Over the last couple of weeks, the Manly Observer has been recording the appearance and removal of an industrial tyre at Long Reef and the actions of mostly young people in the community to relocate it. They removed the sand that had built up inside it to try to make it easier to move, but each time they took out a layer of sand they found a variety of fish, rays and juvenile sharks. In all, around 80 marine creatures were removed from the inside of the tyre. 

Read the full story here: How 80 dead creatures came to rest inside an industrial tyre on the Long Reef Shoreline

Eventually the group managed to move the tyre away from the shoreline, and it drew enough attention that the local council became involved the remove it from the beach entirely. ​

​Council reported that a local fishing trawler had let them know that they had unintentionally pulled up the tyre out of the water, but it was too weighty to bring aboard the ship, and they released it back into the water. The creatures inside the tyre were most likely to have been bycatch, caught in the trawlers net.

This is a great little story to use in the classroom. 

Active Citizenship
It highlights the importance of active citizenship in the most practical way. It shows that how young people can have an impact on their environment, work collaboratively and achieve something tangible that initially seems beyond their capacity. It demonstrates how collective action can get the attention of media, government and the community and bring about more change than the individuals are capable of by themselves. 

Geographic Investigation
This story is a great way to talk to students about hypotheses, assumptions, using sources, and drawing conclusions. The teenagers began their own investigation of the tyre, found the dead creatures and assumed the tyre had caused the deaths. The tyre may have caused some of those deaths. The idea of fish getting caught on the low tide is entirely plausible, but doesn’t seem to account for the huge number of creatures found. Regardless, I love that some mostly incorrect assumptions resulted in these teenagers doing something great (removing rubbish from our oceans). Contacting additional sources – like the local council - led to the alternate and more plausible explanation of the involvement of the fishing trawler. Let’s hope these young people are now encouraged to find out more about trawling.

Problem Solving and Mystery
The way this story unfolded on social media was really interesting and engaging, and this could be replicated in a classroom by only providing some pieces of information at a time and allowing students to problem solve and eventually solve a mystery. Students could be presented with a range of scenarios to explore - the tyre in the water, the creatures in the tyre, the weight of the tyre, the encroaching tide, etc. Student could be asked to problem solve each step and be given roadblocks or positive outcomes dependent on the solution they come up with. Open ended questions could be provided to encourage deeper exploration of coastal environments, environmental issues and management strategies. The structure could almost be set up like a murder mystery, with clues along the way, and students trying to solve the crime.

It is easy to fall into a trap of thinking that environmental issues are too big for an individual to have an impact. I have only recently had some conversations with students who felt they couldn’t make any real impact because the world’s problems were just too big. This is a great, short story to engage students with geography and show the impact that individuals and groups can have their local environment, but also that once that first job is one, there’s more to do!

​2022 Floods

Spatial dimensions and nature of a contemporary ecological hazard
- "This wasn't a flood it was a demolition": How can Lismore survive?
- From Gympie to Grafton, see the floods devastation from the air

Characteristics of the natural environment, including the physical processes and cycles influencing the nature and occurrence of the hazard 
- Why it could rain for months on Australia's east coast
- When will the east coast deluge end and where, oh where, did it come from?
- The east coast rain and flooding seems endless. Where on Earth is all the water coming from?

Human–environment interactions and evidence of change, including: 
The contribution of human activities to hazard events
- Tram vale: the flood stricken development that should have taught Sydney a lesson, but didn't
- Manly Dam has spilled, putting thousands on flooding alert: Here’s what you need to know about Sydney’s dams

Change in relation to climate
- Alan Kohler: Some difficult, expensive decisions will have to be made by whoever wins this election
- The east coast rain seems endless. Where on Earth is all the water coming from?

