Specification/Exam Board

AQA Geography

Subject content

Living with the physical environment

3.1.1 Section A: The challenge of natural hazards

3.1.2 Section B: The living world

3.1.3 Section C: Physical landscapes in the UK

Challenges in the human environment

3.2.1 Section A: Urban issues and challenges

3.2.2 Section B: The changing economic world

3.2.3 Section C: The challenge of resource management

Geographical applications

3.3.1 Section A: Issue evaluation

3.3.2 Section B: Fieldwork

Geographical skills

3.4 Geographical skills

Curriculum Allocation

GCSE Geography is taught for three 100 minute lessons per fortnight.

Curriculum Period 1:

Curriculum content

Unit 1. Section A: The challenge of natural hazards

Natural Hazards:

• Definition of a natural hazard.
• Types of natural hazard.
• Factors affecting hazard risk.

Tectonic Hazards:

• Plate tectonics theory.
• Global distribution of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and their relationship to plate margins.
• Physical processes taking place at different types of plate margin (constructive, destructive and conservative) that lead to earthquakes and volcanic activity.
• Primary and secondary effects of a tectonic hazard.
• Immediate and long-term responses to a tectonic hazard.
• Use named examples to show how the effects and responses to a tectonic hazard vary between two areas of contrasting levels of wealth.
• Reasons why people continue to live in areas at risk from a tectonic hazard.
• How monitoring, prediction, protection and planning can reduce the risks from a tectonic hazard.

Weather Hazards:

• General atmospheric circulation model: pressure belts and surface winds.
• Global distribution of tropical storms (hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons).
• An understanding of the relationship between tropical storms and general atmospheric circulation.
• Causes of tropical storms and the sequence of their formation and development.
• The structure and features of a tropical storm.
• How climate change might affect the distribution, frequency and intensity of tropical storms.
• Primary and secondary effects of tropical storms.
• Immediate and long-term responses to tropical storms.
• Use a named example of a tropical storm to show its effects and responses.
• How monitoring, prediction, protection and planning can reduce the effects of tropical storms.
• An overview of types of weather hazard experienced in the UK.
• An example of a recent extreme weather event in the UK to illustrate:
• causes
• social, economic and environmental impacts
• how management strategies can reduce risk.
• Evidence that weather is becoming more extreme in the UK.

Climate Change:

• Evidence for climate change from the beginning of the Quaternary period to the present day.
• Possible causes of climate change:
• natural factors – orbital changes, volcanic activity and solar output
• human factors – use of fossil fuels, agriculture and deforestation.
• Overview of the effects of climate change on people and the environment.
• Managing climate change:
• mitigation – alternative energy production, carbon capture, planting trees, international agreements
• adaptation – change in agricultural systems, managing water supply, reducing risk from rising sea levels.

Section B: The living world

Ecosystems

• An example of a small scale UK ecosystem to illustrate the concept of interrelationships within a natural system, an understanding of producers, consumers, decomposers, food chain, food web and nutrient cycling.
• The balance between components. The impact on the ecosystem of changing one component.
• An overview of the distribution and characteristics of large scale natural global ecosystems.

Tropical rainforests

• The physical characteristics of a tropical rainforest.
• The interdependence of climate, water, soils, plants, animals and people.
• How plants and animals adapt to the physical conditions.
• Issues related to biodiversity.
• Changing rates of deforestation.
• A case study of a tropical rainforest to illustrate:
• causes of deforestation – subsistence and commercial farming, logging, road building, mineral extraction, energy development, settlement, population growth
• impacts of deforestation – economic development, soil erosion, contribution to climate change.
• Value of tropical rainforests to people and the environment.
• Strategies used to manage the rainforest sustainably – selective logging and replanting, conservation and education, ecotourism and international agreements about the use of tropical hardwoods, debt reduction.

Hot deserts

• The physical characteristics of a hot desert.
• The interdependence of climate, water, soils, plants, animals and people.
• How plants and animals adapt to the physical conditions.
• Issues related to biodiversity.
• A case study of a hot desert to illustrate:
• development opportunities in hot desert environments: mineral extraction, energy, farming, tourism
• challenges of developing hot desert environments: extreme temperatures, water supply, inaccessibility.
• Causes of desertification – climate change, population growth, removal of fuel wood, overgrazing, over-cultivation and soil erosion.
• Strategies used to reduce the risk of desertification – water and soil management, tree planting and use of appropriate technology.

Assessment

The first assessment will cover Unit 1: Section A and B topics.

Curriculum Period 2:

Curriculum content

Unit 2. Section A- Urban issues and challenges. 

• The global pattern of urban change.
• Urban trends in different parts of the world including HICs and LICs.
• Factors affecting the rate of urbanisation – migration (push–pull theory), natural increase.
• The emergence of megacities.

Lagos case study:

• the location and importance of the city, regionally, nationally and internationally
• causes of growth: natural increase and migration
• how urban growth has created opportunities:
  • social: access to services – health and education; access to resources – water supply, energy
  • economic: how urban industrial areas can be a stimulus for economic development
• how urban growth has created challenges:
  • managing urban growth – slums, squatter settlements
  • providing clean water, sanitation systems and energy
  • providing access to services – health and education
  • reducing unemployment and crime
  • managing environmental issues – waste disposal, air and water pollution, traffic congestion.
• An example of how urban planning is improving the quality of life for the urban poor.

