Explore Australian Geography and Landmarks

Australia is a fascinating country of contrasts – arid deserts and lush rainforests, white sand beaches and bustling cities, rich history and new technology! But how much do your students know about Australia? This blog post explains how to explore Australian Geography and Landmarks with your students through our new resource.

Australian Geography and Landmarks Success Criteria and Curriculum Links

By the end of our Australian Geography and Landmarks unit, we want students to be able to:

• Locate where they live on a map of Australia.
• Understand what makes each of Australia’s states and territories unique.
• Explain three facts about two (or more)  urban centres.
• Locate the main urban centres on a map of Australia.
• Explain three facts about one (or more) Australian landmarks.

This resource integrates reading, writing and social studies, so it can be used throughout your day. The key link to the Australian Curriculum is through Year Three Humanities and Social studies (Geography):

The representation of Australia as states and territories and as Countries/Places of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples; and major places in Australia, both natural and human (ACHASSK066)

You can read more about this here.

Stage One: Australian States map puzzle poster

When looking at Australia’s geography, it is important to explore the country’s states and territories. By physically building their own map of Australia through state and territory puzzle pieces, students can see their learning come alive visually. Additionally, it doesn’t hurt that this resource creates a stunning display for your classroom, too!

The purpose of this resource is to provide an interactive and engaging way to learn about Australia’s geography and landmarks. This resource gives students opportunities to develop humanities and social sciences understanding through key concepts including continuity and change, cause and effect and place and space.

Additionally, this activity involves reading comprehension strategies such as cloze reading, summarising and finding specific information. As students read the fact cards and their question puzzle pieces, they have to hunt for information. We have provided a range of puzzle activities to ensure that you can differentiate this resource for a range of ability levels in your classroom.

By the end of stage one, individual students, pairs, or small groups will have created their own Australian map puzzle poster. This map puzzle poster will be filled with information about Australia’s states and territories.

Stage Two: Australian urban areas fact cards and follow up activities

The second stage in this Australia Geography resource is learning about Australia’s urban areas and main cities. There are some amazing attractions around Australia – so many that most of your students will never have seen a lot of these attractions in the real world.

With that in mind, we have created engaging and interactive Australia urban area fact cards. We covered state capitals and a range of cities and towns from throughout Australia’s states and territories. Each fact card has a QR code that can be scanned with a digital device and will bring up a video or website with more visual information about the city or town. Linking these urban areas back to the Australian map will help your students to understand where that town or city “fits’ within the country. You can also use it as a mapping skills activity.

We have also included information about the history of each urban area, including how the area was used by indigenous peoples in the past.

The follow-up activity postcards include three different types of activities:

• Summarise
• Short answer questions
• Cloze reading activities

This ensures there are differentiated activities for a range of abilities.

Stage Three: Australia’s iconic landmarks

The third stage of the Australian Geography and Landmarks unit involves researching an iconic Australian landmark. We have included 16 of these landmarks, such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the

Students take part in independent research and share their findings on the provided postcards.

Use this activity whole class or with early finishers.

Click here to buy our Australian Geography and Landmarks Unit today!

Looking for a similar resource with a New Zealand focus. Click here to read all about it!

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Onwards and upwards!