Assessment Type 1: About Natural Environments (20%)

Students undertake one or two tasks.

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

Students explore and analyse human interactions with natural environments through direct observation, and/or collection and analysis of data and information. They evaluate current management strategies in order to recommend and/or implement management strategies for the conservation and sustainability of a chosen environmental area.

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

• development of ecological literacy through the study of the natural history of an area
• comparison of environmental perspectives and impacts on the environment, e.g. Indigenous, scientific, economic, Western perspectives
• exploration of the importance of the environment for human well-being, e.g. adventure therapy or nature play
• involvement in a revegetation project
• advocacy for sustainability of a wilderness area
• propagation of an endemic plant species
• investigation, initiation, or participation in conservation strategies to support endangered animal species, e.g. artificial habitats (bat boxes, bird boxes)
• investigation or implementation 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 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.

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

• exploration, understanding, and analysis.