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.

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.

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.

Understanding the speed, direction and likely paths of tropical storms is fundamental in managing risk and saving lives during these atmospheric natural hazard events. Students will combine their understanding of hurricane formation and the prevailing winds across the globe, in order to plot arrows onto a map of the Pacific Ocean. These proportional arrows will represent the wind speeds of the most powerful tropical storms in recent times. Student will be given a table to fill out, using their numeracy skills, to convert wind speed into an arrow width, before locating and drawing these onto the map. Perfect skills based revision lesson, which has detailed instructions, and also shows some of the answers. Can be done in class or independently.

Quiz -Quiz trade is a card trading learning game, encouraging students to ask each other questions in order to learn from one another. A type of peer lead learning. It involves student getting out of their seats and checking other student’s understanding on the topic ’ Living World’ and ecosystems knowledge for AQA exam specification. Tropical Rainforests are a core topic , which means that this content is likely to be more broadly tested in their GCSE Geography examination series. There are 15 separate quiz cards linked to rainforest climate, soils, challenges and characteristics. These quiz cards provide fairly in depth information and responses, and are suited to the middle and higher ability levels generally.

This resource builds on students prior understanding of the biotic and abiotic parts of the pond ecosystem, to develop critical thinking skills or thunks. This resource present series of scenarios where man-made or natural actions cause an element of change in the pond ecosystem and food chain. Students must annotate their blank pond diagram, like the example shown, in order to likely or possible changes that happen as a direct or indirect result. This flexible activity could be done as a starter, in pairs or larger groups. Possibly as a carousel revision activity, or as a stimulus for an exam response. I would encourage students to share their annotations with the class and explain why they think these things will happen. Links with the ‘Living World’ aqa GCSE Geography specification.

This full lesson and associated worksheets examine the causes effects and responses to his UK based extreme weather flooding event. This lesson includes a fact file of key information like dates, times and damage impacts to help students complete a case study mind map or overview sheet. Could be used as a revision exercise or introducing this natural hazard event for the first time.

Extreme weather can be defined as atmospheric conditions that lie outside what is normal or expected based on location and previous climatic averages. Some experts argue that climate change is leading to more extreme weather events becoming more common in the UK and globally. This lesson examines the role of the turbulent jet stream as a key influencer on UK climates, and how if it gets ’ stuck’ our weather patterns also become static leading to heatwaves, droughts and flooding. This lesson includes article analysis from the Guardian, the use of the blue Oxford GCSE textbooks to fill in a table plus infographic analysis. Past paper worksheet included. Full lesson.

Landforms along the coast that form as a result of deposition include beaches, spits, bars, salt marshes and sand dunes. This differentiated grid has a higher and middle ability version to allow students a head start if they need it. The sheet is deisgned to be used with ICT / internet so students can follow the weblinks on the sheet to get the required information of landform characteristics and and how they form. This would make an ideal revision/ intervention task for paper 1 ’ UK Physical Landscapes’.

This lesson examines the ways in which we mitigate, or reduce the severaity of the impacts of global climate change using actions on a range of scales. The lesson focus is on the role of the Paris 2015 climate summit, but includes optional update on the USA Trump administration and their retraction on president Obama’s climate promises. This lesson works alongside the use of the blue AQA Oxford GCSE texts books, but could easily be done without.

This lesson is designed to follow on from the Sumatra Earthquake case study lesson to look at how Chile’s preparation planning and protection ( 3 P’s) helped it to cope with the aftermath of the large magnitude earthquake in 2010. Students then have to plan and write a 9 mark question comparing the 2 earthquakes. A detailed help framework and model answers are provided for each level ; basic, clear and detailed.

This detailed resource assesses the social, economic and environmental impacts of the Sumatra Earthquake in Indonesia in 2005. The quake caused a small tsunami and caused major destruction in the islands like Nias off the NW coast. This followed on from the awful boxing day tsunami a few years earlier meant that the country was already struggling to recover. This full lesson develops active reading skills, photo analysis and annotation skills, and helps them to classify effects as social, economic and environmental. This case study will be useful for the Challenge of Natural Hazards section of the Paper 1 exam.

The physical geography of the UK can be briefly split into NW/ SE divide. With glacial valleys and high mountains in the North, and rolling hills and river valleys in the south. This lesson serves as an introduction to the GCSE AQA ‘UK physical landscapes’ topic. The lesson is designed to be used in conjunction with the blue Oxford GCSE Geography textbooks. Students look for map clues at the start to figure out where in the UK the photo was taken. Then they annotate a UK relief map from the powerpoint slides. There is a great True or False additional starter activity too.

The evidence around man made climate change centres around the strong relationship between co2 parts per million in the atmosphere, and the global average temperature. This full lesson examines in depth the data for this correlation and other evidence, such as steady Arctic sea ice decline. There are 2 lessons to choose from, with a mix and match opportunity to select tasks that best fit the needs of your class.

A full lesson on the river lower course with a specific focus on the formation of levees during flood events. There is a recap starter on ox bow lakes.

Coastal mass movements occur when gravity acts on an unstable part of a cliff face which may have been eroded or undercut by destructive wave action. Students on the GCSE geography AQA specification need to know an example or case study of mass movement for their paper 1 examination. This lesson looks at the causes, effects and responses to the landslide at Holbeck Hall, which fell into the sea in 1993. This full lesson includes the overview on the different types of mass movement; rockfall, landslide and rotational slip. It then covers Holbeck Hall and an associated 6 mark exam question with a student-friendly peer assessment mark scheme.

In this 3rd lesson on our cold environments series ’ Pole to Pole’ we explore how the resourceful and hardy ’ Nennet’ tribe have made a lifestyle herding reindeer throughout Siberia, Russia. Students must use their geographical enquiry skills to gather information about the tribe through an information hunt activity, building in kinathstetic learning experiences into the classroom. There is a link to video content from Simon Reeve’s 'Russia ’ series in which he faces frost nip whilst travelling with the tribe.

Volcanoes are weak points in the earth’s crust where plate boundaries appear, and periodically let lava escape to the surface. these can also be found at hotspots. For the GCSE Geography AQA curriculum students need to be aware of 2 main types of volcanoes, where and how they form, and their distinguishing characteristics. this PowerPoint lesson resource assumes a basic level of existing understanding and recaps on the basic structure and eruption characteristics of each. there is a BINGO starter game linked to a video resource. Added challenge for higher ability to explain 3 of their bino words to the group. Following on from this the teacher can talk through the next slides, on parts of a volcano and its layered structure and associated hazards. or print the information out ready for the TRUE or FALSE activity/ grid, which has answers attached. At the end students are prompted to think about which celebrity embodies each type of volcano the most. This is to help them memorize and make connections to enegage in their long term memory for the examinations. Approx lesson length: 45 minutes.

Using a simple 3d slot- in Christmas tree template, this will keep your kS3 geography classes happy and crafting in the festive season. The Christmas tree templates have been adapted on photoshop to show a choice of 3 designs; maps of lapland, images of biomes and flags of the world. Student can also use a blank template to record and reflect on their geographical learning from accross the year. These templates could also easily be used to make geographical themed christmas bunting! Simple and easy to do, but effective and would make a lovely set of classroom displays, ideal for open evenings. These designs will work well photocopied in black and white, and students can add colour themselves to extend the activity and keep photocopying budgets down.