Distance in Australia

In Australia, the big idea we will explore zAustralia roads map icon
is the basic geographic concept of distance,
the amount of “space” between two places.

Distance is important for one major reason –
it costs time, money, and/or energy
to overcome distance.

Distance can be good
(it can protect you from enemies)
or bad (it makes trade more expensive).

These materials explore some consequences of distance,
using examples from Australia.

NOTE: This unit could come before unit 3,
Elevation in South America.

Day 1. The Tropic of Capricorn runs right through Australia.
As a result, Australia is just the “right” distance
away from the equator to be mainly desert.

Day 2. Australia is also relatively far from East Africa,
where humans began.

Distance and isolation can also help us understand
why Australia has such an “unusual” mix
of plants and animals. This is a topic
best handled through video or a web search
for animals like kangaroos, koalas, etc.
The goal is not just to amass anecdotes
about biological oddities – it is to see
how Australia’s biologic history can give us
greater understanding of ecologic processes,
which in turn can help us deal with issues
like invasive species and epidemic diseases.

Some students may need a reminder that flat maps
inevitably distort area, shape, and/or distance –
a fact that must be remembered whenever we use
a flat map as a source of information about the world.

Day 3. Distances within Australia are also a problem –
the country is as large as China or the United States,
but it has a much smaller number of people
to help pay for things like roads or railroads.

Here again, some students probably need a way to think
about the importance of things like roads, railroads,
and ocean ports. This activity looks only at capacity;
students should also be encouraged to think about
things like speed, cost, and vulnerability to terrorism.

Options: We are working on an activity that deals with
how people choose BIGJobs (Basic Income Generating Jobs)
in “faraway” places like Australia. Early in Australia’s history,
people realized that the environment could not support
intensive food production by farming, but it  would support
grazing animals. They knew that milk and meat would spoil
long before they reached markets – wool, hides, and cheese
were better options, and for a long time the economy
depended on those easier-to-transport animal products.

In recent years, Australia has become
a major exporter of energy and minerals, mainly
to rapidly growing economies in South and East Asia.
This change in economic connections, in turn, is related
to the last topic, about trends in migration to Australia.

Summary: At the end of this unit, students should
should be able to explain how the idea of distance
can help them understand both the environment
and the economy of Australia.  The idea can also
provide perspective for a capstone project about
a current-events topic such as rare earth mining,
invasive species (“the failure of the Rabbit Fence”),
or the changing role of Australia in the world economy,
as the world pivots away from 20th-century dominance
by Europe and North America.