DECD ACIO HASS Workshop on 22 July 2015

Image above: The four wheels of HASS.

*** 22 July Session PowerPoint

Related sites to Geogaction blog 
Spatialworlds
GeogSpace
AC History Units
Geogaction
DECD Learning Resources for Australian Curriculum
DECD Achievement Standards Charts 
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Legal Education Teachers Association SA (LETASA)
Business Educators Australia

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@sa.gov.au


* The Australian Curriculum Portal

A selection of HASS resources and links

 * Being a Citizen: a resource developed by AGTA

 * South Australian Parliament teaching resources

 * DECD Australian Curriculum Implementation guidelines

* Discovering Democracy resources 

* Parliamentary Education Office resources

* GeogSpace: the resource from AGTA and Education Services Australia (ESA) to support the Australian Curriculum: Geography 

* AC History Units: the resource from HTAA and Education Services Australia (ESA) to support the Australian Curriculum: History

* DECD Australian Curriculum: HASS resources 

The DECD "Making the Australian Curriculum work for us' resource has been designed  to support the teaching and learning of the Australian Curriculum: HASS.

As you can see below the resource to date includes a creative animation, broadsheets on the curriculum, sound bites and 'talking heads'.

The Story of the learning areas animation. An excellent animation on 'What is Geography for'. 

The geography curriculum, year by year, all on one page in the Learning Area Explorer.

Bringing it to life resource (BitL) geography

The Sound bites 

* Achievement Standards Chart and activities for HASS from DECD 

 Assessment activities are at:

http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/assessment/default.asp?navgrp=Leader


The RSLSA Virtual War Memorial

A great resource for commemoration activities, historical research and work on Australian identity in the Civics and Citizenship curriculum.

* The 2015 Eden Prize

In the spirit of the original bequest, students are asked to create a persuasive text of no more than 800 words that answers the question:

What can governments do to make the world a better and happier place?

This year's essay question is inspired by the introduction of the Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship.

Prizes

• First Prize: $1250
• Second Prize: $750
• Third Prize: $500

The geography of economics and the economics of geography

                                                                                         Copyright: Malcolm McInerney 2015

Image above: Thinking economically through the economic concepts of the Australian Curriculum: Economics and Business (not official ACARA work)

Related sites to Humsteach blog 
Spatialworlds
Australian Curriculum Portal
GeogSpace
AC History Units
Geogaction
DECD Learning Resources for Australian Curriculum
DECD Achievement Standards Charts 
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Legal Education Teachers Association SA (LETASA)
Business Educators Australia

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@sa.gov.au


Economics in geography

When writing the geography curriculum numerous discussions occurred on the need to have a commensurate amount of economic geography in the curriculum.  Lead writer Alaric Maude, a strong advocate for the economic branch of geography, highlighted the importance of students gaining an understanding of the economic aspect when studying geographical issues, events and phenomenon.  Whilst some may think economics is not geography, it certainly is a critical component of geographical thinking, whether studying development, industry, environmental protection, energy etc - in fact almost everything a geographer explores has an economic aspect. With the subject of Economics and Business as part of the HASS learning area it is certainly opportune to mention the integration possibilities of economics with the geography curriculum.  

 An Economics and Business Concept Wheel (not official ACARA work)

Just as is the case with the Geography curriculum, seven concepts can be identified as the 'thinking' core of the Australian Curriculum: Economics and Business. The concepts of Resources, Consumerism, Market, Globalisation, Choice, Work and Opportunity (and their embedded concepts as shown in the wheel below) can be seen throughout the Economics and Business curriculum and certainly resonate with the economic sustainability thinking in the geography curriculum. Whilst a work in progress and not official ACARA work, teachers are finding that the concept wheel below is an interesting way to conceptualise the Australian Curriculum: Economics and Business and to integrate the economics curriculum into the geography curriculum as they develop their learning programs. 

                                                                                                      Copyright: Malcolm McInerney 2015


At this stage it is worth looking at a definition of economic geography and see the synergy between economics and geography and that when thinking geographically it is impossible to not think economically.


Economic geography is the study of the location, distribution and spatial organization of economic activities across the world. .Economic geography has taken a variety of approaches to many different subject matters, including but not limited to the location of industries, economies of agglomeration (also known as "linkages"), transportation, international trade, development, real estate, gentrification, ethnic economies, gendered economies, core-periphery theory, the economics of urban form, the relationship between the environment and the economy (tying into a long history of geographers studying culture-environment interaction), and globalisation.

The Geography and Economics synergy
Whilst on about economics and geography the following information/resources are some good examples of how we must talk about geography when talking economics and vice versa.

* The top global economies: the world is a-changing

Just to get thinking going and elaborate my economic ignorance, this article from the Bloomberg Business site on the 20  fastest growing economies in 2015 was worth showcasing.

