Geography K–10 · Years 9–10

Computing the Human Development Index from its four indicators

Geographies of human wellbeing (ACARA Year 10 sub-strand); NSW Stage 5 focus area Human Wellbeing (2015 syllabus) and Human wellbeing (2024 syllabus)

Calculation and dataLow risk

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The idea

Human development is measured by combining health, education and income indicators, each scaled between fixed goalposts and joined by a geometric mean, so a country cannot make up for a very low score in one dimension with a high score in another.

What you need

UNDP Human Development Report 2025 technical notes (goalposts, formulas and the worked example for Benin, 2023 HDI)
Life expectancy, expected years of schooling, mean years of schooling and GNI per capita (2021 PPP $) for 1990 and 2023 for five countries chosen by the class (including Australia and one country in Asia), from the HDR 2025 composite indices time series (HDR25_Composite_indices_complete_time_series.csv) on the UNDP Human Development Report data centre's documentation and downloads page
Calculator with natural logarithms, or a spreadsheet

How to do it

Reproduce the technical notes' worked example for Benin (2023) step by step and check each index against the printed value.
For each chosen country compute the 2023 health index, the two education indices and their mean, the income index (with natural logarithms) and the HDI as the cube root of their product; count an expected-years value above the 18-year goalpost as 18.
Compare each result with the hdi_2023 value in the same file and place each country in its category using the report's cut-off points.
Repeat the calculation with the same countries' 1990 values from the file, and record for each country which of the three dimension indices rose most between 1990 and 2023.
Raise one country's mean years of schooling by one year and recompute; then double its income instead; record which change moves the HDI more.
Compute the arithmetic mean of the three indices for one country and explain why the report uses the geometric mean.

What you should see

A table of indices for five countries in 1990 and 2023 that matches the file's published HDI values to within rounding, and a written comparison of how each country's indices changed between the two years. The Benin example gives health 0.628, education 0.396, income 0.550 and HDI 0.515, as the technical notes print. From the same file, Australia's values reproduce its published HDI of 0.867 for 1990 and 0.958 for 2023, the 2023 figure only when its 20.65 expected years of schooling is counted as 18 (without that cap the result is 0.983). Doubling income raises the income index by ln 2 / ln 750 = 0.105 whatever the starting income, up to the 75 000 goalpost, which is why the same dollar matters more to a poorer country. It worked if the Benin example was reproduced before any other country was computed.

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 rich country always has a high level of human development.
Averaging the three indices gives the same result as the HDI.

Safety card

Low riskLearners carry it out

Hazards

No hazard is listed.

Controls

No control is listed.

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.GE5-6 GE5-7
Geography 7–10 Syllabus (2024), NESA; implementation from 2027, not yet taught; code read on this page on 22 September 2026GE5-DFC-01 GE5-TAP-01
Australian Curriculum v9AC9HG10K05AC9HG10S02AC9HG10S03

Sources

The pages the author read to write this activity.

All Concept Studio activities