Integrated studies

Abstract

In 1986, a curriculum project tested the feasibility of an integrated approach to senior secondary education in the form of a new 6th form certificate course called Integrated Studies. The course was collaboratively designed and run by curriculum developers and researchers from Massey University's Education Department and Freyberg High School's Head of Geography and Social Studies. Allocated four teaching periods per week, 15 students elected to take the course as a normal part of their 6th form certificate programme. Integrated Studies comprised four main elements: knowledge and skills from the four normally distinct secondary subjects of Geography, Biology, Computer Studies and English; an overall theme, the natural landscapes of national parks which gave the programme of studies coherence and focus; field trips which enabled students to investigate a variety of geographical,mi biological and related environmental phenomena first hand; and computer and media tools which were employed in follow-up classroom assignments for the purposes of description, analysis and interpretation. The main purpose of this paper is to report on: the key contribution of geography within the project's Integrated Studies course and the manner in which computers and field activities were used in a complementary fashion to enhance and extend students' understanding of key geographical concepts and processes. The position taken in this paper is that, in times of declining student interest in geography at both the secondary and tertiary levels, Integrated Studies involving field trips which focus upon learning by doing, student controllable media and computer technology and interdisciplinary knowledge, offers a means for the maintenance of interest in geography as an academic discipline and a role for the subject of geography in pioneering new approaches to en secondary education that may appeal to a broad cross-section of young New Zealanders.