Caring+For+Our+Country

The Australian continent has experienced tectonic stability for millions of years but this stability means that there has been only slow release of new mineral supplies into the rocks and little renewal of the soils across most of the continent for millennia. As a consequence, the Australian environment is fragile and, for the most part, arid, with old soils from which many chemical components have been leached.

The carrying capacity of each Australian ecosystem is determined by the interaction of local environment factors. The arrival and continent-wide dispersal of Aboriginal people coupled with the advent of another period of glaciation gradually changed the pre-human ecosystems and appearance of the landscape

Aboriginal people have, through their long association with the fragile ecosystems, developed strategies to manage the land successfully but non-Aboriginal use of the land imposed agricultural practices suitable to a Northern Hemisphere context. The Australian environment, however, did not respond in the same way as did the environments in the Northern Hemisphere. European agricultural practices demanded more water, more fertilisers and more vegetation to support the introduced plants and animals than were needed by those parts of the biota that evolved here.

Australians are now realising that the pressures of our urban, agricultural and mining practices have produced unsustainable rates of resource use and abuse and that the unique biodiversity of this continent is at risk because of unnecessary habitat destruction. International and national strategies have been developed that acknowledge the key role of governments in setting the scene for the broad changes in direction and approach necessary to ensure that Australia’s future development is ecologically sustainable.

**//This module increases the students’ understanding of the historical background, the nature and practice, the applications and uses, the implications for society and the environment, and the current issues, research and developments in Earth and Environmental Science.//**


 * __ Lesson Power Points __**


 * Topic 1: Long Periods of Weathering**


 * Topic 2: Soil as a resource that requires careful management**


 * Topic 3: Salinity of soils and water**


 * Topic 4: The effects of excessive use and long-term consequences of using some pesticides**


 * Topic 5: Maintenance of environmental flows and natural processes in water**


 * Topic 6: The results of the Industrial Revolution on the atmosphere and hydrosphere**


 * Topic 7: Rehabilitation and safe use of previously contaminated sites**