Syllabus
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Unit 1: Oceanography
Topic 1: An ocean planet
Oceanography
Unit 1: Oceanography > Topic 1: An ocean planet > Oceanography
- Describe the bathymetric features of the ocean floor, including the continental margin ocean-basin floor deep-sea trenches mid-ocean ridges abyssal plain
- Apply models to understand the geological features of Earth (e.g. sea floor modelling, tectonic plate movements, coastal landforms, stratigraphy)
- Describe the processes of the following cycles: water, carbon and oxygen.
Ocean currents
Unit 1: Oceanography > Topic 1: An ocean planet > Ocean currents
- Describe how surface ocean currents are driven by temperature, wind and gravity
- Describe how water, heat and nutrients are distributed across coastal regions and global ocean basins (e.g. upwelling and downwelling, El Niño and La Niña events, Langmuir circulation, Ekman spiral)
- Describe the physical and chemical properties of water, including structure, hydrogen bonding, polarity, action as a solvent, heat capacity and density
- Define thermocline, halocline and pycnocline
- Recognise how thermoclines and nutrients produce the oxygen minimum within the open ocean
- Explain how thermohaline circulation in the deep ocean is affected by salinity and water density.
Ocean conservation
Unit 1: Oceanography > Topic 1: An ocean planet > Ocean conservation
- Argue that knowledge of the oceans is limited and requires further investigation
- Understand that the economic development of a nation and the value placed on marine environment, including the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), affects decisions relating to resource management.
Topic 2: The dynamic shore
Coastlines
Unit 1: Oceanography > Topic 2: The dynamic shore > Coastlines
- Identify that coastlines are shaped by a number of factors, including tectonic plate movements, shifts in climate patterns and sea level change, weather patterns, and movement of sediments and water (e.g. waves, currents)
- Recognise tidal movement in terms of gravitational pull, current strength and wave action
- Define sand budget and longshore drift
- Define refraction, reflection and diffraction
- Describe the factors of wave action, wind and longshore drift in the management of the movement of water, nutrients, sand, sediment and pollutants (e.g. oil spills, debris)
- Describe the processes of coastal erosion (in terms of accretion and erosion)
- Identify the factors between the atmosphere and the oceans that drive weather patterns and climate (e.g. temperature, wind speed and direction, rainfall, breezes, barometric pressure)
- Recall wave formation processes (e.g. fetch, relationship of wave height and type to water depth and wave celerity)
- Explain how the properties of waves are shaped by weather patterns, natural formations and artificial structures (e.g. interference patterns, fetch, wave sets).
Coastal impacts
Unit 1: Oceanography > Topic 2: The dynamic shore > Coastal impacts
- Explain how coastal engineering regulates water or sediment flow, affects currents and impacts the coastline, including marine ecosystems
- Recognise that longitudinal studies allow scientists to observe changes occurring in marine environments (e.g. satellite imagery, aerial photography, field research)
- Identify how organisms populate areas following changes in habitats (e.g. succession)
- Assess population density data of coastal areas to identify the impact on the health of coastal water
- Recall types of pollution of coastal zones, including organic wastes, thermal, toxic compounds, heavy metals, oil, nutrients and pesticides.
Coastal conservation and monitoring impacts
Unit 1: Oceanography > Topic 2: The dynamic shore > Coastal conservation and monitoring impacts
- Define sustainable management practice
- Discuss that the education of stakeholders is essential to encouraging sustainable management practices
- Compare the terms point source and non-point source forms of pollution
- Describe two direct methods of monitoring water pollution levels using an abiotic test (e.g. nitrate, phosphate, heavy metals) or a biotic test (e.g. faecal coliform)
- Define the term biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)
- Describe how BOD is used to indirectly assess water pollution levels
- Define the process of eutrophication
- Identify and describe land management practices that contribute to the health of marine ecosystems, including siltation, algal blooms and agricultural practices
- Describe and explain an indirect method of measuring pollution levels using a biotic index
- Recall a bio-indicator with an example.