​Challenges, opportunities, and responses, including:
Changes to natural processes, systems and/or environments
- Talyawalka Creek in far west NSW flows for first time in a decade, as floodwaters trickle down
- Northern NSW vets work to save hundreds of starving, suffering animals amid flood crisis

Impacts on people and communities
- Like many disasters in Australia, Aboriginal people are over-represented and under-resourced in the NSW floods
- ‘Worse than 2017’: Lismore faces mammoth rebuild after flood as community inundated by loss
- Lismore flood: hundreds rescued and thousands evacuated as NSW city hit by worst flooding in history
- Thousands in Sydney ordered to leave homes amid flood crisis
- Tropical infections likely to afflict flood-hit communities as heavy rain continues
- Sydney floods captured on social media as roads turn into rivers and cars become boats
- Prime Minister declares floods a national emergency
- ‘I can’t afford to go anywhere else’: the NSW caravan park residents devastated by floods


Risk-management policies, procedures and practices at a range of scales, eg prevention, mitigation, preparedness and resilience-building 
- "Limited development" Shane Fitzsimmons adds to call to stop building on flood plains
'- One-in-100-years' flood talk disastrously misleading and should change, risk experts say
- A new levee and river remodelling for Lismore?

​Varying perspectives
- ‘Farcical’: Minister shoots down flood relocation, says residents know the risks
- NSW failing flood victims, with better, faster response needed: Andrew Constance
- Liberal candidate for flooded marginal seat calls for Warragamba wall raising

The effectiveness of people and organisations in managing ONE contemporary hazard event at a selected place
- Chefs lead volunteers to feed NSw flood victims in absence of government food relief
- Defence force defends response to communities in NSW devastated by floods
- Additional army support arriving in Lismore as homelessness crisis mounts
- Perrottet defends NSW flood response amid Lismore anger as Qld death toll rises
- NSW floods: Premier says not a dollar will be spared in effort to rebuild Lismore, Northern Rivers region
- Operation Flood Assist 2022
- Should natural disaster responses be part of the Australian Defence Force's job?
- Northern NSW wants Prime Minister to hear how locals rescued each other in flood
​- Prime Minister declares floods a national emergency, more money for residents in Lismore and other NSW towns
​- ​Marcus wanted five minutes with Scott Morrison. The flood victim was told the PM had no time

Spatial dimensions and nature of a contemporary ecological hazard
- Sydney temperatures pass 41C as firefighters injured, homes destroyed, state of emergency declared
- Bushfire survival supersedes Christmas plans as firefighters battle infernos
- Western Australia bushfire out of control as temperatures expected to surge above 40C
- What we know so far about the Australian bushfires crisis on New Year's Eve
- Australia fires: A visual guide to the bushfire crisis
- Australia wildfires: Blazes merge into massive inferno as experts warn species will go extinct
​- A timeline of the ring of fire around NSW, Victoria and the ACT.
- Aerial footage shows bushfires raging in the Australian state of Victoria
- "Uncharted territory": Berejiklian says fire crisis in unprecedented.
​- Two fires have been upgraded to an emergency level as the state looks at a horror afternoon.

Characteristics of the natural environment, including the physical processes and cycles influencing the nature and occurrence of the hazard 
- When bushfires make their own weather
- Australian firefighters warn of uncontrollable blazes as conditions worsen​
- NSW bushfires surround Sydney but conditions ease for now
- Winds and high temperatures increase fire danger across southern NSW
- Some say we’ve seen bushfires worse than this before. But they’re ignoring a few key facts
- When bushfires make their own weather.
- Intense "firestorms" forming from Australia's deadly wildfires.
- Supercell bushfire thunderstorms, tornadoes, fire-whirls and other deadly fires that spin.
- The bushfires in Australia are so big they're generating their own weather - "pyrocumulonimbus" thunderstorms that can start more fires.

Human–environment interactions and evidence of change, including: 
The contribution of human activities to hazard events
- How humans kicked off the Pyrocene, a new ‘age of fire’

​Preparedness
Full List of Fire and Emergency Chiefs' recommendations to the Federal Government.
A load of rubbish: Greg Mullins says he wants a more proactive approach to fires and climate change
Prescribed burning: what is it and will more reduce bushfire risks?

