Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica Study Guide

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Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica Study Guide
1. Australia is made up of six states and two territories: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory (Canberra), and Northern Territory.
2. Australia is home to more than 30 species of marsupials such as kangaroos, koalas, and wombats.
3. Australia’s key exports include coal, gold, meat, wool, aluminum, and iron ore.

4. These people, Aborigines, originally migrated from Asia.

5. One of the indigenous peoples of Australia, the Aborigines, has the oldest living cultural history in the world.
6. The indigenous people of New Zealand are the Maori.
7. The islands of Oceania are divided in to these three groups: Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.
8. The Commonwealth of Nations is a group of countries that were once British colonies and they share a heritage of British law and government.
9. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the largest structure on the planet built by living organisms. It stretches 135,000 square miles—larger than Poland.
10. Australia and New Zealand still depend more on farming than do most other developed countries.
11. Australia has a strong market economy and relatively free trade with other nations.
12. Australia’s main trading partners are United States and Japan. New Zealand’s main trading partner is Australia.
13. In Oceania traditions continue to be strong, especially in art forms and family structures.
14. Modernization has affected life in some of the islands of Oceania. An example of modernization is putting outboard motors on a canoe or traveling by plane.
15. In the1700’s Great Britain sent mostly convicts to Australia to labor on the farms.
16. An ice shelf is a sheet of ice that floats on water but connects to land on one side.

Antarctica was the last continent to be explored.
Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, driest and iciest continent on Earth.
Antarctica does not have a permanent population.
An ice cap covers 98 percent of Antarctica.
The continent holds 70 percent of the world’s fresh water.
Antarctica is so cold and dry, it is called a polar desert.
Scientists from several nations have set up more than 50 research stations on Antarctica.
The Antarctic Treaty was originally signed by 12 nations to agree to use the continent for scientific research and to share the results.
The winter months in Antarctica lasts from May to August.
In the summer months about 20,000 people come to the continent, but only 1,000 stay through the winter.
Scientists study climate change and over the past 50 years, temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have risen4.5*F.
Photographs from planes and satellites help give scientists information about Antarctica’s geography.
Antarctica has many minerals such as iron, but they would be too costly to mine.
Warmer temperatures caused an ice shelf to break apart in 2002.

Directory: dthomas -> files -> 2009
2009 -> Trade Why did trading ships sail mainly in summer? To avoid the winter storms

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