YEAR 9 GEOGRAPHY 2014

Form Assignment 1 (Research Action Plan): Changing Australian Communities

DUE DATE:
LENGTH:

Friday Week 10, Term 1, 2014

Up to 1500 words plus bibliography

OUTCOMES:

Outcome 5.1
Outcome 5.8

Identifies, gathers and evaluates geographical information.

Accounts for differences within and between Australian communities.

DETAILED TASK REQUIREMENTS

You are required to work in a group of two (2) or three (3) students to complete this task. It is advisable to work with others who
live in or near your local area. All members of the group must be in the same class. Your group is required to complete a research
action plan on an issue that impacts on your suburb and/or local government area and present the findings using a website.
Examples of potential issues are:
impact of changes to demographic composition and on service/infrastructure provision (e.g. changes to ethnicity, ageing
population, increased children, changes in poverty/wealth, impact on childcare centres, etc)
changes in residential land use (e.g. urban consolidation, suburbanisation, urban decay, urban renewal, spatial exclusion)
changes to commercial/industrial land use (e.g. shopping centre expansion, decline in manufacturing )
changes to recreational land use (e.g. loss of open space, development of bushland)
new or altered transport connections and networks
traffic or parking issues
changes to employment
crime (if you do this issue you must submit a written research plan to your teacher before commencing)
Steps of a Research Action Plan
To develop a Research Action Plan the following steps should be taken:
Step 1
Identify the aim/purpose of the investigation.
Step 2
Generate a number of focus questions to be addressed by the investigation.
Step 3
Decide which primary and secondary data are needed to answer the focus questions.
Step 4
Identify the techniques that will be used to collect the data.
Step 5
Collect primary and secondary data.
Step 6
Process and analyse the data collected.
Step 7
Select presentation methods to communicate the research findings effectively.
Step 8
Propose individual or group action in response to the research findings and, where appropriate, take such action.
Your website should have:
a home page
one or more pages summarising primary and secondary research completed
an analysis page
an actions page
an evaluation page
one or more pages outlining acknowledgements and bibliography
Home page of your website (5 marks)
The home page of your website should include the following:
1. Identification of the suburb and/or local government area you are investigating using a map.
2. The aim/purpose of your investigations.
e.g. Investigate the impacts of changing residential land use in Leichhardt.
3. Provide an overview of the issue, what the problem or issue is, why you are interested in it, etc. This should contain some
secondary research to help place the issue in a wider context.
4. Focus questions that will be considered during your investigation. Focus questions structure the aim into manageable focus
areas eg
How has the population size changed in Leichhardt in the last 20 years?
How has the residential land use changed in the last 20 years?
What are the social impacts of changing residential land use in Leichhardt? Eg Are there appropriate
services/infrastructure/community support for residents?
What are the economic impacts of changing residential land use in Leichhardt? Eg Are there sufficient jobs for the residents in
the suburb or nearby?
What are the environmental impacts of changing residential land use in Leichhardt? Eg Has bushland been cleared? Has air
pollution increased?

Primary and secondary data page/s of your website (20 marks)

You should have one or more pages in your website which feature your processed primary and secondary data.
You are required to use at least three types of primary data (surveys and an interview are compulsory) plus at least two types of
secondary data to investigate the issue.
Primary data examples include:
Surveys of at least 20 different people (compulsory)
Interview with a long term resident or a community representative such as a local councillor (compulsory)
Photographs (that you take yourself) eg of current land use. You must caption photographs to show how they illustrate the
extent of the issue, causes, impacts and/or solutions
A land use map (that you create yourself based on your own observations)
Observations of an area
Tallies/measurements (eg counting the number of cars in an area in a particular period of time)
Secondary data examples include:
Australian Bureau of Statistics data
Reports eg from your local council or other researchers
Local newspapers or journal articles
Historical photographs
Other websites
Books (eg from your local library)
You can process your research by:
Putting data in tables and graphs (use a variety of types of graphs eg line, pie, column, scatter)
Captioning your photographs indicating what each photograph shows in relation to your issue
Labelling different aspects of your land use map
Summarising results of interviews, surveys and secondary data
All your research needs to be structured to address the aim and focus questions. This will generally involve gaining
information about the extent of the issue, the causes and/or impacts of the issue and potential solutions to address the issue.
Following is some advice on structuring and processing your surveys. You should adapt this advice for other types of primary
research.
1.

Write your survey. Your survey should include approximately 5 questions that will gain information about the extent of the
issue, causes/ impacts and potential solutions. You should develop questions that give the respondent (people who are
answering the questions) more than a yes or no type of answer. It is recommended that at least one question be about
demographics (age, suburb, occupation, etc) to help you with your analysis.

Examples:
* What do you do with your lawn clippings?
Compost

Garbage bin

Worm farm

Leave on grass

other _______

* Cats and dogs should be banned from residential areas near National Parks.
Strongly Agree

Agree

No opinion

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

2.

Survey at least 20 people to get their responses to each question. (The more responses the better).
You may need to ask them follow up questions to clarify their answers and to ask them for reasons; you may then use these
answers in your discussion

3.

Collate the answers in a table form.

4.

Present the respondents answers in graphs. You need to use at least 2 different types of graphs (bar, line, pie, scatter, etc).
Each graph need to be presented correctly with a heading, labels, etc. The graph should be appropriate type for the
question.

5.

Discuss the responses to each question underneath each graph.

