Weeks 8 & 9: Geography in Action 2: Mapping human/environmental interaction

Session 1: Acquiring geographic information: Data collection to investigate a spatial pattern, relationship or issue

Geographic Inquiry: Geographic Skills Review and Extension

See the ppt and Assignment 2 material (assignment info, writing template and assessment rubric)

Sl 6: how could these questions apply to your geographic topic?Sl7: What do these terms mean in relation to your geographic topic?Sl8: Remember these questions from last session, and the data that could

be collected? Which would be the hardest to collect data for?Sl10: We’ll be talking today about skills 2 and 3: acquiring and organising geographic information and you’ll start to PLAN (not do) the collection and organisation of your data

Primary and Secondary Data:

1. Where and when have you come across the word ‘data’: what has it meant in that context?2. Some definitions/descriptions of data:

information that can take any number of forms a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables individual pieces of information transmittable and storable information’ data is measured, collected, reported and analysed data is visualised and communicated using graphs, images or other analysis tools.

? Which do you find most useful and why?

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Data – Information - Knowledge – Understanding – WisdomRemember the ‘Right here. Right now.’ Video??

This also links to: a) Dimensions of Learning 3 stages of learning: acquiring and integrating knowledge; refining and extending knowledge; using knowledge meaningfully; b) SOLO taxonomy: pre-structural, uni-structural, multi-structural, relational, extended abstract understanding https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwirx7PRpejPAhUO52MKHdbbB5AQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fshaunhawthorne%2Fsolo-taxonomy-examples%2F&psig=AFQjCNHLzDFPcOLAis78xAKXVetmVgBarQ&ust=1477015493451500&cad=rjt

Data only becomes information suitable for making decisions or developing understanding once it has been organised and analysed in some way.

When someone has spent time combining information on a particular subject, they can be said to have knowledge of that subject.

Understanding is when the connections between the different pieces of information, and sections of knowledge become even more and link beyond the subject itself.

What do you think wisdom is?

Primary and Secondary Geographic Data: what guesses/ideas do you have about what these two types of data might be, based on your understanding of the words primary and secondary in different contexts?

Primary Data

Primary Geographic Data is collected BY YOU during field work and can be based on either measurement (quantitative) or observations (qualitative).

Primary data collected at a field site forms the basis for any geographic inquiry and must provide enough information to enable interpretation and analysis. Geography uses some of the terms you may be familiar with from other disciplines (for example History) and some of the techniques and skills of others (for example Science). For this reason Geography departments are sometimes found in science faculties and sometimes in humanities.

Quantitative and Qualitative Data

Have a guess at what kinds of data might be ‘quant’ and what might be ‘qual’, again based on your knowledge of the morphemes in the words.

The method of field collection can certainly be quite scientific, particularly if you are collecting primary quantitative data (measurements) but it can also be more subjective as in qualitative data (observations and interviews).

Whether you use primarily quantitative or qualitative data depends on the aim of your fieldwork questions.

Quantitative data is collected through measurement and can include any of the following:

number of species within a given areas (can be animal or plant) number of birds visiting a certain tree or feeder number of tourists interacting with a natural or cultural environment changes in width of beach between tides at a time of year or season distance travelled between one specimen of interest and another (e.g. distance between two local creeks

and how much this can change over the year or between seasons)

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There are many other examples and more will be provided in the context of the sample questions outlined previously.

Qualitative data is collected through observation or subjective judgement when you are at a field site so no measurement is involved, it can include any of the following:

sketches of the field site written observations of what you see, hear, smell and sense at a field site Experience at the field site/interactions interviews e.g. interviewing people about their attitudes to geographic issues such as genetic engineering of

food crops, deforestation, asylum seekers and refugees (all from the geographic perspective).

The advantages of primary data include that it is collected with a particular geographic question in mind and so data collection is designed for purpose. For example, if you conduct a survey of attitudes to genetic engineering of food crops the geographer can design the survey to address that issue and customise for the context of the research participants.

