The Queensland EES syllabus is one of a suite of senior syllabus documents that wereredeveloped and revised in 2017 (see QCAA, 2018a). The new syllabuses represent one aspectof significant changes to Queensland’s senior schooling system that will commence with Year11 students in 2019. These changes are intended to enhance the integrity of senior subjectassessments, and of the Queensland Certificate of Education1 (QCE) (QCAA, 2018b), and mustbe considered alongside our document analyses (Bowen, 2009). Key changes include theintroduction of external assessment in most senior subjects (noting that, until the end of 2018,all senior assessment in Queensland was school-based); the development of quality assuranceprocesses to enhance the quality and comparibility of remaining school-based assessment;changes to QCE eligibility requirements; and the introduction of the Australian TertiaryAdmission Rank (ATAR) (QCAA, 2018b). The ATAR will replace the current OverallPosition (OP), which has been used to gain university entry in Queensland since 1992 (QCAA,2018c). This significant change will align Queensland with many other states and territories inAustralia that already use the ATAR.The EES syllabus is comprised of four units of study (as per the Australian ESSCurriculum) that are studied over a two-year period:Unit 1: Introduction to Earth SystemsUnit 2: Earth processes – energy transfers and transformationsUnit 3: Living on Earth – extracting, using and manageing Earth’s resourcesUnit 4: The changing Earth – the cause and impact of Earth hazards.