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. Seventeen students are selected to participate from the Year 11 level of the Competition.
The 2023 Geography’s Big Week Out (GBWO) was held from 25 to 29 September in Darwin and Litchfield National Park. Seventeen Year 11 students from around Australia were invited to participate, based on their outstanding performances in the Australian Geography Competition:
Student | School | State/Territory |
| Annabel Hall | Model Farms High School | New South Wales |
| Drew Davison | Hale School | Western Australia |
| Isla Moore | Canberra Grammar School | Combined Territories |
| James Snel | Pembroke School | South Australia |
| Lara Hunter | Denmark Senior High School | Western Australia |
| Liam Rasenberger | Cannon Hill Anglican College | Queensland |
| Manuga Egodage | Sydney Boys High School | New South Wales |
| Nic Lawrance | Canberra Grammar School | Combined Territories |
Oliver Walsh Otto Middleton | Barker College St Patrick’s College | New South Wales Tasmania |
| Penny Tassicker | Marist Regional College Burnie | Tasmania |
| Peter Xu | Melbourne High School | Victoria |
| Rachel Quah | Cherrybrook Technology High School | New South Wales |
| Rutvi Amin | St Norbert College | Western Australia |
| Sophie Chang | Camberwell Girls Grammar School | Victoria |
| Sophie Paravia | Trinity College – Gawler | South Australia |
| Will Watter | Brigidine College | Queensland |
Students spent three days carrying out fieldwork in Litchfield National Park. They were investigating whether Litchfield NP was being managed sustainably as a tourist attraction while still maintaining the values of a national park. Activities included: taking various stream measurements to assess popular swimming sites; recording numbers and demographics of visitors; interviewing visitors; mapping tourist infrastructure; and, discussing park values and threats to sustainability with a national park ranger.
There was also time for fun activities, such as swimming under waterfalls and a campfire with marshmallows.
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 selected the team to represent Australia at the 2024 International Geography Olympiad to be held in Dublin, Ireland. Congratulations to:
| Drew Davison | Hale School |
Isla Moore | Canberra Grammar School |
Oliver Walsh | Barker College |
Sophie Chang | Camberwell Girls Grammar School |
The activities were led by Steve Hawkins and Julie Hearnden, from the Geography and History Teachers’ Association of the Northern Territory, and Shane Albertson and John Tasker, 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, Skills and Employment, the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales, Monash University, the University of Queensland, Curtin University and the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience.
Students participating in the 2024 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 2025 International Geography Olympiad in Bangkok, Thailand.
