This article develops a case for adding human wellbeing as an additional core concept to the Australian Curriculum: Geography, either officially, or unofficially through the practice of teachers. It argues, first, that the addition of human wellbeing will complement the existing core concept of sustainability, which students use to evaluate…

The article offers a critique of the Knowledge and Understanding sub-strand of the revised Australian Curriculum: Geography for Years F-6, due to be implemented in Australian schools in 2024. As a foundation for this critique, the article first discusses what should be the aims of geography in primary schools, in order to provide some criteria for…

A number of geographical concepts are examined under the rubric of race and racism in Australia. The first section looks at postcolonial perspectives on race and racism and the interconnection between whiteness and European colonisation. The second section, that relies largely on the work of Australian university geographers, is premised on the…

This paper arises from the Keynote we co-delivered at the 2017 AGTA Conference in Melbourne. In the paper, we outline the main theoretical resources that underpin the GeoCapabilities project (www.geocapabilities.org). This project has sought to engage teachers and teacher educators in geography with the principles of "curriculum…

Three decades ago, Stephen Kemmis (1990) argued that curricula provide insights into how nations and states interpret themselves and how they want to be interpreted. He also noted that 'debates about curriculum reveal fundamental concerns, uncertainties and tensions which preoccupy nations and states as they struggle to adapt to changing…

The word "test" comes to mind when a person, who is unacquainted with education discourses, reads about assessment issues. Beyond issues of reliability and validity in designing measurement constructs, assessment for school geography must result in better geographical learning. In other words, there must be "consequential…

One of the questions being asked in schools is the extent to which Geography can be considered a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subject. While such a question might be driven by those strategic opportunists seeking to elevate the status of the subject within the school's curriculum, or as a means of leveraging an increase…

This article examines various meanings of the term landscape. It advocates a deep engagement with the concept to enable high school students to carry out a range of thought-provoking geographical inquiries. Each aspect of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority's definition of landscape, shown below, is examined by reference…

Sustainability is an important cross-curriculum priority in Australian education that is not commonly realised in schools and classrooms. In this article, we discuss the challenges and opportunities to enacting sustainability, suggesting that both top-down (systemic schoolwide leadership and support) and bottom-up (individual educator's…

The Australian Geography Competition (AGC) was established in 1995 by the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland (RGSQ) and the Australian Geography Teachers' Association to promote the study of geography in Australian secondary schools and to reward student excellence in geographical studies. Initially focusing on students at the lower…

Digital technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be innovative tools for learning when used in purposeful ways and embedded in sound pedagogical frameworks. The predominant skills stimulated through the use of GIS are querying, collecting, analysing and manipulating spatial data. In recent years, the financial, technological…

This article explores the role that corporations can play in the creation or failure of a sustainable society. A review of the concept of sustainability in the Australian Curriculum: Geography is made and then linked to a comparison of the legal framework guiding business activities of traditional corporations and those of B Corporations, which…

The concept of powerful knowledge was introduced into educational debates nearly a decade ago by Michael Young, a British sociologist of education. Young describes powerful knowledge as knowledge that enables young people to go beyond the limits of their own experience; better explain and understand the world; think about alternative futures and…

The idea for this paper emerged from a recent qualitative investigation which examined the ways in which six Australian primary teachers conceptualised geography and geography teaching (Preston, 2014b). A finding of this research was a strong correlation between the breadth of geographical understandings and the years of experience and age of…

Australia's major state capitals are surrounded by highly productive food bowls, which are an important source of fresh foods for their growing populations. These food producing biomes are a rich resource for investigating key themes related to Biomes and food security, one of two Year 9 units of study in the Australian Curriculum: Geography. This…