This building-off-grid project is ideal for delivery in the classroom for years 8 through to 11 or set as an independent task for distance-learning or home-based study. Also suitable for celebrating ’ Earth Day’ in April with a focus on reducing carbon footprint. Since being stuck on lock-down I have been binge-watching episodes of USA based TV-series like ’ last of the Alaskans’ and ’ Building off Grid’ which follow families as they design and self-build their own cabins and earth-ship style homes in remote areas of Arizona and Alaska. The aim is to live sustainably and in harmony with the landscape and ecosystem around them. This lesson / project will help GCSE/ KS4 students make connections in their learning with the Geography ’ Living World’ topic, especially around explaining how humans have adapted to the opportunities and challenges of living in extreme conditions such as the Tundra Biome and the Hot Desert regions. Students could easily talk about home design and crop growing/ subsistence farming in their examinations following the AQA spec A curriculum. The students must choose where they want to live their off grid lifestyle; either Arizona or Alaska, and the Power Point goes through the benefits and drawbacks of doing so in each ecosystem. There are video links to relevant video content showing some aspects of cabin-building in both of these environments. Then students enlist 3 helpers to help build their cabin, and roll a dice to determine their allocated budget they can use to buy materials for the cabin project. Using this budget, they can chose from a ‘menu’ worksheet of construction options to custom-build their cabin. They have a choice of sketching out their design with a floor plan, or actually building a model of their cabin from lego/ cardboard/ paydough etc. If submitted as a distance learning activity it would be great to make it into a competition, and invite students to submit pictures of their designs electronically for display. There are some ideas for follow-on activities on the slides.

Title: Exploring the Boscastle Floods - GCSE Geography Lesson Series Description: Delve into the captivating case study of the Boscastle floods in Cornwall 2004 with our comprehensive 2-lesson series designed for GCSE geography. Unravel the causes, effects, and responses to this infamous extreme weather event that left an indelible mark on the landscape and serves as a key case study in the curriculum. Key Features: Map Skills Exploration: Engage students with a map skills starter, encouraging them to analyze the OS map of Boscastle to identify clues explaining the vulnerability of the area to flooding, reinforcing understanding of physical causes. Real-Life Perspectives: Immerse students in the event through a 20-minute video from a BBC documentary, featuring eye-witness accounts and survivor experiences, providing a vivid and emotional connection to the Boscastle floods. Interactive Worksheet: The main task involves a comprehensive worksheet with facts, statistics, and statements from the flooding, prompting students to classify and analyze information, fostering critical thinking skills. Practical Application: The second lesson focuses on river flood control and defenses, exploring both hard and soft engineering approaches. Students collaborate in groups to construct a model representing their preferred flood management scheme. Why Choose This Resource? Multifaceted Learning: Cover diverse aspects of the Boscastle floods, from map skills to real-life narratives and hands-on model construction, ensuring a well-rounded educational experience. Current and Relevant: Tackle a well-known GCSE geography case study, providing students with practical insights into the causes and management of extreme weather events. Engaging Activities: Foster student involvement through interactive tasks, encouraging active participation and knowledge retention. Ideal for: GCSE geography teachers seeking a comprehensive and engaging case study resource. Educators emphasizing practical application and critical thinking skills development. Elevate your geography lessons with this immersive Boscastle floods series. Download now to captivate your students with a rich exploration of this significant case study!

Written for year 7, this lesson has a literacy focus and introduces students to some of the physical geography and landscape characteristics of the Tundra Biome and it’s cold environment. Students analyse the descriptive vocabulary and adjectives used to describe Svalbard, then build a bank of keywords as a class to use independently in their travel writing. The aim of the lesson is to complete an extended piece of writing to take the reader on an imaginary journey through the tundra around the archipelago of Svalbard ( travel journalism skills). There is a writing frame worksheet to support students write about the physical and human geography using the 5 senses. This differentiated lesson could easily be adapted for year 8 or 9 and gets student familiar with cold environments at GCSE geography.

This structured talking exercise can take place between small groups of 2 or more people. Each person rolls 2 die to be directed to co-ordinates on a grid which lead to a question or discussion point. Most questions are intended to be reflective and make connections between geographical understanding at GCSE level ( years 9-11) and the current pandemic lockdown and social distancing measures. This encourages students to form opinions and make wider connections with their geographical knowledge. It is appropriate for a classroom, or distance /home based learning and could be done with a parent or carer.

