Geography is the study of the world around us. Studying geography helps us understand how the Earth works. This includes natural processes (such as volcanoes, floods and the weather) as well as human activities (such as mining, tourism and building cities).

Places are parts of the Earth’s surface that are identified and given meaning by people. A place can be as small as your bedroom or as large as the entire planet! Places can be natural (that is, shaped by the environment and largely unchanged by humans) or built (that is, constructed by humans).

The world in which we live is made up of many different environments. Some environments are natural (or physical) such as deserts, grasslands, mountains, coral reefs, forests, oceans, and ice caps. In order for an environment to be considered natural, its soils, rocks, climate, plants, and animals must remain largely untouched by humans. Today, there are very few truly natural environments left on Earth.

How and why things are arranged and managed on the Earth’s surface by people.

The shapes and patterns in which things are arranged on the Earth’s surface.

Such as the movement of people, the production and trade of goods and the flow of investment and money within and between different countries.

The concept of sustainability relates to the ongoing capacity of Earth to maintain all life. This means developing ways to ensure that all resources on Earth are used and managed responsibly so they are there for future generations.

Scale is an additional concept used to guide geographical inquiries. Geographers study things that take place on many different spatial levels – meaning from small areas (such as a local park) to very large areas (such as the use of oil and coal all over the world).

The concept of change is important in geography because it helps us to understand what is happening around us. Changes can be caused by natural processess, such as climate or natural disasters, or by human processes.

Collect information themselves by interviewing people, taking photographs, making sketches out in the field or conducting surveys and questionnaires. This kind of information will generally only be relevant to a particular inquiry and is called primary data.

Often a geographer collects information that supports his or her inquiry but has not been specifically collected or designed by the geographer for the inquiry. This type of information is called secondary data.

A pattern may be a group of similar features on a diagram, a concentration of a particular colour or feature on a map, or a particular shape that is created by data on a column graph.

Often you may find that there are things in your data that do not fit into a pattern you have identified. These are called exceptions. They also need to be identified and quantified. For example, you might say ‘There are a number of other mountain ranges that are not on the east coast.

Quantifying involves using statistics, amounts, sizes and locations to give specific details. For example, rather than just saying ‘Most mountains run along the coast in the east’, you would need to quantify this statement.

A landscape is part of the Earth’s surface. It consists of a variety of geographical features that are characteristic of an area. Landscapes are divided into two main categories – natural and human.

A landform is a natural geographic feature or shape that appears on the Earth’s surface. Large landforms include mountains, plains, and rivers while small landforms include hills and billabongs.

A disaster is a tragic circumstance that creates damage to wildlife and buildings. Some disasters last for a short amount of time but some don’t. Usually, the duration doesn’t affect the loss of lives in these deadly situations. The two main types of disasters are man-made and natural.