- Mandatory practical: Conduct water quality tests on a water sample.
Unit 2: Marine biology
Topic 1: Marine ecology and biodiversity
Biodiversity
Unit 2: Marine biology > Topic 1: Marine ecology and biodiversity > Biodiversity
- Define the three main types of diversity (i.e. genetic, species and ecosystem)
- Recall the three unique characteristics of marine biodiversity (i.e. wide dispersal at sea, the need for structural complexity, critical nursery habitats)
- Identify the variety of ecosystems (e.g. estuaries, coastal lakes, saltmarshes, mangroves, seagrass, rocky shores, temperate reefs, coral reefs, lagoons, shelf and deep water) that constitute Australia’s marine biomes
- Describe the implications of connectivity to marine ecosystems
- Identify factors that lead to a loss of diversity (e.g. natural hazard, loss/fragmentation of habitat, pollution, exploitation, introduction of new species, disease)
- Calculate the biodiversity of a marine ecosystem using Simpson’s diversity index (SDI)
- Apply data to determine the biodiversity of a marine ecosystem using diversity indices
- Define ecosystem resilience, disturbance and recovery.
Biotic components of marine ecosystems
Unit 2: Marine biology > Topic 1: Marine ecology and biodiversity > Biotic components of marine ecosystems
- Identify biotic components of marine ecosystems (i.e. trophic levels, food chains, food webs, interactions and population dynamics)
- Categorise biotic interactions based on the following terms symbiosis (i.e. parasitism, mutualism, commensalism and amensalism) competition (i.e. intraspecific and interspecific) predation
- Classify organisms in trophic levels in a food web based on the following terms producers primary consumers secondary consumers tertiary consumers decomposers
- Describe how matter cycles through food webs, including the process of bioaccumulation
- Recall the terms population size, density, abundance, distribution (i.e. clumped, uniform, random), carrying capacity, niche, K-strategists and r-strategists, keystone species
- Assess population data to measure population size, density, abundance, distribution, carrying capacity.
Abiotic components of the marine ecosystem
Unit 2: Marine biology > Topic 1: Marine ecology and biodiversity > Abiotic components of the marine ecosystem
- Understand that marine ecosystems are influenced and limited by abiotic factors in ways that may be different from terrestrial ecosystems due to the different physical and chemical properties of water compared to air
- Distinguish abiotic components of marine ecosystems: light availability, depth, stratification, temperature, currents (water and wind), tides, sediment type and nutrient availability
- Understand the importance of limiting factors and tolerance limits in population distributions
- Assess data to identify an organism’s tolerance limit
- Apply the concept of zonation using the following terms: intertidal, pelagic (neritic, oceanic), benthic and abyss
- Conduct an investigation to determine factors of population dynamics (e.g. density or distribution) and assess abiotic components of a local ecosystem case study. Emphasis should be placed on assessing the processes and limitations of the chosen technique (e.g. quadrat, transect). When students identify and describe marine species, they should use field guides and identification keys.
Adaptation
Unit 2: Marine biology > Topic 1: Marine ecology and biodiversity > Adaptation
- Categorise different groups of animals using structural characteristics
- Identify and classify adaptations as anatomical (structural), physiological (functional) or behavioural
- Describe the role of adaptation in enhancing an organism’s survival in a specific marine environment.
Topic 2: Marine environmental management
Marine conservation
Unit 2: Marine biology > Topic 2: Marine environmental management > Marine conservation
- Recall the arguments for preserving species and habitats (i.e. ecological, economic, social, aesthetic, ethical)
- Describe the direct and indirect values of marine ecosystems of Australia
- Describe the role of stakeholders in the use and management of marine ecosystems
- Discuss the specific value systems that identified stakeholders use (i.e. ecocentric, technocentric and anthropogenic)
- Recognise the issues affecting a selected marine ecosystem
- Apply the terms ecosystem resilience, disturbance and recovery as indicators of ‘health’ of marine environments to a chosen case study.