• Overview of the distribution of population and the major cities in the UK

Manchester case study:

• the location and importance of the city in the UK and the wider world
• impacts of national and international migration on the growth and character of the city
• how urban change has created opportunities:
  • social and economic: cultural mix, recreation and entertainment, employment, integrated transport systems
  • environmental: urban greening
• how urban change has created challenges:
  • social and economic: urban deprivation, inequalities in housing, education, health and employment
  • environmental: dereliction, building on brownfield and greenfield sites, waste disposal
  • the impact of urban sprawl on the rural–urban fringe, and the growth of commuter settlements.

Salford Quays regeneration:

• reasons why the area needed regeneration
• the main features of the project.

Features of sustainable urban living:

• water and energy conservation
• waste recycling
• creating green space.
• How urban transport strategies are used to reduce traffic congestion.

• An overview of the location of major upland/lowland areas and river systems.

Glaciers:

Maximum extent of ice cover across the UK during the last ice age.

Glacial processes:

• freeze-thaw weathering
• erosion – abrasion and plucking
• movement and transportation – rotational slip and bulldozing
• deposition – why glaciers deposit sediment (till and outwash).

Glacial landforms:

Characteristics and formation of landforms resulting from erosion – corries, arêtes, pyramidal peaks, truncated spurs, glacial troughs, ribbon lakes and hanging valleys.

Characteristics and formation of landforms resulting from transportation and deposition – erratics, drumlins, types of moraine.

An example of an upland area in the UK affected by glaciation to identify its major landforms of erosion and deposition.

Economic opportunities:

An overview of economic activities in glaciated upland areas – tourism, farming, forestry and quarrying.

Conflicts between different land uses, and between development and conservation.

An example of a glaciated upland area in the UK used for tourism to show:

• the attractions for tourists
• social, economic and environmental impacts of tourism
• strategies used to manage the impact of tourism.

Coastal landscapes in the UK

Wave types and characteristics. Coastal processes:

• weathering processes – mechanical, chemical
• mass movement – sliding, slumping and rock falls
• erosion – hydraulic power, abrasion and attrition
• transportation – longshore drift
• deposition – why sediment is deposited in coastal areas.

• How geological structure and rock type influence coastal forms.
• Characteristics and formation of landforms resulting from erosion – headlands and bays, cliffs and wave cut platforms, caves, arches and stacks.
• Characteristics and formation of landforms resulting from deposition – beaches, sand dunes, spits and bars.
• An example of a section of coastline in the UK to identify its major landforms of erosion and deposition.

The costs and benefits of the following management strategies:

• hard engineering – sea walls, rock armour, gabions and groynes
• soft engineering – beach nourishment and reprofiling, dune regeneration
• managed retreat – coastal realignment.

An example of a coastal management scheme in the UK to show:

• the reasons for management
• the management strategy
• the resulting effects and conflicts.

Assessment

Curriculum Period 3:

Curriculum content

Unit 3. Urban and Coastal Fieldwork

Students need to undertake two geographical enquiries, each of which must include the use of primary data, collected as part of a fieldwork exercise. There should be a clear link between the subject content and geographical enquiries, and the enquiries can be based on any part of the content addressed in units 3.1 and 3.2.

Fieldwork must take place outside the classroom and school grounds on at least two occasions.

The two enquiries must be carried out in contrasting environments and show an understanding of both physical and human geography. In at least one of the enquiries students are expected to show an understanding about the interaction between physical and human geography.

Students’ understanding of the enquiry process will be assessed in the following two ways:

1. questions based on the use of fieldwork materials from an unfamiliar context
2. questions based on students’ individual enquiry work. For these questions students will have to identify the titles of their individual enquiries.

Students will be expected to:

1. apply knowledge and understanding to interpret, analyse and evaluate information and issues related to geographical enquiry.
2. select, adapt and use a variety of skills and techniques to investigate questions and issues and communicate findings in relation to geographical enquiry.

• The factors that need to be considered when selecting suitable questions/hypotheses for geographical enquiry.
• The geographical theory/concept underpinning the enquiry.
• Appropriate sources of primary and secondary evidence, including locations for fieldwork.
• The potential risks of both human and physical fieldwork and how these risks might be reduced.
• Difference between primary and secondary data.
• Identification and selection of appropriate physical and human data.
• Measuring and recording data using different sampling methods.
• Description and justification of data collection methods.
• Appreciation that a range of visual, graphical and cartographic methods is available.
• Selection and accurate use of appropriate presentation methods.
• Description, explanation and adaptation of presentation methods
• Description, analysis and explanation of the results of fieldwork data.
• Establish links between data sets.
• Use appropriate statistical techniques.
• Identification of anomalies in fieldwork data.
• Draw evidenced conclusions in relation to original aims of the enquiry.
• Identification of problems of data collection methods.
• Identification of limitations of data collected.
• Suggestions for other data that might be useful.
• Extent to which conclusions were reliable.

Revision resources

We provide booklets of knowledge organisers for all the units covered through Year 10. Pupils should use these to revise for recall tests throughout the year and for the three formal assessments.

There are four revision guides which have been published for this course by Pearson, Hodder, OUP and CGP. Whichever publisher, it is important that pupils use a revision guide specifically for AQA GCSE Geography. 

Subject advice and guidance

If you need any further guidance then please contact your child’s teacher via email:

james.best@endon.set.org

russell.cartlidge@endon.set.org