This resource explores how people can use the desert for recreation. It focuses on 1. the film industry in Tunisia (‘Star Wars’ locations) and the benefits and drawbacks for film makers and local people 2. the Paris-Dakar rally and 3. the ‘Marathon des Sables’, an extreme endurance event run in the desert in Morocco. Students are challenged to think about how having fun in the desert impacts both them and the desert environment.

This is a standalone lesson all about gold, suitable for KS2-KS4. In a series of short, engaging tasks, it explores the distribution of gold across the world, what it is used for and where it is mined. It includes links to videos about gold panning and gold mining, each accompanied by questions. It concludes with some open-ended questions about whether gold is a renewable or non-renewable resources and what this means.

This resource could be used as a practice paper for the Issue Evaluation aspect of the AQA GCSE Paper 3. It could also be used as a generic skills paper to give a baseline score at the start of a GCSE course. The issue it examines is a real example of urban-rural conflict in Warwickshire. The resource comprises a question paper, resource booklet and mark scheme.

This resource looks at how the many tonnes of waste that The Championships generates is handled. Students get to think about the types of waste that are created from smoked salmon that has gone off to empty champagne bottles. They get to learn about organic and inorganic waste, what can be recycled and what can’t, what gets incinerated and what ends up in landfill. They create a flow chart for handling waste and design a poster to raise awareness of waste at Wimbledon.

This resource is a collection of 15 PowerPoint presentations that were used to deliver a bridging unit between Key Stage 3 and GCSE Geography but which could also be used for PSHCE lessons. It is ideal for using with Year 8/9 classes who have made their option choices as it engages those who have not opted for Geography but teaches vital skills to those who are going on to GCSE. There are some purely skills-based lessons such as ‘Describing Landscapes: Photo Sketches’ and ‘Contrasting Landscapes of the Middle East’ but other lessons are specfic to certain conflicts and events in history such as 9/11, the Syrian Civil War and the Middle East conflict.

This presentation looks at the changing role of the UK on the world stage. It starts with an image of a recent G7 Summit - can the students recognise the flags and the leaders? It then considers what the UK does to hold its own in the world, for example by exerting some political and cultural influence etc. It then considers the value or otherwise of being a member of the EU and the Commonwealth of nations. Plenty of room for lively debate here and no shortage of questions and interesting graphics.

This resource describes the formation of a flood plain and levees. It explains sequential deposition. It looks at how estuaries form and how they are used. There are a number of tasks and activities on the slides. The Exxon Valdez disaster is mentioned as the tanker run aground on a sandbank off the coast of Alaska.

This is the first in a series of lessons that I am writing under the heading ‘Geography at Christmas’ over the next few weeks. This one is all about finding your way using the stars - like the wise men did. I teaches students how to find the North Star, Polaris, using the Little Bear or Plough and challenges them to plan some fictitious journeys across the Arabian desert.

This is a complete scheme of work for a former A level syllabus (AQA, early 2000s). There are plenty of ideas here to use in the newer specifications and in the more challenging ‘new’ GCSE syllabuses. The two topics are Population and Resources and Managing CIties. This resource is FREE to help people work out if they want to fork out for the Key Stage 3 Schemes of Work which are also available online at roughly 20p per lesson.

This is a set of over 60 lesson plans used to teach a previous AS Geography syllabus (AQA in the early 2000s). They’re a bit dated now but there are plenty of ideas here which could still be used - particularly for the new, more challenging GCSE syllabuses. The topics are Demographics, Hydrology, Economic Geography, Climatic Hazards and Settlement. I’m giving this one away for FREE so you can judge whether it’s worth your while paying for the Key Stage 3 schemes - a total of well over 100 lessons for £20. Why not check them out, too?

This is an outline for eight lessons on the future of food. I’m putting it out there as a free resource and inviting comments. I’ve called it a ‘Sketch of Work’ rather than a scheme because that is all it is. If you think this is worth pursuing and you would buy it if it were a fully resourced scheme with lesson plans, worksheets and the like, please leave a review.

This is the first lesson in the series, ‘Food and the Future’. It looks at some of the diets that people used to eat in the past, comparing these to the ‘Eatwell Plate’ and students’ own diets. It describes and compares Stone Age, Roman, Elizabethan and Post WW2 Ration diets and includes both a sorting exercise and a task in which students have to justify how they would rank their own diet alongside these examples.