Creative Learning in Geography

Creative learning activities enhance cognitive skills through the encouragement of student curriculum experimentation and the application of classroom knowledge to find innovative solutions to challenges. Critical thinking through creativity has been shown to motivate learning. In Year 7 HSIE students have been studying the geographic features and geomorphic processes of landscapes and landforms. There has been a buzz in Lara Hutcheson’s Year 7 HSIE class as students have been using creative learning strategies to activate geography learning. A huge thank you to Lara Hutcheson for the design of these fun classroom learning strategies.

Brigida Zagora
Head of HSIE (Humanities and Social Sciences)

Teacher Reflection

Students in my 7 HSIE class completed hands-on, collaborative activities to consolidate their understanding of the Geography unit Landscapes and Landforms. This task afforded students the opportunity to engage in collaborative and kinaesthetic learning. Students were encouraged to work with their peer groups to partake in the activities offered at various stations within the classroom.

They engaged in geographical enquiry, applied key concepts and employed their knowledge of geographical skills to complete the activities at each station. Students had the opportunity to: complete puzzles that illustrate theories related to continental drift, create a model of a geomorphic hazard using play dough, matching geomorphic hazards with their description, and creating illustrations of each, differentiating between different landscapes and identifying landforms and animals and locating key points on a map using Grid Reference and Area Reference.
Lara Hutcheson
HSIE Teacher

Student Reflections

We had such fun in class! In groups, we rotated to many stations that were so fun and were a great way to wrap up our unit on landscapes and landforms and geomorphic hazards. Completing all these stations and activities really helped me to consolidate my understanding on landscapes and landforms and geomorphic hazards. One of the tasks, which I found quite challenging, was where we had to match the puzzle pieces of a map of Pangea (where all the continents were together) and a map of what the continents look like now. Overall, I had an amazing time completing all the stations with my peers and I thank Ms Hutcheson for planning an amazing lesson for us!
Sophia Azzi
Year 7

In teams we completed different challenges based on our current unit of learning (Landscapes and Landforms) which contributed to my understanding of geographic topics as it was hands-on. This allowed me to consolidate and reinforce topics learnt in a different way, not just through pen and paper.
Elizabeth Saade
Year 7

My personal favourite station was the clay station where we got to create visual representations of our selected geomorphic hazards. My group and I had so much fun together creating a tsunami scene. I found this so enjoyable and thank you to Miss Hutcheson for organising such a fun learning afternoon.
Isabella Grasso
Year 7