Primary School Curriculum Curaclam na Bunscoile - NCCA

Chapter 5 Curriculum areas
50
Geography
Strands
• Human environments
• Natural environments
• Environmental awareness
and care
In this way history equips children to live as informed and critical citizens,
aware of the influence of human character and motivation, respectful of the
opinions and beliefs of others, and conscious of the ways in which the past
has shaped contemporary society in Ireland, Europe, and the wider world.
Geography encompasses the study of the Earth, its inhabitants, and the
interrelationships between them, and is particularly concerned with the
themes of place, space, and environment. The geography curriculum
provides opportunities through which children can come to explore and
understand the peoples and features, both natural and human, distributed
over the Earth’s surface, and it enables them to appreciate the distinctive
characteristics of places. By exploring the interrelationships of peoples and
their environments, geography helps to promote knowledge about and
concern and awareness of the potential of these environments.
Geography is also characterised by a distinct set of skills, particularly those
concerned with fieldwork and graphicacy, that allow us to explore and
understand the Earth’s environments. As with the other subjects in SESE,
the development of these skills will take place in parallel with the acquisition
of geographical knowledge and concepts. The curriculum places an
emphasis on skills development through observing and exploring the
richness of the immediate environs of the school and home. This involves
the children in questioning, observing, experimenting and recording the
features of the natural and human environments that they encounter. In the
course of this exploration, children develop an awareness of spatial patterns
and the ability to use a range of investigative and communicative skills.
While the curriculum emphasises the centrality of the child’s immediate
environment, other environments are explored as the children mature. The
wider locality is examined, as are other environments in Ireland, in Europe,
and in other parts of the world. This progression from the local and
immediate to the wider world contributes to children’s development in a
number of ways. It fosters not only their sense of local identity but their
sense of being members of national, European and global communities. It
encourages them to appreciate the interdependence of individuals, groups,
and communities, and it promotes an understanding of and a respect for
the cultures and ways of life of peoples throughout the world. It fosters, too,
an informed sense of individual and community responsibility for
environmental care.