Assessment Type 2: Experiences in Natural Environments

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

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

Students plan and undertake outdoor activities and journeys in a group. Students use peer assessment and self-assessment to gather information about the development of their teamwork and practical outdoor skills.

Through experiences engaging in activities and journeys in natural environments (refer to the learning framework for minimum requirements), students develop and apply relevant skills in:

• critical and creative thinking when planning, reflecting on, analysing, and evaluating outdoor experiences
• practical outdoor activities
• observation and data collection
• sustainable practices
• risk and safety management.

Students complete skills development tasks that document evidence collected and annotated during their experiences in natural environments, and use this evidence to inform their reflection and evaluation.

Assessment tasks may focus on aspects of human interactions, personal growth and development, and/or sustainability of natural environments, for example:

• planning for safe and sustainable outdoor activities and journeys
• self-assessment and/or peer assessment and reflective practice to gather evidence of development of personal growth and group skills, to then consider improvement strategies
• undertake skills audit of practical outdoor skills for use throughout activities and journeys to analyse progress, and areas and strategies for improvement
• journal or diary of experiences, observations, personal reflections, and suggested strategies in relation to environmental sustainability and management
• collection of information, data, and notes to capture thoughts, reflections, feelings, and observations about personal experiences in natural environments.

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

• self-assessment and peer assessment tools
• journals or skills folios to collect evidence using technology, e.g. photos, movie clips, on-screen recordings, blogs, vlogs, annotations
• written reports
• multimodal presentations.

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 criteria:

• planning
• evaluation and reflective practice.