Secondary data

Secondary geographic data is information collected by someone else. It includes maps, satellite imagery and aerial photos that have been collected for different purposes but can be applied to multiple uses. A secondary data source may be in written, statistical (numbers) or mapped forms. It may supplement primary data but must only play a small part in the investigation. All secondary data must be referenced according to APA standard referencing in your Assignment.

Whether a geographer uses mostly primary or secondary data is often dependent on their funding, time and topic. Geographers who study global phenomena often depend on secondary data due to the scale they are working with. Designing and collecting data at a global scale is costly in time and money and it is effective to use secondary data.

A day of fieldwork can only tell you what the place was like on that day. By using secondary data you can get round that problem.

Types of Data Collection in Geography1. Physical measurement - quantitative data, primary example would be counting size or number of a

phenomena in your local area, secondary example would be taking measurements from maps, remote sensing imagery or aerial photos. Physical measurement records physical properties of the earth and includes - size, number, temperature, physical make-up, moisture content, texture and hardness, reflectance and translucence, air speed and air pressure (amongst other things). Physical measurement can even be physical traces left behind by humans or other animals and plants. Examples include animal scats, human middens, house designs, crop patterns, farming patterns, deforestation and harvesting.

2. Observation of behaviour - Geographers often observe human behaviour, bio geographers observe animal behaviour, using direct observation techniques or recording media and then coding the behaviours into themes or categories. This type of data collection is generally qualitative but quantitative measures can be applied, for example, number of times a behaviour is observed to occur.

3. Archives - this use of secondary data uses existing resources such as financial records, births, population registers, newspaper stories, museum records ad other historical documents.

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4. Explicit reports are surveys and interviews and as such are usually primary data sets except where you access a survey collected for other or general purposes, for example Australian Bureau of Statistics census and other data.

5. Modelling - this usually involves using a Geographic Information System to model both physical and cultural geographical phenomena. Modelling is applied to some of the 'bigger' geographic issues such as climate change, sea level rises but is also commonly applied in the mining industry. (You won’t be using modelling)

Session 2 organising and analysing geographic data

Organising Geographic DataIt is essential to organise data in such a way that supports interpretation and

analysis.

Maps display data in such a way that you can interpret distances and size (scale), direction, location and other information through the legend. While a map may not be the most appropriate way to display all data you collect, generally geographic data is at some point represented in a map to provide geographic reference to the phenomena being studied.

Other ways to organise geographic data include charts, written or oral summaries, graphs, diagrams and tables.

For an overview of some of the ways to organise geographic data while doing fieldwork click here for information about organising the data as you gather it (on ‘booking sheets’) and here for examples of bar charts, pie charts, scattergrapsh and kite diagrams as ways of organising the data after you’ve gathered it.

In recent years use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) is common to collect, store, organise and display geographic data. These information systems are usually relational databases that also have a spatial element so they are able to store spatial information with links to associated data. This helps you to more easily see, analyse and understand patterns and relationships in the data

You can download GIS apps for your smartphone. Here’s a review of five apps for the iPhone: https://www.gislounge.com/five-gis-and-map-apps-iphone/

Once again, our friends at National Geographic provide good information on GIS. http://nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/geographic-information-system-gis/

There are many advantages to storing and organising data in a GIS, these include:

1. You can display and analyse multiple layers of information (physical, biological and human).

2. Storage space is minimal compared to traditional maps and associated paper records

3. Data of various types can be stored and analysed - spatial, quantitative, qualitative, physical, cultural - all can be cross referenced and analysed quickly and efficiently.

Some excellent examples of using GIS in the classroom such as this one

http://nationalgeographic.org/education/multimedia/interactive/maps-tools-gis-action/

are also available at the National Geographic website.

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Analysing Geographic Information What is analysis (from the ppt) ? What complex reasoning skills and graphic organisers could you use to help

you do this analysis?

Geographers identify and analyse data stored in maps, tables, charts and graphs whether in the GIS environment or not.

Geographers look…

for patterns:

for relationships:

to predict:

to infer:

to evaluate:

to synthesise:

… from their geographic information.

What do each of these terms mean? Which types of analysis do you think you’ll be doing in your inquiry and how?

