Geography’s Big Week Out is a mix of stimulating and hands-on geography activities, focusing on fieldwork, designed to challenge and extend high-performing senior students. Sixteen students are selected to participate from the Year 11 level of the Competition.
The 2024 Geography’s Big Week Out (GBWO) was held from 29 September to 3 October in Canberra and Jindabyne. Sixteen Year 11 students from around Australia were invited to participate, based on their outstanding performances in the Australian Geography Competition:
Student | School | State/Territory |
| Amelia Mellifont | Sunshine Coast Grammar School | Queensland |
| Amy Usher | Pembroke School | South Australia |
| Annabelle Blake | Canberra Grammar School | Combined Territories |
| Benjamin Bauer | Perth Modern School | Western Australia |
| Calindra Schmidt | Barker College | New South Wales |
| Caroline Fu | Presbyterian Ladies’ College – Melbourne | Victoria |
| Dylan Phelps | Canberra Grammar School | Combined Territories |
| Dylan Mathew | John Monash Science School | Victoria |
Elliott Stee | MacKillop Catholic College | Tasmania |
| Heidi Gstaettner | Perth Modern School | Western Australia |
| Howie Luo | Caringbah High School | New South Wales |
| Isaac Prewett | Trinity College – Gawler | South Australia |
| Mathieson Whittaker | Whittaker Homeschool | Queensland |
| Oliver Roxburgh | Shore School | New South Wales |
| Stella Wass | Hobart College | Tasmania |
| Zoe Veigel | Sydney Girls High School | New South Wales |
Students spent three days carrying out fieldwork in Kosciuszko National Park and Canberra. They were assessing each site’s engagement with Youth Tourism and sustainability. Activities included: recording numbers and demographics of visitors; interviewing visitors; mapping tourist infrastructure; and, discussing site values and threats to sustainability with a national park ranger at the Perisher Resort and at the National Arboretum.
There was also time for fun activities, such as a chairlift ride to the top of the range and a ride on the Alpine Coaster in Thredbo, walking the Porcupine Rocks Track at the Perisher Resort, and riding through the National Zoo and Aquarium in open vehicles.
Throughout GBWO students worked in groups, splitting tasks between the groups and then sharing their data and uploading it to a common website.
On the last day the students sat a test from which we select the team to represent Australia at the 2025 International Geography Olympiad to be held in Bangkok, Thailand. The selected students will be announced in early 2025.
The activities were led by Michael da Roza, Alex Pentz, James Harte and Ella Williamson, from the Geography Teachers’ Association of New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, and John Tasker and Rachel Honey, from the Australian Geography Competition Committee.
Geography’s Big Week Out and Australia’s participation in the Olympiad are supported by the Australian Government Department of Education, the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales, the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience and Flinders University.
Students participating in the 2025 Australian Geography Competition will have the chance to represent their state/territory at the next Geography’s Big Week Out and their country at the 2026 International Geography Olympiad in Istanbul, Türkiye.
