Earth Sciences and Biology – Biogeography

This sequence combines aspects of year 9 Earth and Space sciences with Biological sciences and introduces students to a field called Biogeography, which is the study of the distribution of flora and fauna over time and space. The teaching and learning sequence starts by exploring the whole world, broadly, focusing on tectonic plates, with each lesson zooming in a little more for students to finally discover specific marine ecosystems in Australia. Each lesson embraces the research of Dr Liz Weldon.

The elaborations focusing on ecosystems as a whole and how they are related to Australia’s plate movement will be explored in the first half of the sequence with a more detailed exploration of the complexities within ecosystems investigated in the second half of the sequence of learning.

The structure, design and order of activities for scaffolding should be evident in the teaching and learning sequence table provided as Appendix 4. Activities that scaffold students’ learning until they are comfortable enough to approach tasks independently have been provided. A wide range of activities, and activities completed in different group sizes are aimed to allow every student to an experience where they are approaching new learning material from their preferred learning method.