Often statistical analysis of numbers (averages etc) is used to describe data, identify trends, sequences, correlations and relationships.

Spatial distributions are complex so we tend to cluster data and so to an extent generalise information within an area or region.

Session 3: Applying Geographic Skills at a Study site:

Field work is an important part of learning geography since it provides opportunity to:

integrate theory and practice through application and inquiry acquire skills to collect primary data determine secondary data sources to support primary data learn to apply skills and perspectives to geographic investigation

The first part of the worksheet asks you to prepare a map of the study area, to be completed after you’ve walked the area to be mapped. The strategies used to prepare this map could be adapted by you to prepare a map of the study area for assignment 2 and 3. You could also choose to use a map generated online (this will be covered in the next sections).

THINK: Why do you think it would be important to walk a path or in an area before preparing the map?

Geographical thinking is about everyday lives, the way you move around the world, interact with media and multimedia and your local environment. Our worlds exist in the context of time and space so it is important to think about our interactions in temporal and spatial terms. This is geography.

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Week 4 Workshop Sessions

Session 1: The Australian Curriculum: Geography, History and HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences)

1: Watch this video: Geography: What is it for?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgGb8BM2TBk

Source analysis: Who made it? For what purpose? How reliable is the information provided?

Content analysis: What are the main points it makes? How are these points similar and different to what you’ve learned about so far about the thinking ‘geographically’ is, the 3 geographic systems, the geographic perspective

2: Now go online and look at the HASS curriculum. What does HASS stand for? Why have geography and history been combined? What do they have in common? How are they different?

Find the curriculum here: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/humanities-and-social-sciences/hass/curriculum/f-10?layout=1

Note there are two content strands to help students THINK GEOGRAPHICALLY:

Geographical knowledge and understanding: Geographical Inquiry

Look in the Geographical knowledge and understanding strand across the different year levels:

What are the key concepts for developing understanding in Years F-2? What is added in Yr 3? What else is added in Yr 4, and in Yr 5?

Use the powerpoint handout from Week 1 to help you understand the 7 key concepts of primary school geography: place, space, environment, interconnection, sustainability, scale and change

What else do you notice about what changes in the content between Year 3 and Year 6 in this strand? Look at the 3 different view options, in the top right hand corner: where might each of the three views be

helpful, at different stages, perhaps,when planning for the teaching of geography?

In your class, ie Transition, Yr 5, Yr 6: What is in the Geographical knoweldge and understanding strands and the Inquiry strand for your year

level? What kinds of geographic concepts and knowledge areas could you then cover with your class? What kinds of class inquiry could you do?

Session 2:

Work on your global issues article. Ensure you have analysed at least two perspectives on your issue by doing the following:.

Reading: Dimensions of Learning, Dimension 3, ANALYSING PERSPECTIVES (pp 178-182). What does the reasoning (or logical thinking) process of ‘analysing perspectives’ involve?

What are the specific 4 steps? How might you use this with your students in class (in English, or Maths, or another subject or setting, e.g. behaviour?

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Follow the steps for ‘analysing perspectives’ for your global issues.

Complete final copy of Geo-global issues article for mini-newspaper.

Session 3:

Complete first stages of Assignment 2: Plan a geo-historic inquiry, comprising:

background to study, geo-historic question, investigating varying cultural perceptions of the land and land use, primary and secondary data

Refer to the Assignment 2 template and Week 2 and 3 Learning Materials for support. If you have completed this, go further with the Assignment 2 template and complete the sections on

Analyse data Map Communicate results

Independent Study:

1: Complete final copy of Geo-global issues article for mini-newspaper

2: Complete first stages of Assignment 2: Plan a geo-historic inquiry, comprising:

background to study, geo-historic question, investigating varying cultural perceptions of the land and land use, primary and secondary data

Refer to the Assignment 2 template and Week 2 and 3 Learning Materials for support. If you have completed this, go further with the Assignment 2 template and complete the sections on

Analyse data Map Communicate results

3: Talk to your mentor teacher about what you’ve learnt from your year level’s HASS curriculum. Discuss together and decide on a geographical understanding activity or inquiry activity you can plan together and undertake with the class.

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