Geography K–10 · Years 7–8

Where our things come from: a label survey and a flow-line map

NSW Stage 4 focus area Interconnections (2015 syllabus) and Interconnections and trade (2024 syllabus); ACARA v9 teaches trade interconnections in Year 9 (Geographies of interconnections), outside this entry's Years 7 and 8, so only Year 8 skills codes are listed

Practical, model not builtLow risk

This site has no interactive model of its own. Where a step or a material names a Concept Studio model, simulation or tool, it has not been built; an external simulation a step names (for example PhET) is not part of this site.

The idea

Everyday goods connect a household to producing places around the world, and counting labels and drawing flow lines with measured widths turns that connection into a map.

What you need

Record sheet for 30 items per pair: item type (food, clothing, electronics, stationery, toy), the country on its origin label, and the label wording (for example made in, product of, packed in)
A world outline map (A3) on an equal-area projection
Atlas coordinates for each country's capital or main port
Ruler, coloured pencils, calculator

How to do it

At home or in the classroom, each learner records 15 items with a country-of-origin label; items with no label are counted as unknown, not guessed.
Pool the class data and tally items by country and by item type.
For each country compute the great-circle distance from Sydney to its capital or main port with the calculator.
Draw a flow line from each country to Sydney; make its width 1 mm per 5 items so width is proportional to the count, and add a legend.
Compute the share of items from each continent and the count-weighted mean distance travelled.
Write three sentences on the pattern and one on the difference between made in and packed in on food labels.

What you should see

A tally, a flow-line map with widths proportional to counts, and a weighted mean distance in km. The pattern is the class's own data; the method check is that the counts on the map legend sum to the total surveyed. Worked distance: Sydney (33.87° S, 151.21° E) to Shanghai (31.23° N, 121.47° E) is 7882 km; three items from 7882 km and two from 2000 km give a weighted mean of 5529 km. It worked if unknown-origin items are reported as a category, not dropped.

What changes

This activity lists no variables to change, measure and keep the same.

Common misconceptions

Each of these ideas is wrong, and the activity is a chance to test it.

A product's brand tells you where it was made.
Distance on a flat world map is the distance goods travel.

Safety card

Low riskLearners carry it out

Hazards

No hazard is listed.

Controls

learners record labels only; no personal information about households is collected

Note

No chemicals or heat are used. The activity is run under the school risk-assessment procedure; RiskAssess (riskassess.com.au) holds templates for school practicals and fieldwork. The NSW Department of Education Chemical Safety in Schools package is not triggered.

Curriculum references

The NSW syllabus outcomes and Australian Curriculum v9 codes this activity supports. They are references, not a verified or complete curriculum alignment.

Geography K–10 Syllabus (2015), NESA; current and taught in 2026, replaced from 2027. The outcome codes are not printed on the NESA landing page for this syllabus, which only links the document, so the url given is the syllabus document itself (geography-k-10-syllabus-2015.docx); the code and its outcome text were read in that document on 23 September 2026.GE4-3 GE4-7 GE4-8
Geography 7–10 Syllabus (2024), NESA; implementation from 2027, not yet taught; code read on this page on 22 September 2026GE4-PRI-01 GE4-TAP-01 GE4-COM-01
Australian Curriculum v9AC9HG8S02AC9HG8S03

Sources

The pages the author read to write this activity.

All Concept Studio activities