Whilst students and parents are at home during the Spring and Easter time they can work through this bee project booklet offline, simply print it out and complete. It has been designed for distance/ remote learning. Understanding the concept of an ecosystem being made up of both living and living things is important at Ks2 to prepare students for science and Geography at KS3 and high school. This geography based project is suitable for ages 7-10. The global and national population of bees is falling, and this is unsustainable as they play an important part on pollination and growing crops that sustain humans. There is a movement now to protect and care for bees as an important part of nature and ecology. By the end of the project , students will know; the living and non-living parts in a garden ecosystem The jobs that honey bees do How to classify 3 types of bees based on their appearance define some keywords linked to bees The types of plants that attract bees How to encourage bees into your garden How to build a wild-bee house Label the different parts/ anatomy of a bee There is a printable completion certificate and bee-themes greeting card also.

This lesson includes simple tasks to work through and was designed for year 7 / 8 Geography at Ks3. The lesson focusses on the Geograhy of the North West England region to build up understanding in preparation for the GCSE Geography focus on the UK. Suitable for distance or remote learning.

This comprehensive lesson explores the concept of Urban farming, and how it improves food security in the developing city of Jakarta. Urban farming is the use of limited or marginalised city spaces ( for example roof tops) to grow a range of crops for sale in local markets or for self . This can be done by collective group efforts or individually. Through a series of video tasks, photo analysis and problem solving, students will learn the needed facts and statistics needed for their GCSE Geography paper 2 ’ Human Exam’. This lesson fits in with the wider curriculum of the topic of the AQA spec ’ challenge of resource management '. The main task involved writing a letter with stem prompts in the margin, to practice extended writing and literacy skills.

Irrigation is the human process of artificially watering crops on a large scale using networks or canals ans sprinkler systems. Although irrigation can improve water availability and yield of crops in arid areas, it can also lead to contamination of local drinking water supplies which in turn creates substantial health problems. This lesson is appropriate for self-study/ remote learning from home and is designed for the AQA GCSE Geography specification A curriculum. It has tasks with lots of prompts, a card sort with answers and a 9 mark exam practice question with a detailed PEEL structure to follow; “(9marks) For a large scale agricultural scheme you have studied, explain how successful you think it has been in improving food supplies.” The lesson looks at the positive and negative impact of the Rajasthan Canal in India on agriculture and the local population. Students have to evaluate whether overall they think that the canal is good or bad for the region.

Food insecurity is where there is not enough physical, or financial access to a range of safe, nutritious food to keep a person healthy. The rise of global production chains and international food trading and export, has created food stress in various regions of the world, This has been made worse by climate change. This GCSE lesson links to the topic ’ Challenge of Resource Management’ under the AQA spec A curriculum for GCSE Geography. Each group will be given a different impact of food insecurity ( rising prices, social unrest, malnutrition, environmental degredation). They must explain the impact and come up with at least 3 ideas/ ways in which the problem can be alleviated. Think policy/ technology/ education. They are given 3 internet links to use may use in addition to textbooks to help. When the group presents their ideas/ solutions back to the group, each student must chose and write the best one and write this on their worksheet grid. This lesson is about students leading learning and teaching each other.

As part of the AQA spec A GCSE Geography curriculum, ’ the challenge of resource management’, food is a major focus. All student must know the reasons for increased demand for food, as well as geographical areas of food surplus and food deficit. This lesson covers both. There are a full set of answers to the map/ graph starter question which asks students to analyse the bar chart on regional food production. This lesson could be independantly self-taught, or done as remote learning via webinar as there are lots of video and signpost links to research areas on the internet, however the lower and Middle Abilities would need more structured classroom guidence. This lesson focuses on skills such as graph analysis, independant study skills, and creating a mind map which gives an overview on the 4 main reasons for pushing up food demands globally. There is a 6 mark question to test students understanding.

This GCSE Geography lessons looks in-depth at the land use patterns around the edge of Manchester’s city, or the urban-rural fringe. This area is where the city meets the countryside and is desirable for a range of development opportunities including golf courses, airports and out of town shopping centres. This lesson looks at an OS map of Manchester for the starter task, although using BING maps online will substitute if you do not have hard copies. The lesson develops map skills and annotation skills. There is a brownfield site card sort activity also to help students understand the advantages and disadvantages of building on brown field sites. This lesson was written to compliment the AQA spec A GCSE curriculum, and briefly touches on the Burgess model, and how Manchester fits into this framework. It is part of other Manchester-based case study resources, also available from my shop. To go with the Urban Issues and Challenges topic SOW.

