Geography at Junior Cycle:
The study of Junior Cycle Geography enables students to become geographically literate. It stimulates curiosity, creating opportunities for students to read, analyse, synthesise and communicate about their immediate environment and wider world. It develops knowledge, skills, values and behaviours that allow students to explore the physical world, human activities, how we interact with our world and recognise the interconnections between systems. All students in St. Mary’s Baldoyle take Geography at Junior Cycle level.
The course specification is achieved through 3 interconnected strands:
- Exploring the physical world
- Exploring how we interact with the physical world
- Exploring people, and change.
This is supported by the overarching concept of Geoliteracy. This refers to students’ ability to develop far-reaching decisions through geographical thinking and reasoning. Geoliteracy provides the framework for understanding in geography and is threaded throughout learning and teaching of geography. The core components of Geoliteracy are interactions, interconnections and implications.
Classroom-Based Assessments in Geography
There are two Classroom-Based Assessments in Geography. They are assessed at a common level. They relate to the learning outcomes and are scheduled to be undertaken by students in a defined time period within class contact time to a national timetable (as advised by the NCCA) in the school calendar. Following the second of these assessments, students will complete an Assessment Task which is marked by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) as part of the state-certified examination in Geography.
More information can be found at: https://www.curriculumonline.ie/junior-cycle/junior-cycle-subjects/geography/