Resources and sustainable use
Unit 2: Marine biology > Topic 2: Marine environmental management > Resources and sustainable use
- Recall the precautionary principle of the marine environmental planning and management process as well as a requirement that any network of marine protected areas be comprehensive, adequate and representative
- Understand that criteria are used to inform decisions regarding the design of protected marine areas
- Compare the strategies and techniques used for marine environmental planning and management with reference to a specific case study
- Evaluate the marine environmental planning and management process using primary or secondary data of a specific case study (this may be linked to fieldwork).
Unit 3: Marine systems — connections and change
view_agenda query_statsTopic 1: The reef and beyond
view_agenda query_statsCoral reef distribution
view_agenda query_statsUnit 3: Marine systems — connections and change > Topic 1: The reef and beyond > Coral reef distribution
- Identify the distribution of coral reefs globally and in Australia
- Identify abiotic factors that have affected the geographic distribution of corals over geological time including dissolved oxygen, light availability, salinity, temperature, substrate, aragonite and low levels of nitrates and phosphates
- Recall that corals first appeared within the geological record over 250 million years ago but not in Australian waters until approximately 500 000 years ago
- Recognise that the Great Barrier Reef of today has been shaped by changes in sea levels that began over 20 000 years before present (BP) and only stabilised 6500 years BP
- Recall the different types of reef structure (e.g. fringing, platform, ribbon, atolls, coral cays)
- Recognise the zonation within a reef cross-section (e.g. reef slope, reef crest/rim, lagoon/back reef)
Coral reef development
view_agenda query_statsUnit 3: Marine systems — connections and change > Topic 1: The reef and beyond > Coral reef development
- Recall the following groups of coral: Alcyonacea ‘soft corals’ and the two morphological groups within Scleractinia ‘hard corals’ — reef-forming/hermaphytic and non-reef forming/ahemapytic
- Classify a specific coral to genus level only, using a relevant identification key
- Identify the anatomy of a typical reef-forming hard coral including skeleton, corallite, coelenteron, coral poly, tentacles, nematocyst, mouth and zooxanthellae
- Recall that the limestone skeleton of a coral is built when calcium ions [Ca²⁺] combine with carbonate ions [CO₃²⁻]
- Describe the process of coral feeding (including night-feeding patterns and the function of nematocysts)
- Identify and describe the symbiotic relationships in a coral colony (including polyp interconnections and zooxanthellae)
- Recall the life cycle stages of a typical reef-forming hard coral (asexual: fragmentation, polyp detachment; sexual: gametes, zygotes, planulae, polyp/asexual budding)
- Explain the process of larval dispersal, site selection, settlement and recruitment
- Explain that growth of reefs is dependent on accretion processes being greater than destructive processes
- Assess data of abiotic factors (e.g. dissolved oxygen, salinity, substrate) that affect the distribution of coral reefs
Reef, habitats and connectivity
view_agenda query_statsUnit 3: Marine systems — connections and change > Topic 1: The reef and beyond > Reef, habitats and connectivity
- Recognise that corals are habitat formers or ecosystem engineers
- Explain that habitat complexity (rugosity), established by corals, influences diversity of other species
- Explain connectivity between ecosystems and the role this plays in species replenishment
- Understand that fish life cycles are integrated within a variety habitats including reef and estuarine systems
- Describe how fish, particularly herbivore populations, benefit coral reefs
- Identify ecological tipping points and how this applies to coral reefs
- Describe hysteresis and how this applies to the concept of reef resilience
- Assess the diversity of a reef system using a measure that could include (but is not limited to) line intercept transects, quadrats and fish counts using underwater video survey techniques, benthic surveys, invertebrate counts and rugosity measurements
- Analyse reef diversity data, using an index, to determine rank abundance
- Interpret, with reference to regional trends, how coral cover has changed on a reef over time
- Recognise that some of the factors that reduce coral cover (e.g. crown-of-thorns) are directly linked to water quality
- Understand that the processes in this sub-topic interact to have an overall net effect i.e. they do not occur in isolation
- Mandatory practical: Examine the concept of connectivity within or between habitats by investigating the impact of water quality on reef health.