For example:
In Question 3, people were asked to determine how often they used pesticides on their lawn. I asked this question because I
wanted to know if fertiliser were being used a lot in this area. I found that 55% of respondents said they never used fertilisers on
their gardens, 15% said rarely, 10% said sometimes, while 20% said usually or often. This would suggest that while most

people are doing the right thing many are not. One person said he used pesticides to reduce the snails on his tomato plants but
preferred not to.
Analysis, actions and evaluation pages of your website (15 marks)
Your analysis page should include a conclusion which directly addresses the aim and focus questions listed on your home page. You
should use the primary and secondary data you have collected to identify the extent of the issue, causes/impacts of the issue and
potential solutions. Make specific reference to data you have collected that supports your arguments.
Your actions page should include actions that should be taken by individuals, groups and governments in response to your findings.
You should explain what your group has done as active citizens to implement these actions. For example, you could have taken
individual action to fix the problem, met with or joined a local volunteer organisation, written a letter/email to or scheduled an
interview with the relevant individuals, groups or levels of government, organised a petition etc. If you write a letter/email/petition,
attach this to your assignment. You should seek advice from your teacher and your parents before you undertake these actions.
Your evaluations page should evaluate your groups research process. What were the strengths and weaknesses of your research?
Which questions were poorly answered because they were confusing? How did the group work as a team? If you were to do this
research again what would you do differently to improve it? In your evaluation you should have a section written by each group
member reflecting on the contributions made by each other group member, and whether you think some group members should
have marks deducted for insufficient contribution to the teams effort.
In your answer you will be assessed on your ability to:
Organise and communicate your knowledge and understanding effectively
Support your ideas with relevant examples and statistics
Use geographical skills, terms and concepts
Bibliography page of your website
You need one or more pages of your website which include acknowledgements of people who have assisted you to do your research
action plan (not the survey respondents) and a detailed bibliography which is properly formatted. You will lose marks for
inappropriately formatted / nonexistent bibliographies.
Published documents should include the Author, Title, Publisher and Publication Year
Internet sites should include the Organisation/Author, Title of the page, the FULL Website Address and the Date that the
website was accessed.

Other instructions
You must email the URL of your groups published website to your Geography teacher by the due date
Ensure that your website is accessible on the school network and all links are working
This is a group assignment. All members of the group are expected to contribute equally to the task. If this is not the case you
must inform your teacher as soon as possible so they can help resolve the situation. If group members do not contribute
equally they may not be entitled to the same mark achieved by other members of the group.
Late submissions without adequate documentation (e.g. medical certificates) will not meet the task outcomes.
Computer problems will NOT be acceptable as the task should be completed well before the due date.

YEAR 9 GEOGRAPHY 2013

Form Assignment 1: Changing Australian Communities
NAMES: ______________________________________________________________________________
CLASS: ____________________________

TEACHER: _________________________________

Part B 5.1 Identifies, gathers and evaluates geographical information

Outcome
Outstanding
High
Sound
Total Marks /25
25 21
20 16
15 11
Your Mark
Criteria
Identifies, gathers
Identifies, gathers
Identifies, gathers
and evaluates
and evaluates
and evaluates
geographic
geographic
geographic
information highly
information very
information
effectively, all
effectively, most
effectively literacy
literacy guidelines
literacy guidelines
guidelines usually
met
met
met
Part C 5.8 Accounts for differences within and between Australian communities
Outcome
Outstanding
High
Sound
Total Marks /15
15 13
12 10
97
Your Mark
Criteria
accounts for a wide
accounts for
accounts for some
range of differences
differences within
differences within
within Australian
Australian
Australian
communities highly
communities very
communities
effectively, all
effectively, most
effectively literacy
literacy guidelines
literacy guidelines
guidelines usually
met
met
met

Limited
10 6

Basic
50

uses limited
geographic
information, some
literacy guidelines
met

uses basic
geographic
information

Limited
63

Basic
20

accounts for
differences within
Australian
communities in
limited forms, some
literacy guidelines
met

accounts for
differences within
Australian
communities in
basic forms

TOTAL /40
COMMENTS:
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Marking Guidelines for Literacy

GRADE
A
Areas which
demonstrated a high
level of proficiency
compared to stage
outcomes

Grammatical Features
Syntax: Demonstrates consistently accurate syntax (eg. correct use of
prepositions, articles, plurals, tense, verb subject agreement etc)
Punctuation: Uses a variety of punctuation symbols effectively
Spelling: Uses correct spelling of common and less common words
Sentence Structure: Demonstrates flair and mastery using a wide
range of sentence structures
Paragraphs: Demonstrates mastery of paragraph structure to
enhance meaning
Vocabulary: Uses sophisticated and appropriate vocabulary
Text type: Demonstrates mastery of writing a report

B
Areas which
demonstrated
significant
proficiency but some
problems identified

Syntax: Demonstrates mostly accurate syntax with some minor

issues
Punctuation: Generally uses punctuation accurately and effectively
but with some minor issues
Spelling: Uses correct spelling of most words
Sentence Structure: Uses a range of sentence structures
Paragraphs: Generally demonstrates control of paragraph structure
with some minor issues
Vocabulary: Uses a variety of appropriate vocabulary
Text type: Generally demonstrates proficiency in writing a
__________ (insert text type)

C
Areas that
demonstrated a need
for significant
improvement

Syntax: Used correct syntax at times, but included several

grammatical errors
Punctuation: Several errors in punctuation
Spelling: Uses correct spelling of many words, but with several
errors
Sentence Structure: Uses some appropriate sentence structures with
some errors
Paragraphs: Several issues with paragraph structure
Vocabulary: Insufficient use of appropriate vocabulary
Text type: Several issues in writing a _______________ (insert text
type)

Particular Issues

COMMENTS:
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