 The the 20  fastest growing economies in 2015


Summary of information:
Emerging markets in Asia and Africa still reign supreme: They're at the top of global growth projections over the next two years.
The world is expected to grow 3.2 percent in 2015 and 3.7 percent next year after expanding 3.3 percent in each of the past two years, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. China, the Philippines, Kenya, India and Indonesia, which together make up about 16 percent of global gross domestic product, are all forecast to grow more than 5 percent in 2015.
By comparison, the U.S. and U.K., which combined account for about a quarter of global growth, are expected to grow 3.1 percent and 2.6 percent this year, respectively. The euro area probably will expand just 1.2 percent as European Central Bank President Mario

China still remains the fastest-growing G-20 nation, even though the Asian economy is no longer expanding at the pace it did a few years ago. China's economy grew 7.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 from a year earlier, and is expected to slow to 7 percent in 2015.
To counter that slowdown, People's Bank of China policy makers are boosting monetary stimulus. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate in November for the first time since 2012. This month officials lowered by 50 basis points the deposit reserve ratio, which is the amount of reserves that banks need to keep on hand.
Nigeria, Africa's largest economy, is projected to expand 4.9 percent this year, according to the Bloomberg survey. Kenya will probably grow 6 percent in 2015, even as unemployment and poverty remain stubbornly high, with over 40 percent of Kenyans living below the poverty line.
U.S. growth forecasts for 2015 are coalescing around 3 percent even as the dollar soars to its highest level in more than a decade. As growth picks up, the Federal Reserve is weighing whether to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006. Their benchmark federal funds rate has remained near zero since December 2008.

* The other side of the coin - The economics of poverty
 
The poverty education website at http://www.povertyeducation.org is a great resource to show the economic diversity across the glob and try to understand and explain the variance

The matter of Muriel

Image above: A picture of Muriel in 1909

Related sites to Humsteach blog 
Spatialworlds
Australian Curriculum Portal
GeogSpace
AC History Units
Geogaction
DECD Learning Resources for Australian Curriculum
DECD Achievement Standards Charts 
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Legal Education Teachers Association SA (LETASA)
Business Educators Australia

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@sa.gov.au

A story of a South Australian that must be told: a story about standing up for rights and taking on the power of parliament.

Before the past few years very few people in Australia knew about Muriel Matters, a leading suffragette from the last century. This wrong is being righted recently, with books, films and even plays being made about this amazing South Australian's life (a person who was born only 2 kilometres from Thebarton Senior College).

Muriel Lilah Matters (12 November 1877 – 17 November 1969) was an Australian born suffragist, lecturer, journalist, educator, actress and elocutionist.

Muriel Matters was born in the inner city suburb of Bowden in Adelaide, South Australia.

Muriel Matters was a professional actress before coming to England. She became involved with the suffragette movement and earned her spurs by chaining herself to a grille in the Ladies Gallery of the House of Commons. She later studied under Maria Montessori, the radical Italian educationalist, and returned to work at Sylvia Pankhurst's school in Bow, East London.

Here are just some of the stories from her life

The Grille Incident

On the night of 28 October 1908, the Women’s Freedom League (WFL) conducted a simultaneous protest at the British Houses of Parliament. It was to occur outside St. Stephen's Entrance, the Old Prison Yard and in the House of Commons. The purpose of the protest was to raise attention to the struggle of women and remove the ‘Grille’, a piece of ironwork placed in the Ladies’ Gallery that obscured their view of parliamentary proceedings. Matters was at the heart of the protest. She and an associate, Helen Fox, both chained themselves to the Grille of the Ladies’ Gallery and Matters began loudly proclaiming the benefits of enfranchisement directly to the elected MPs.

The Balloon Flight

On 6 February 1909, King Edward officially opened Parliament for the coming year. As a part of the festivities there was a precession to the Houses of Parliament led by His Majesty. To gain attention to the suffrage cause, Matters’ decided to hire a dirigible air balloon (similar to a modern-day blimp in appearance) and intended to shower the King and the Houses of Parliament with WFL pamphlets.

Objection to the First World War

In June 1915, one year after the outbreak of World War I, Matters declared her opposition to the war in an address entitled ‘The False Mysticism of War’. In essence, she argued that war is not a successful problem solving mechanism and justifications for war are based on false pretences.

The vote for women in England

It was 1928, when a fifty-one year old Muriel Matters finally got what she and the countless other women of Great Britain were craving, suffrage on the same terms as it was granted to men (partial suffrage had been granted to women in 1918). In her later years, Matters often wrote Letters to the Editor, frequented the local library and was heavily involved in the community. Widowed in 1949, she died twenty years later on 17 November 1969 in St. Leonards on Sea nursing home aged ninety-two.