← Geography syllabus

SAGeography

Environmental Change

7 dot points across 7 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

Why is biodiversity declining, how does this loss vary across places and scales, and how effective are conservation strategies in protecting ecosystems?

Explain the causes of biodiversity loss, analyse its uneven spatial impacts on ecosystems and people, and evaluate conservation strategies for protecting biodiversity.
Why biodiversity is declining worldwide, how the drivers and impacts vary across places and scales, and how conservation strategies from protected areas to species recovery programs are evaluated, using Australian and global cases.
6 min answer →

How do people contribute to climate change, what are its spatial impacts, and how can societies mitigate and adapt to a changing climate?

Explain how human activity contributes to climate change, analyse the uneven environmental, social and economic impacts, and evaluate mitigation and adaptation strategies.
How human emissions drive climate change, why its impacts fall unevenly across places and groups, and how mitigation and adaptation strategies are evaluated, using Australian and global cases from the Pacific to the Murray-Darling Basin.
6 min answer →

How do people interact with ecosystems, and what are the causes and consequences of changes to ecosystems and biodiversity in Australia and globally?

Explain the interrelationship between people and ecosystems, analyse the causes and consequences of ecosystem and biodiversity change, and evaluate strategies for managing ecosystems sustainably.
How people interact with ecosystems, why biodiversity and ecosystems change, the consequences of those changes, and the strategies used to manage ecosystems sustainably, drawn from Australian and global cases.
6 min answer →

What are the causes, spatial patterns and consequences of changes in land cover across Australia and the world, and how can land cover change be managed?

Describe and explain changes in land cover, analyse their environmental, social and economic consequences, and evaluate strategies that manage land cover change sustainably.
How and why land cover changes through deforestation, agriculture, urban expansion and desertification, the consequences across the three systems, and the strategies used to manage land cover change, illustrated with Australian and global cases.
6 min answer →

What causes land degradation and desertification, how do these processes vary spatially, and how can degraded land be managed and restored?

Explain the physical and human causes of land degradation and desertification, analyse their uneven impacts, and evaluate strategies for prevention and rehabilitation.
The physical and human causes of land degradation and desertification, why these processes concentrate in dryland regions, and how prevention and rehabilitation strategies are evaluated, using Australian and global cases including the Sahel.
6 min answer →

How do the carbon and water cycles move matter through Earth's systems, and how does human activity disturb these natural cycles?

Explain how the carbon and water cycles operate, analyse how human activity alters these natural systems, and evaluate the environmental consequences of that disturbance.
How the carbon and water cycles move matter through Earth's natural systems, the stores and flows involved, and how human activity disturbs these cycles to drive environmental change, with Australian and global examples.
6 min answer →

What does sustainability mean for environmental change, and how can management strategies balance environmental, social and economic needs across scales?

Explain the concept of sustainability, analyse how environmental management strategies operate across scales, and evaluate their effectiveness in addressing environmental change.
What sustainability means for environmental change, how management strategies operate from local to international scales, and how their effectiveness is evaluated against environmental, social and economic goals, using Australian and global cases.
6 min answer →