Assessment Type 1: About Natural Environments

For a 10-credit subject, students undertake one or two tasks.

For a 20-credit subject, students undertake three tasks.

Students develop an understanding of environmental systems and issues of potential human impacts on natural environments through investigation of ecosystems and consideration of historical, cultural, and/or personal perspectives of at least one environmental area.

Students explore and analyse human interactions with natural environments to build understanding of the balance between the human uses, potential risks, and conservation and sustainability of the environments.

Assessment tasks may focus on any aspect of environmental systems and human interactions, for example:

• development of ecological understanding through the study of the natural history of an area
• exploration of environmental perspectives and impacts on the environment, e.g. Indigenous, scientific, economic, Western perspectives
• involvement in a revegetation project
• investigation or participation in conservation strategies to support endangered animal species, e.g. artificial habitats (bat boxes, bird boxes)
• investigation of animal-control strategies, e.g. exotic and feral species control in an area
• supporting environmental groups such as Conservation International, Friends of Parks, Trees for Life, or local council initiatives, e.g. weed removal, track maintenance, cane toad management
• investigation of and/or involvement in sustaining the environment of local adventure activity areas — biking, climbing, kayaking, etc.

Students may present evidence of their learning in various formats, for example:

• blog or vlog
• website
• multimodal presentation
• report incorporating analysis of observations and data from an environmental study
• collaborative investigation and presentation.

For a 10-credit subject, the combined evidence should comprise a maximum of 1600 words if written, or 10 minutes if oral, or the equivalent in multimodal form (where 6 minutes is equivalent to 1000 words).

For a 20-credit subject, the combined evidence should comprise a maximum of 3200 words if written, or 20 minutes if oral, or the equivalent in multimodal form (where 6 minutes is equivalent to 1000 words).

For this assessment type, students provide evidence of their learning primarily in relation to the following assessment design criterion:

• exploration, understanding, and analysis.