An environmental quality survey ( or EQS) is a popular method of fieldwork. It involved measuring different aspects of the urban area by analysing a series of photographs from in and around Manchester ( although you could easily subsidize your own photo’s from your own local town or city). This GCSE focussed lesson takes students on a virtual journey from Manchester’s CBD to the urban rural fringe, showing them buildings and homes from along a transect. The students have to analyse the photographs carefully in order to make decisions on the appearence, safety and amount of green open space etc and fill in the pre-designed bi-polar grid accordingly. They can them choose to display their results on a radial graph ( template provided) or make a bar chart. The lesson ends with an exam questions, and gets them to evaluate the methods used to gather their primary data. This lesson would be good at KS3 to prepare them for fieldwork requirements of GCSE, or as a preparation lesson prior to EQS fieldwork at GCSE.

The characteristics of sustainable cities must encompass social/ environmental / economic advantages to be holistic. This lesson introduces the concept of a sustainable city, by looking at the Bedzed zero carbon residential development in London. The lesson is aimed at the middle ability. mains tasks involve a gap fill to complete statements on what sustainable cities should look like, and be doing. Following this there is a video to make notes on Bedzed, which they then annotate around an image of the development. Finally there is a 9 mark GCSE past exam question with a mark scheme for peer assessment. This lesson fits in with the Urban Issues and Challenges topic, where students must know an example of a sustainable city.

Manchester is a rapidly growing economic centre in the heart of Northern England. It is therefore an appropriate case study example to study for the GCSE Geography ‘Urban Issues & Challenges’ topic for the AQA spec. This internet research and study lesson focuses on 6 key characteristics of Manchester ( tourism, education, culture, Industry, Transport & religion), and how they come together to build the city as an important both nationally and globally. There are website links for each of these factors, so this lesson is suitable for home-study if needed. There is a grid for students to make notes on all 6 key areas. This lesson was originally designed so that small groups could each take a factor, and go away and build a presentation to bring back to the rest of the group. In that way, they become experts on one specific facet of the city. This framework could easily be adapted for a different HIC case study, if desired.

This worksheet allows students to test their knowlege and understanding on their chosen developing city case study and the causes, effects and responses to ward environmental pollution and over-crowing in slums. The sheet comprises of a range of short and longer GCSE exam type questions. The 6 and 8 mark questions have a hint-link underneath so that if the student struggles, they can click on it and be taken to the right part of the GCSE geography BBC bitesize revision page to answer it. Once complete there is an accompanying mark scheme at the back, so the student can self-assess their progress.

In the GCSE AQA HUMAN Geography topic ’ Urban Issues & Challenges’, students are required to study an in-depth account of a city in a developing nation. Jakarta has a rapidly growing population due to it’s rapid industrialisation and high birth rate. These bring both opportunities and challenges. This introduction lesson to Jakarta looks at the infrastructure and why it’s connections with the rest of Indonesia and Asia make it a globally important city. Students could go on to study Jakarta in further detail in my other lessons, to find out about How Jakarta is attempting to become more sustainable and reduce it’s social and environmental challenges.

During the nationwide corona virus lock-down this Spring I created this resource for fellow parents, struggling to home-tutor their kids whilst remotely working. Each of these Geography learning activities are simple, encourage a range of skills and does not require computer access. Most Primary school aged children should be able to complete relatively independently. please share widely.

This full lesson and accompanying graded homework sheet explore the characteristics of the world’s most populated urban areas; megacities. Those places with a population of 10 million inhabitants or more are becoming increasingly common in the developing world. The lesson includes a starter, video question sheet for Andrew Marr’s Megacities series, episode 1 Link below; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USktb5cXdRs There is a full answer sheet given for the video questions. The homework sheet asks students to analyse the proportional symbols megacities maop, and has a 6 mark exam style question and mark scheme. This should be done after watching the video and completing the lesson, but could also serve as a stand-alone revision activity.

Tropical storms form over warm seas close to the equator. Their large size brings many wide-ranging impacts to coastal areas. Students studying the AQA spec A course must have a detailed knowlege and understanding on the formation of tropical storms, and be able to recall key information from a real named storm example. This 4-in a row revision game lets students take charge of their learning. It can be played in pairs or teams of 4, and be done with or without book notes. Keep revision fun! This game could also be played over their phones/ laptops via facetime and live video calls if needed.

This full lesson explores the producers, consumers and decomposers in a pond, aquatic ecosystem. Pond ecosystems are small, yet dynamic, and sensitive to change. It helps if you have access to a pond for sketching but it is not essential. Students will analyse a pond food web to pick out individual food chains. They will be able to identify producers, consumers and decomposers and explain how interdependance works in this ecosystem between the biotic and abiotic parts.