Geography K–10 · Years 7–8
Who lives within walking distance: buffers around services on a scaled map
Place and liveability (ACARA Year 7 sub-strand); NSW Stage 4 focus area Place and Liveability (2015 syllabus) and Liveability of places (2024 syllabus)
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The idea
Access to a service depends on distance, and a circle of fixed ground radius drawn to the map scale shows which homes are within that straight-line distance of it, which is not the same as being within that walking distance.
What you need
- A street map of the suburb printed at about 1:10 000 with a scale bar (SIX Maps, NSW Spatial Services, or a street directory page with its scale)
- Pair of compasses, ruler, coloured pencils
- A list of services to mark: bus stops, the nearest supermarket, park, medical centre, primary school
How to do it
- Mark each service on the map. Confirm the scale from the scale bar (at 1:10 000, 1 cm = 100 m).
- Draw a 400 m buffer (4.0 cm radius) around each bus stop and an 800 m buffer (8.0 cm) around the supermarket and medical centre. These are straight-line buffers, not walking distances.
- Count the residential street segments (or dwellings, on a detailed map) inside and outside each buffer; compute the share inside.
- Measure how much longer the walk is: for three homes just inside a 400 m buffer, follow the route along streets and footpaths with the string, convert it with the scale bar, and divide by the straight-line distance. Report the ratio the class finds, and note where a creek, a rail line or an arterial road with few crossings raises it.
- Find the part of the suburb outside every buffer and measure its distance to the nearest service with the ruler.
- Propose one new service location that brings the most uncovered streets inside a buffer, and recount.
What you should see
A map with drawn buffers and a table of counts: share of streets within 400 m straight-line of a bus stop and within 800 m straight-line of the supermarket, before and after the proposed service, with the measured ratio of street route to straight line beside it, because the buffers overstate walkable coverage by about that ratio. The learner reports the gain in coverage from the proposal as a count and a percentage. It worked if the buffer radii were measured from the scale bar rather than assumed from the printed scale.
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.
- Everyone in a suburb has the same access to its services.
- A circle on the map has the same ground size at every scale.
- A circle of 400 m radius shows everyone who can walk 400 m to the stop.
Safety card
Hazards
- compass point
Controls
- compasses used at the desk
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.GE4-1GE4-7
- Geography 7–10 Syllabus (2024), NESA; implementation from 2027, not yet taught; code read on this page on 22 September 2026GE4-TAP-01GE4-COM-01
- Australian Curriculum v9AC9HG7K06AC9HG7K08AC9HG7S03
Sources
The pages the author read to write this activity.