Course topics.

Try this with Earth and Environmental Science

1. Compare the topic list with the current course outline from your school.
2. Pick a topic you can partly explain and identify the exact part you want to work through.
3. Bring one example of the kind of question or task your school uses.

View Earth and Environmental Science resources on ATARMAXXING ↗

Topics in the resource inventory

• Origin of organic molecules: Urey–Miller, black smokers and meteorites/panspermia
• Cyanobacteria, stromatolites, oxygenation and banded iron formations across Earth’s spheres
• Multicellular life: Ediacaran and Cambrian fauna and the conquest of land
• The plate tectonic supercycle: modelling it and its effects on climate and evolution
• Fossil formation, index fossils, relative and absolute dating and mass extinctions
• Plate boundaries, earthquake and volcano zones and the changing depth of earthquake foci
• Earthquake hazards: ground motion, liquefaction and tsunamis; when a hazard becomes a disaster
• Magma types, explosivity and volcanic hazards: ash, lava, lahars and gases; effusive versus explosive eruptions
• Mount Pinatubo and climatic phenomena: hailstorms, east coast lows, droughts, floods, bushfires and human contributions
• Predicting and minimising disasters: monitoring technologies, building codes, warnings, education and meteorology
• The natural greenhouse effect and natural causes of climate variation on different timescales
• Ancient climate evidence: pollen, rock types, fossils and microfossils, isotope ratios in rocks and sediments
• Recent climate evidence: ice cores, dendrochronology, Aboriginal art sites, instrumental records, speleothems and corals
• The anthropogenic greenhouse effect, ocean acidification and flow-on effects of climate change
• Mitigation and adaptation: individual actions, urban design, geo-engineering, alternative energy and agricultural practices
• Australia’s resources, mining methods, environmental impacts and reclamation of mine sites
• Traditional owners in mining, and building a resource case study
• Waste: investigating composition, solid waste management options and evaluating sustainability
• Sustainability definitions, threatening activities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resource management
• Working scientifically in the HSC exam: methods, variables, data processing, the Geological Time Scale and 7–9 mark responses