Topic: Australia - natural environment, features of the economy, population

Addressee

Elementary school students VIII

Program basis

XVII. Selected problems and geographical regions of Australia and Oceania: natural environment: population distribution and economy.

Students:

1) presents the specificity of the natural environment of Australia and Oceania;

2) identifies the regularities in population distribution and the main features of the Australian economy against the background of natural conditions.

General aim of education

The student will learn about the natural environment and the main features of the economy.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• determine the geographical location and size of Australia's area;

• characterize the features of Australia's natural environment;

• indicate the causes of low population density and uneven population distribution;

• indicate the relationship between the distribution of the main sectors of the economy and the components of the natural environment of Australia.

Methods/techniques

• expository

  • talk.

• activating

  • discussion.

• exposing

  • exposition.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers;

• physical map of Australia;

• geographical atlases;

• projector.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

• Students get acquainted with the content of the abstract. They prepare to work on the lesson in such a way to be able to summarize the material read in their own words and solve the tasks themselves.

Introduction

• The teacher uses the Wisielec application, the LearningApss program, to familiarize students with the topic of the lesson. Students solve the task, whose slogan is Australia..

• The teacher gives the goals of the lesson.

• The teacher launches the Google Earth program, asks the willing student for satellite images of Australia.

Realization

• Students search the atlas for the map of Australia and determine the geographical location of the continent. They search for extreme points.

• The volunteer discusses the geographical location, uses the Australian map of the wall. It indicates the extreme points and determines their geographical coordinates.

• Students give the characteristics of Australia's coastline.

• Launching a hypsometric map from an e‑textbook on a multimedia board. Students read geographic objects and determine their geographical location.

• Discussion of what is characterized by the artesian pool and how an artesian well is being created. Using the schema from the e‑textbook of the Artesian Basin.

• Students based on maps in a geographical atlas determine the climate zones and climate types. They determine the natural factors that determine the climate of Australia. Analysis of climate diagrams contained in the e‑textbook.

• Students using geographical atlases determine the natural plant formations of Australia.

• Work in pairs. Development of the issue related to the population: A) primary and migrant population, B) distribution of population‑cause C) population. The indicated persons read the developed information, the population distribution is discussed based on the wall map.

• Work in pairs - economy: employment structure; agriculture- crops, industry- branches of industry, mineral resources. Students use the textbook, the Internet and geographical atlases. The indicated students discuss the problem, use the Australian map of the wall.

Summary

• The teacher asks: If there was going to be a test on the material we have covered today, what questions do you think would you have to answer? If the students do not manage to name all the most important questions, the teacher may complement their suggestions.

• The teacher asks the students questions:

  • What did you find important and interesting in class?

  • What was easy and what was difficult?

  • How can you use the knowledge and skills you have gained today?

  Willing/selected students summarize the lesson.

Homework

• Eager students take part in the solution of the knowledge quiz about Australia, they use for this mobile phones with Internet access: https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/5a045a32313d55110033c866 interactive exercises on the multimedia board, included in the e‑textbook.

• The teacher assesses the students' work, taking into account the contribution and their possibilities.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Australia - natural environment, features of the economy, population

Australia is a land which is flat and not very varied in terms of topography. The area's average height above sea level is merely 292 metres. Three large topographic forms are clearly visible on a hipsometric map.

The hot and dry types of tropical climate predominate in Australia, occuring inland and on its West Coast. A hot variety of a subequatorial climate prevails in the North, with relatively high precipitation. In turn, the South coast has a humid subtropical climate, also with fairly high precipitation.
Australia's climate influences the other elements of its natural environment, and their mutual interactions determine the formation of the landscapes characteristic of this land. The hot and dry tropical climate which is prevalent over the greatest part of Australia's area shapes the water network on this continent. Australia is the poorest land in terms of surface water in the world – endorheic basins occupy as much as 44% of the surface in the central part of Australia, where the dry valleys of intermittent rivers, which are filled with water by sporadic heavy rainfall, occur. Intermittent rivers and streams are called creeks. Salt lakes and salt pans found at the bottom of basins are an important element of Australia's water network. The largest of them is Lake Eyre, locate in a depression 12 metres below sea level in the middle of the land. Its area varies depending on the amount of rainfall. One of Australia's large permanent rivers is Murray, which has its source in the Australian Alps. Along with its largest tributary – the river Darling – it creates the most important river system in the land. However, Australia has significant freshwater bodies of water located in artesian basins. Their surface occupies around 1/3 of the continent. The largest of them is the Great Artesian Basin which is found in the central part of the Australian central lowlands.

