GEOGRAPHY TIPS NO 4
UNPACKING AS91428 (3.3) INTERNAL STANDARD
ABOUT THE STANDARD
While this standard has a few similarities to the old ‘planning and decision making’ it is a completely new achievement standard meaning teachers need to work from scratch. As with the old standard the intention is to look at ways in which geography can be applied to real life situations. It is based around the investigation of a contemporary event from a geographic perspective.
WHAT COMPRISES A SIGNIFICANT CONTEMPORARY EVENT?
This is about an event not a building. In other words, it is something that only happens on occasions - it could happen only once, be once or twice a year or only happen every few years.
In order to be geographic it needs have a spatial dimension and can be shown on a map. Geography is about people/environment interaction and so it is only possible to look at such an issue from a geographic perspective if it is also linked to a particular place. It does not matter if the ‘event’ is based in a building since the impacts of coping with extra visitors in terms of transport and accommodation make this geographic.
The term ‘contemporary’ is taken as an event that has happened within the last 5 years. In other words it is ‘current’. It must be an event that has happened since the impacts of it need to be investigated and backed up with evidence. The event also must have been planned and not something, such as a demonstration that happens on the spur of the moment.
The term ‘significant’ event must be of a scale that means it has wide reaching effects on a large area. This can be global, national or regional. Studying the effects of a school sport match would have little impact on the region so would not be suitable. It is often easier to think of the numbers of people involved – the larger this is the more impact it will have.
The event can be based anywhere in the world. However, do watch this unless it is of a size that means information is easy to obtain. It is often easier for students to choose locations in New Zealand they are familiar with and can easily find resources about. The ideal is to get students to go to the event and collect data but this is not always possible.
WHAT EVENTS ARE SUITABLE?
As in the case of many Level 3 assessments the ideal is to get students to choose their own event to investigate. However, this does pose a few issues in that the number of suitable events is often limited. As it is a new standard it is easier to choose the event and get all students to do this until you understand the criteria better.
You should also think of the ‘events’ that are both topical and of interest to your students. A student in Wellington may be interested to cover the wearable arts awards while a student in the South Island may wish to look at the Coast to Coast.
The number of different events possible is huge! What follows are just suggestions to get you thinking.
· A major national or regional sporting event like a rugby test, cricket test, Triathalon, Round The Bays, V8, Dragon Boating or coast to coast
· A large music festival like Rhythm and vines, Parachute or CoroGold
· A large arts festival like Pacifika, Womad or Wearable Arts
· An exhibition held for a limited time that can draw the crowds like the visit of the Greenpeace ship, Warbirds at Wanaka or A and P shows like the Hamilton Field days.
· A large conference such as the Pacific Forum
· An awards ceremony or ticker- tape parade such as welcoming home our Olympic Athletes or the opening of The Hobbit in Wellington.
· A large regional event like a Food and Wine Festival or Market Day.
OTHER MATTERS TO CONSIDER
This standard will take about 3-4 weeks of your teaching programme depending on whether you assess it formally or in student’s own time. You may like to consider alternative forms of assessment to a written assessment since this is ideal as a seminar, power point, film or poster presentation. You can also use GIS to illustrate some of the aspects. As with other Level 3 internal assessments students are expected to collect some of the material themselves. Since organisers and councils do not want to be bombarded by individual students it may be a good idea for this information to be collected by the teacher and made available on a school intranet site. Alternatively get the students to come up with the questions and the teacher can send this to the organisers to make it manageable. It is also acceptable to provide websites to assist students.
WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU NEED TO GET YOU STARTED
Ensure you have access to the following documents:
· Achievement Standard AS91428
· Conditions of assessment
· The generic assessment resource called ‘Plans and Impacts”
· Geography clarification of standards from the moderator
· Exemplar material such as those available on rhythm and vines or Mystery Creek field days that identifies the grade mark boundaries
All of these resources can be found at:
www.nzqa.govt.nz/geography
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
· Event websites (the best)
· Council Websites
· Newspaper Articles
· Brochures on the event
· You Tube Clips
· Photographs
· Social Media Sites (for feedback)
· Press Releases
· Council documents
· Interviews
· Questionnaires
· Visiting speakers / Phone calls
THE ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS
There are 3 main aspects to this assessment that are identified by the marking grid below. What follows is a checklist of what to include in each of these.
Assessment Aspects / Not Achieved / Achieved / Merit / ExcellenceOutlining Nature of Event
Planning and Decision Making involved
Social, economic and/or environmental impacts
Outlining the Nature of the Event:
- What the event is called
- When the event has taken place
- Characteristics such as who is the event for?
- Why it is geographic – what are the spatial features, how it is spatial such as why the location was chosen or how it shows people/environment interaction.
- The reasons why it is ‘significant’. This can relate to the numbers attending and/or the impact it has.
- An annotated map showing the location and extent of impact of the event and may show its significance.