​Change in relation to climate
- Weather disasters cost $150bn in 2020, revealing impact of climate change – report
- Climate change is already here: major scientific report
- Rising levels of carbon dioxide increasing extreme weather events in Australia, report finds 
- Frequent extreme bushfires are our new reality: We need to learn how to live with smoke-filled air
- The facts about climate change and bushfires
​- Here’s why Australia is having a cataclysmic wildfire season
- The facts about bushfires and climate change
- Experts warn extreme bushfire weather risk growing
- Climate change fueled the Australia fires. Now those fires are fueling climate change.
- BBC on Australian bushfires
- Weirs continued to flow through drought and fires
- This is not normal: Explaining Bushfires and Climate Change
- Bushfire survival supersedes Christmas plans as firefighters battle infernos
- How to monitor the bushfires raging across Australia.
- Explainer: What are the underlying causes of Australia's shocking bushfire season
- Bureau of Meteorology chart shows how temperatures have soared in Australia in the past century

Challenges, opportunities, and responses, including:
Changes to natural processes, systems and/or environments
- Endangered corroborree frogs survive bushfires
- Water catchments are covered in bushfire ash, what will happen when it rains?
- NSW endures longest spell of air pollution on record as bushfires flare near Sydney
- The big smoke: how bushfires cast a pall over the Australian summer
- Huge areas of national parks, heritage locations hit by bushfires
- Number Of Animals Feared Dead In Australia’s Wildfires Soars To Over 1 Billion
- We need to talk about the impact the bushfires are having on insects
- 'It’s huge': Fears 80 per cent of NSW’s iconic Blue Mountains lost to bushfires
- Hundreds of thousands of fish dead in NSW as bushfire ash washed into river
- Native plants can flourish after bushfire, but there’s only so much hardship they can take
- A season in hell: bushfires push at least 20 threatened species closer to extinction
​
​
Impacts on people and communities
- Bushfire smoke and climate inertia dents Sydney's reputation
​- Australian wildfires threaten Sydney water supplies
- Nation counts cost of Australian blazes after communities devastated – as it happened
- Bushfire death toll rises as fires sweep across South Australia and NSW
- NSW endures longest spell of air pollution on record as bushfires flare near Sydney
​- Counting the cost of Australia's bushfires
- Sydney's drinking water could be polluted by bushfire ash in Warragamba Dam catchment, expert says
- Homes believed lost in NSW 'mega blaze' as firefighters tackle 70-metre flames in windy conditions
- Sydney smoke at its 'worst ever' with air pollution in some areas 12 times 'hazardous' threshold
- 'Not a good look': Bushfire smoke threatens to pollute Sydney's tourist image
- Volunteers struggling to cope with post-traumatic stress as bushfires rage on
- 'We've lost our beautiful town': Mogo residents flee as bushfire rages up NSW south coast
- Australia's raging fires will create big problems for fresh drinking water
​- NSW and Canberra fires: more homes reported lost as wind and thunderstorms hit
- Despair and destruction in Cobargo: 'Most people are running dead'
- Grave fears held for hundreds of important NSW south coast Indigenous sites
- Australia's bushfire smoke will do a full lap of the earth: NASA

Risk-management policies, procedures and practices at a range of scales, eg prevention, mitigation, preparedness and resilience-building
- Australia faces 'massive' rethink to prepare for long-term bushfires and air pollution
​- Aboriginal fire management – part of the solution to destructive bushfires
- Hazard reduction burns are not a 'panacea' for bushfire risk, RFS boss says
- Factcheck: are national parks 'locked up' and more vulnerable to bushfires?
- Government buried climate risk action plan
- ​How First Australians' ancient knowledge can help us survive the bushfires of the future
- Hazard reduction burn benefits undercut by weather, costs
- ‘It's miraculous’: Owners say cultural burning saved their property
- Fivefold increase in funding for hazard reduction burns needed, experts warn
- Bushfires Hazard Reduction and backburning

Varying perspectives
- Yes, Prime Minister, it is a national disaster and we need a frank discussion
- I am a volunteer firefighter. Yes, we 'want to be here', Scott Morrison – but there are limits
- Australia's lungs have collapsed and Generation X needs to take part of the blame
- Bushfire survival stories emerge from New Year's Eve blazes in Victoria's east
- Morrison is now counting the cost of climate denialism
- Strength from perpetual grief: how Aboriginal people experience the bushfire crisis
- There is no strong, resilient Australia without deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions
- Behind the smokescreen, the Coalition's stance on climate change hasn't changed at all
​- Prime Minister slaps down NSW Environment Minister over climate change comments
- 'Nonsense': David Attenborough highlights problem behind bushfire crisis