Topic 2: Changes on the reef
view_agenda query_statsAnthropogenic change
view_agenda query_statsUnit 3: Marine systems — connections and change > Topic 2: Changes on the reef > Anthropogenic change
- Analyse results from models to determine potential reef futures under various scenarios
- Recall the global anthropogenic factors affecting the distribution of coral (i.e. coral mining, pollution: organic and non-organic, fishing practices, dredging, climate change, ocean acidification and shipping)
- Describe the specific pressures affecting coral reefs (i.e. surface run-off, salinity fluctuations, climate change, cyclic crown-of-thorns outbreaks, overfishing, spills and improper ballast)
- Recognise that during the Holocene no evidence of coral bleaching or ocean acidification can be found within coral cores dating back 6000 years
- Explain the concept of coral bleaching in terms of Shelford's law of tolerance
- Interpret thermal threshold data for reefs in the northern, central and southern sections of the Great Barrier Reef in relation to the likelihood of a bleaching event
- Use a specific case study to evaluate the ecological effects on other organisms (e.g. fish) after a bleaching event has occurred
- Describe the conditions necessary for recovery from bleaching events
- Compare the responses to bleaching events between two regions, while recognising that coral cover increases on resilient reefs once pressures are reduced or removed
- Interpret data, including qualitative graphical data of coral cores, that demonstrates that coral cores can act as a proxy for the climate record (i.e. they provide information on the changes in weather patterns and events affecting the composition of coral communities).
Ocean equilibria
view_agenda query_statsUnit 3: Marine systems — connections and change > Topic 2: Changes on the reef > Ocean equilibria
- Explain the reason for differences between ocean pH and freshwater — presence of carbonate buffering system
- Explain that the carbonate system is linked to geological processes and operates on geological timescales
- Recognise that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide influences both global temperature and ocean pH
- Describe sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and how this influences ocean chemistry
- Describe the effect of ocean acidification on sea water in terms of increasing the concentration of hydrogen ions decreasing the concentration of carbonate ions
- Explain how the carbonate compensation depth (CCD) varies due to depth, location and oceanographic processes such as upwelling and coastal influences
- Understand that the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide is changing and is linked to temperature (uptake) and changes in primary productivity (storage, e.g. biological pump).
Implications for marine systems
view_agenda query_statsUnit 3: Marine systems — connections and change > Topic 2: Changes on the reef > Implications for marine systems
- Recognise that the type of carbonate ions and concentration of ions have an implication for the development of shell-forming and skeletal-forming organisms including hard corals (Scleractinia), coralline algae, molluscs, plankton and crustaceans
- Interpret trends in data in relation to the carbonate system and changes in pH
- Distinguish between laboratory-scale and field-based experiments and what they demonstrate about ocean acidification
- Describe the potential consequences of ocean acidification for coral reef ecosystems
- Explain how resilience may partially offset ocean acidification responses in the short term.
- Mandatory practical: Investigate the effects an altered ocean pH has on marine carbonate structures.
