New Geography Syllabuses

As mentioned in the briefing for the Humanities Curriculum Leaders’ sharing session 2013 on 6 March:

New Lower Sec Geography Syllabuses

Sec 1: Environment and Resources

• Introduction: What will I learn in Geography?
• Tropical Rainforest – How can we save rainforest?
• Water Supply – Will our taps run dry?
• Energy resources – How can we avoid an energy crisis? *

Sec 2: Urban Living

• Introduction: How and where people live?
• Housing: How to build inclusive homes for all?
• Transport: How do we keep people moving? *
• Floods – How can cities prepare for floods?

*Only for Express

Key Features of New Syllabuses

•         4 key concepts of place, space, environment and scale
•          Emphasis is placed on geographical perspective of human-environment interaction
•          Geographical skills e.g. map reading and photo interpretation are incorporated as and when appropriate
•          Examples are drawn from Singapore and the world
•          Use of inquiry as key pedagogy

     Geographical Investigation Tasks

	Topic	Inquiry question
Sec 1	Tropical rainforest	How do we protect Singapore’s tropical rainforest?
	Water Supply	How clean is our waterway or water body?
	Energy resources	How can my school’s carbon footprint be reduced?
Sec 2	Housing	Does the neighbourhood meet residents’ needs?
	Transport	Are we satisfied with our public transport service?
	Floods	How do we cope with floods?

      Only 1 per level per year – choose 1 the 3 given

Geographical Investigation Skills

GI	Sampling	Sketching	Photo	Questionnaire & Interview	Use of equipment
Tropical rainforest	√	√	√	√	√
Water Supply	√	√	√		√
Energy resources	√		√	√
Housing	√		√	√
Transport	√	√	√	√
Floods	√		√	√

 When do we carry a Geographical Investigation?

The GI should be carried out after the topic has been completed.

Teachers have the flexibility to carry out the GI at the end of:

-          1 topic, or

-          Towards the end of the course

Time required for a GI:

Recommended curriculum time:

Express: 12 periods    Normal Academic: 15 periods

Each period is 35 min in duration

Where can we carry a Geographical Investigation?

Classroom and school compound and

Nearby field sites e.g. nearby water body, waterway, forest, housing estate, interchange and canals

 New Lower Secondary Geography Assessment Objectives

Objective 1: Knowledge

Objective 2: Critical Understanding and constructing explanation

Objective 3: Interpreting and Evaluating Geographical Data

Assessment	Assessment Modes		Assessment Objectives	Paper (Weighting)
Continual Assessment	Responses to a geographical issue in the news		AO2+AO3	2X10=20%
	Short answer questions		AO3	2X10=20%
	Structured questions		AO2+AO3	2X15=30%
	Geographical Investigation	Product	AO2+AO3	1X30=30%
		Process
Overall Total				100%

Assessment Format of response to a geographical issue in the news

Component	Marks
Summary	3
Map work	2
Personal response	5

Assessment Format of GI

Component	Submission	Marks
Process	Individual Reflection (on knowledge learnt and limitations of the investigation)	3
	Group Investigation Log	2
Product	Group Product	5
	Total	30