The effectiveness of people and organisations in managing ONE contemporary hazard event at a selected place
- ​Hawaiian-themed mural of Scott Morrison pops up in Sydney
​- 'Hugely disappointed' emergency chiefs to hold bushfire summit with or without PM
- 'The government has abandoned its own people': Bushfire evacuees call for climate action​
- Dam levels reach two-year high, RFS declares all fires now contained
​- ​Fire near Port Macquarie extinguished after 210 days
- 'We're all just waiting': NSW south coast residents still in limbo three months after bushfires​
- Post-bushfire logging makes a bad situation even worse, but the industry is ignoring the science
- Watching our politicians fumble through the bushfire crisis, I’m overwhelmed by déjà vu

Skills
- Mapping Australia’s Bushfires​

While Life Skills content and outcomes don't match the mainstream course, there are enough links between the two courses that they can run in parallel. Essentially you will running two courses at once in your classroom. You will run your mainstream course with the majority of your students, and then address the outcomes and content of the Life Skills course at the same time with the one (or couple of) Life Skills student/s.

Have a look at the Life Skills course and see where the content and outcomes match the mainstream course. Even if it means rearranging the order, design the delivery of the Life Skills course so that as much as possible you are delivering similar concepts and content at the same time. For example cover the Life Skills content related to recognising physical elements of environments at the same time as mainstream students address content related to biophysical environments at the beginning of the Biophysical Interactions topic. Or cover the Life Skills content on patterns of human activity, when the mainstream class is covering Population. This will mean that all students are part of the same conversations and discussions, but can be given different individual work. It may work out that the Life Skills student can also be involved in some aspects of class group activities, depending on the complexity of the tasks.

Make sure that you access any support that you can from the school. This might be the Learning and Support Teacher (LaST) or a Student Learning Support Officer (SLSO). Not everyone is comfortable having a support teacher in the classroom, and you need to work with the person and establish a bit of a routine to make it work well. You will need to get used to having another instructor that might talk when you're asking the students to be quiet, or that repeats instructions, but if this is what has to happen for the student to engage in the work, then you have to deal.Don't expect them to design the resources for the student. Support staff are unlikely to be Geography trained. They might be able to give you some lesson ideas to engage the student, but you will need to design the actual resources.

Modifying class activities might be as simple as giving a few extra clues. For example, you might include a cloze passage in a lesson to help build student literacy skills and provide a quick recap of information. A Life Skills student may require the following modification:
- extra time to complete the task (mainstream students might take 5-10 minutes, but Life Skills students may need considerably longer).
- some extra clues (e.g. providing the first letter of the answer)
- larger text and simplified layout to make it less daunting
- one-on-one assistance from the classroom teacher or SLSO.
Below is an example of a cloze passage that has been modified, including the downloadable files.

It is possible to lead a Life Skills student through the same fieldwork skills and tools as the rest of your class. If you do activities outside with your class practicing soil testing, water testing, field sketches, etc, the student can still participate in much of this, but may not be able to analyse the results in the same way as the mainstream students. These activities also provide a great way of providing some mentoring and leadership opportunities for your mainstream students. They could take turns in being paired with the Life Skills student to model fieldwork techniques or assist in conducting tests. This is also a nice way to help your students to bond and teaches them some responsibility and understanding.

The SGP will need to be scaffolded heavily. You might choose to provide the student with some picture books or geographically themed magazine to help them identify topics they are interested in. Depending on the student's capabilities, it may be the case that the teacher ends up identifying a topic for the student. Unless the Life Skill student's parents are very engaged, it is likely to be easier to develop the SGP project around the school playground so that they can be guided through different parts of the project at school. 

It might be worth providing the student with a separate exercise book that they keep all their SGP notes, fieldwork, articles, etc in. The teacher or SLSO might find a couple of relevant websites and print them for the student. The SLSO could spend some time in class underlining key points and concepts and helping the student to write a couple of sentences about the topic.

The completed assignment for a Life Skills student would include the student's SGP exercise book, as well as a short description on the project. The teacher would need to make a judgement based on the student's abilities regarding the length and depth required.

​Below: Excerpt from SGP program. Downloadable file below.

It may be useful to look at resources for lower ages groups/stages. For example, if you are studying Biophysical Interactions you might choose to supplement your resources with activities from Stage 3 Water In the World and Landscapes and Landforms. You may also look at picture books and non-fiction books designed for late primary or early high school. Have a chat with your school librarian about the topics for Year 11 and ask them to find some suitable texts.