Unit 4: Ocean issues and resource management
view_agenda query_statsTopic 1: Oceans of the future
view_agenda query_statsManagement and conservation
view_agenda query_statsUnit 4: Ocean issues and resource management > Topic 1: Oceans of the future > Management and conservation
- Recall and use the arguments for preserving species and habitats
- Recall and explain the criteria used to design protected marine areas
- Identify management strategies used to support marine ecosystem health
- Evaluate the success of a named protected marine area
- Compare the roles of government and non-government organisations in the management and restoration of ecosystems and their relative abilities to respond
Future scenarios
view_agenda query_statsUnit 4: Ocean issues and resource management > Topic 1: Oceans of the future > Future scenarios
- Evaluate future scenarios for a named marine system through the analysis of different atmospheric condition datasets
- Compare historical geological data (e.g. of coral cores) with changes in land use practices and global carbon dioxide and temperature levels
- Recognise that ocean acidification has indirect consequences on the ocean and its uses
- Identify the factors between the atmosphere and the oceans that drive weather patterns and climate (e.g. temperature, wind speed and direction, rainfall, breezes and barometric pressure)
- Understand that average global temperature increases impact on marine environments by altering thermal regimes and changing physical and chemical parameters of the ocean (e.g. aragonite saturation levels and rising sea levels).
Topic 2: Managing fisheries
view_agenda query_statsFishers and population dynamics
view_agenda query_statsUnit 4: Ocean issues and resource management > Topic 2: Managing fisheries > Fishers and population dynamics
- Understand that the term fishery has a variety of meanings and that there are three main types (i.e. artisanal, recreational and commercial)
- Understand the significance of wild caught fish as the major source of protein globally
- Understand that the world's fisheries are in decline
- Explain how distribution of fish populations are determined by temperature, primary productivity and nutrient dispersal, and these are influenced by currents, upwelling and seasonal factors
- Assess rugosity data and link this to fish diversity
- Assess the impact of bioaccumulation through the food web into edible seafood
- Explain how the alteration of thermal regimes caused by climate change is affecting the distribution of fish populations
- Compare a case study of a fish population in decline with a case study of a fish population that is in recovery in relation to fisheries management practices
- Interpret fish population data using the Lincoln index (capture–recapture method) and identify the reliability of this data to inform fisheries management decision-making on quota and total allowable catch
- Identify the factors (e.g. sampling techniques, fish behaviour, temporal and spatial movement, life history) that determine the reliability of fisheries population data and consider the limitations of these factors
- Recognise an international agreement that is used to manage migratory pelagic species
- Appreciate the use of maximum sustainable yields and maximum economic yields
- Recognise that fisheries management has shifted from single species maximum sustainable yield towards ecosystem-based fisheries management
- Understand the value of marine protected areas including estuarine and open-water environments to fisheries sustainability
- Mandatory practical: Apply the Lincoln index in a modelled capture–recapture scenario
Australia’s fisheries management
view_agenda query_statsUnit 4: Ocean issues and resource management > Topic 2: Managing fisheries > Australia’s fisheries management
- Identify the Australian Fishing Zone (AFZ)
- Infer that the status of Australian fisheries is due to science-based management, the rule of law and good governance
- Identify an example of a major Australian edible seafood export product and an import product
- Examine the factors that lead to a higher proportion of the seafood consumed in Australia being imported
- Recall that Australian Fisheries have an economic value
- Explain monitoring and control of total allowable catch and fixed quotas
- Describe dynamic spatial zoning fish management (including e-monitoring) as a fish management technique in terms of ecosystem-based management in relation to a case study
- Describe the use of the precautionary principle as applied to ecosystem management
Aquaculture
view_agenda query_statsUnit 4: Ocean issues and resource management > Topic 2: Managing fisheries > Aquaculture
- Recognise why the current state of aquaculture in the world cannot address food security
- Analyse Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) fisheries reports to determine changes in fisheries practices over the past 10 years, including economic contribution of aquaculture relative to wild catch the top five aquaculture species in Australia by volume and value
- Identify attributes (e.g. resilience, fast growth rate, low-feed conversion ratio) of an aquaculture species detailing its life cycle, adaptations, requirements and marketability that would make a species desirable to farm
- Predict the maximum carrying capacity of an aquaculture system based on the size of ponds or tanks, the requirement of a species, and farming technique
- Contrast different aquaculture systems (e.g. open, closed or recirculating, intensive and extensive)
- Understand issues with output pollution, biosecurity and waste removal and production of feed for aquaculture