Planning and Decision Making Involved
-
- A description of the planning needed before the event with reasons why this was needed –
A. Identify the different participant groups involved such as the role of the stakeholders, sponsors, council, police, security , insurance, participants, traffic management, food needs, health and safety needs (this will vary according to the event).
B. Go over the process of compliance or what was needed and why such as resource consents, licenses, permits, notifying the public and meetings etc.
C. A timeline or flow chart of when these were developed prior to the event
-A description of the planning needed during the event with reasons why this was needed – the role of emergency services and event staff.
-A description of the planning needed after the event with reasons why this was needed – clean up.
- An evaluation that makes a judgment on how effective the decision making was at each stage. Who made the final decision? How was this influenced by different values and viewpoints?
Social, Economic and/or Environmental Impacts
- An investigation as to the Social, Economic and/or Environmental Impacts. What happened? It is important that at least two of these 3 categories are included (environmental can be hard to find in some instances). You can consider this in both the short and long term as well as both positive and negative.
- An evaluation of these impacts. Which were the most important and why? You can also come up with a cost-benefit analysis, sieve analysis or environmental impact report to see if it met its aims.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GRADES
In each aspect it is expected at Level 3 that the student uses some geographic terminology and concepts (see clarification of AS 91428. This can be accessed at:
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications-standards/qualifications/ncea/subjects/geography/clarifications/level-3/as91428/
Students must also back up their answers with evidence that relates to the event.
Aspect one only goes to an Achieve level so that the amount included does not have to be extensive. However, to meet Level 3 requirements there should be an element of explanation in the answer that says why it is a significant event.
In the case of aspects two and three explain is also the key instruction word. It is not enough to say what happened regarding planning and impacts but to include some explanations as to why.
In order to gain Achievement with Merit it is important to not only explain but to back this up with good evidence and show a good or in-depth understanding of the event.
At excellence the student must evaluate. This means assessing the planning and decision making of the groups involved as well as the relative significance of the impacts it had. At this level it is also expected that the answer show some insight such as how the different groups are connected and interact.
HOLISTIC APPROACH
You are reminded that while the aspects are often written as separate questions evidence for any of them may be contained within any of the answers and students should be rewarded for this.
Since the assessment is marked holistically you need to read the answer provided as a whole and make a judgment as to the level the answer is at. There is only one criterion for this assessment so do not treat the questions as independent from each other.
SUGGESTED APPROACH
· Decide if you are going to choose the event or get students to choose the event themselves.
· Establish the event – if chosen by students get them to get this approved by you first so you can ensure it meets the necessary criteria.
· Write up your assessment tasks and assessment schedules. Get someone to check that these fulfill the needs of the assessment criteria.
· Source some information and make it available to students on a website.
· Go over the requirements of the standard with students
· Get students to start collecting information themselves and to keep a record of these resources or sites. This can include blogs or social media sites such as facebook.
· Pre-teaching of the topic. This should be general or use an alternative event as an example. This should include:
- What is meant by a significant contemporary event
- How it is geographic in terms of its spatial nature and people/environment interaction.
- Who are the interested parties in an event
- What planning is required before an event? Brainstorm the different groups involved and how they are involved.
- What is the role of the event organisers. You could invite an events organizer to visit the school.
- What licenses, permits and consents are required and how do these work? You could invite a planner to visit the school.
- Go over the compliance timeline – what are the main stages and when did they happen?
- What planning considerations are there during and after an event?
- What are the affects of the event? How we divide into social, economic and environmental and both positive and negative and long and short term.
- How to deal with decision making based on the strengths and weaknesses. Look at examples of decision making techniques like Social Cost Benefit analysis.
- How to evaluate
· Complete the assessment. This can be done in stages and each stage may be assessed using different methods of presentation.
· Get students to hand in their bibliography of resources used.
· Marking and review
PROBLEMS DISCOVERED BY TEACHERS SO FAR
1. Accessing information is tricky. It takes a lot of time so make sure you start the process well before it is needed. The best events are those that have their own website. This will provide links to site maps, council documents and contacts.
2. It is a fine balance in getting enough information for students to find the answers to the questions while not providing so much information they can just copy it. You need to provide pathways and links to resources and rely on students being able to filter these for the information.
3. It is a lot easier if students can go to the event and collect photos and resources themselves. If it is an event like rhythm and vines held in the school holidays it may pay to advise students in Year 12 that this will happen so they can try and attend it. Alternatively there are you tube and video clips that add interest.
4. Be careful that students do not write too much. They can easily provide far too much for each question. Check the standard to see where the depth is required. Task 1 for example is an Achieved question only so does not need a lot of information.
5. Evaluation needs to be stressed as it is needed for Excellence in Task 2 and 3. Students need to evaluate the planning and decision making processes as well as the impacts. This means they need to say how effective they are, compare the levels of impact and the significance of each.
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