The location of natural plant formations is determined by the amount of rainfall and its yearly range. Deserts and semideserts occur in the central part of the continent. Scrub is a plant community typical of these regions, and consists of dense thickets of dry eucalyptus or acacia shrubs.

Before the arrival of Europeans, Australia was inhabited by a native population – Aborigines. They led a hunter‑gatherer lifestyle. They used very simple tools and types of weapons. They didn't even know what a bow was, but they did, however, invent the boomerang – an instrument used to hunt birds. A boomerang which is thrown correctly will turn in an arc and return to the hunter if it misses its target. Aborigines currently represent a small population group, numbering around 400 thousand. Today, some of them still live in the poorly populated, undeveloped inland, and some are attempting to adapt to the new social conditions.

Contemporary Australian society formed as a result of immigration from Great Britain – descendants of immigrants now constitute over 80% of the country's population. The distribution of the population between the continent's coasts and its inland areas in Australia is highly disproportionate. All of Australia's larger cities, with the exception of the capital – Canberra (390 thousand inhabitants), were founded on the coast. Many of them are large ocean ports. The urban population makes up as much as 89.4% of the general population. The largest cities are: Sydney (4.8 million), Melbourne (4.2 million), Brisbane (2.2 million) ), Perth (1.8 million) and Adelaide (1.3 million). The rural population is made up of farmers living on huge farms, which means that rural buildings are very spread out. Village settlements were not created in Australia, as they were on other continents. In 2015, Australia had a population of 23.9 million inhabitants, and the average population density for 1 kmIndeks górny 2² was just 3 people.

Australia's history of settlement influenced the speed of its economic development, and features of the natural environment determined which economic sectors could develop and where.
Australia is a continent which is very poor in water. Despite this, as much as 53.4% of its area is used agriculturally. The largest area – 47.1% of the country's area – is taken up by meadows and pastures, which are, however, covered in sparse and dry semidesert and savannah vegetation.

Artesian basins function as the main water storage for agriculture. The field of Australian agriculture which is of the most importance is animal husbandry – of sheep and cattle. Sheep grazing areas are found in the region of the Great Artesian Basin and in the Murray‑Darling river basin. As much as 3/4 of the entire sheep population is made up of .

This breed provides excellent quality thin wool and is well adapted to the conditions in the semi‑dry central terrains. Australia has been in 1st place for years in terms of sheep population and the production of high quality wool. It is currently 2nd in the world (behind China) in terms of sheep population (75.5 million sheep) and the export of wool (18.6% of world export). The extensive cattle breeding which occurs in the North of the country and in the central part of the Great Dividing Range is of great importance. In turn, intensive cattle breeding is developing around large cities, mainly for milk production.

Australian agriculture is highly dependent on natural environment conditions. Factors which intensify agricultural production are:

• an increase in areas which are artificially watered;

• increasing use of chemical fertilizers;

• increasing mechanisation, in both plant production and animal husbandry (for example, machines for shearing sheep);

• the usage of airports both for the transport of agricultural produce and for agrotechnical treatments.

Cereals dominate crops, however the yield from one hectare is not very high, for example, wheat produces 17.6 dt/ha (in Poland 44.3 dt/ha). A large cultivated area makes it possible to obtain large surpluses of agricultural products. Australia is a leading exporter of agricultural products: wool, meat, wheat or sugar from sugar canes.

Australia is a continent which is rich in various mineral resources. Until the end of the 19th century, an economy developed based on the transport of raw materials, mainly to Great Britain. As a result of the changes brought about by the two great wars in the 20th century, as well as the fall of the British Empire, Australia becan to develop branches of the processing industry, becoming one of the richest countries in the world. Its current employment structure is characteristic of countries with a high level of economic development.