Close message Due to scheduled maintenance on Friday 19th April 2024 between 7:00PM and 9:00PM AEST, the Scootle website may face disruption in service. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Geography / Year 7 / Geographical Knowledge and Understanding / Unit 1: Water in the world

Curriculum content descriptions

The nature of water scarcity and ways of overcoming it, including studies drawn from Australia and West Asia and/or North Africa (ACHGK040)

Elaborations
  • investigating the causes of water scarcity (for example, an absolute shortage of water (physical), inadequate development of water resources (economic), or the ways water is used)
  • discussing the advantages and disadvantages of strategies to overcome water scarcity (for example, recycling (‘grey water’), stormwater harvesting and re-use, desalination, inter-regional transfer of water and trade in virtual water, and reducing water consumption)
  • examining why water is a difficult resource to manage and sustain (for example, because of its shared and competing uses and variability of supply over time and space)
  • investigating whether the use of water in their place is sustainable
  • investigating land use management practices that have adversely affected water supply, such as land clearing and some farming practices
General capabilities
  • Numeracy Numeracy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
  • Intercultural understanding Intercultural understanding
Cross-curriculum priorities
ScOT terms

Water use,  Water resources,  Water treatment,  Groundwater,  Lakes,  Rivers

Image

Groundwater

This is an online resource about Australia's groundwater that provides important information, facts and images about groundwater. It contains seven major sections: Latest news about Australia's groundwater; Basics - groundwater; Our capabilities - groundwater; Groundwater in Australia; Understanding groundwater resources; ...

Text

Water and human wellbeing

This is an online resource about water availability on Flores, an Indonesian island, highlighting the importance of access to sufficient safe drinking water for the wellbeing of a community. It describes a project carried out by a partnership between AusAID, World Vision and local communities, to provide access to a plentiful ...

Online

The water cycle in the Murray-Darling Basin

This lesson sequence introduces students to the water cycle or hydrological cycle in the context of the Murray-Darling Basin. It examines how the components of the water cycle are connected and contains four hands-on science investigations. Each lesson includes a teacher PowerPoint presentation, separate teacher notes and ...

Online

Food for thought: learn resources for science

This is a rich resource for teachers about the impact of climate change on small-scale farmers. It includes two sets of resources, one for the primary level and the other for the secondary level. Each set of resources includes: a teacher guide with learning activities; worksheets for students; crop cards; and a PowerPoint ...

Online

GeogSpace: year 7 - exemplar

This is a web page consisting of an overview and five illustrations of practice on the GeogSpace website, a resource for teachers. The illustrations relate to the Geographical Knowledge and Understanding, and the Geographical inquiry and Skills strands of the Australian Curriculum: Geography. The five illustrations investigate ...

Image

Earthshots: satellite images of environmental change - Lake Chad, Africa

This resource is a series of satellite images of Lake Chad in Africa, showing its decline due to prolonged drought and increased water use from 1963 to 2003, accompanied by a text explanation, including a brief history of the lake. The text describes the geographical features of the freshwater lake, the effect of the region's ...

Online

Activity: cool questions about water

This is a web resource about water issues that includes an activity for students accompanied by a teacher guide with a lesson plan and student research topics. The activity requires students to identify a water issue, research different points of view pertaining to the issue, find evidence for each viewpoint, then present ...

Image

Groundwater-surface water connectivity

This is an online resource about groundwater-surface water connectivity. The resource provides a definition, describes what groundwater-surface water connectivity is, and identifies the complexities of the relationship between groundwater and surface water. Diagrams depicting the movement of groundwater water are provided. ...

Online

Activity: Australia's water future communication project

This is a web resource about water issues in Australia that provides a student activity accompanied by a teacher guide. The activity requires students to identify water issues that may affect Australia in the future, describe their possible effects and develop a presentation about these issues. A student worksheet provides ...

Online

Activity: a global crisis?

This is a web resource about the availability of fresh water in Australia and other countries that includes a student activity accompanied by a teacher guide providing background information and a lesson plan. A student worksheet provides activity instructions and a lotus diagram for the students to complete. The activity ...

Text

Sustainable table: meet your meat

This is a website about the environmental and animal welfare issues related to the consumption of meat. It contains sections on the amount of meat we eat; the environmental impacts of consuming meat; cattle, chicken, egg-laying-hen and pig-farming factories; and what can be done to improve the current state of the meat ...

Interactive

Sites2See – water education

Resources and information on water as a human right, global water equality, water management and water consumption, with a range of teacher resources for water education.

Text

Sustainable table: the coming famine

This is a website about the key issues related to global food insecurity. It contains sections on the scarcity of primary resources; land degradation; land scarcity; waste; climate change; consequences of inaction; and proposed solutions. Photographs, statistics, graphs, maps and figures support the information. This resource ...

Video

Water management for poverty reduction

This is a three-minute animated video about the difference that access to motor pumps for irrigation can make to poor farming families' food security and livelihood. It aims to persuade viewers that irrigation technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa are a worthy investment. The video sets the scene by illustrating the importance ...

Video

Reforestation as a climate change strategy

This is a video about an agroforestry project to restore the tree cover of microwatersheds in the High Andes of Peru in which the Chumbivilcas community worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund. Interviews with the local mayor and project officers emphasise ...

Video

Towards food security in Afghanistan

This is a video about the progress towards food and water security in Afghanistan. It includes images and information about how the global economic crisis has affected the people of Afghanistan; the value of investment in agriculture production to reduce poverty in this region; and a water security project that is jointly ...

Video

Water reservoirs as climate change adaptation

This is a video about water availability for people living in the Peruvian Andes. It includes vision and information about water scarcity in this region and details of a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations funded project involving the creation of a sustainable water management program. The program involves ...

Downloadable

Home water use audit

In this activity, students conduct a home water audit to estimate how much water their family uses and how to reduce their water waste.

Downloadable

Visualising water quality

This lesson sequence provides a rich opportunity to discuss sustainable water management issues, particularly those related to a local catchment. Students gather and map data which allows them to answer questions and add simple environmental data such as water quality parameters to maps using Google Maps.

Online

Catchment management: water sustainability

Water is an important resource, and is required by all living species to survive. Water is also important for many industries and businesses. This activity investigates the different land uses over time across your local catchment. OUTCOMES are for children to: understand the natural and urban water cycle; learn about the ...