Geographical Association

Through Key Questions this specification accesses ‘a variety of approaches to geography’ but essentially it is people-environment based. It states that it has ‘some overlap with WJEC GCSE Geography B Avery Hill’ (see OCR B 1987). The content is divided into two balanced Units split into three topics.

An Extreme Environment

The first WJEC 159 Unit focuses on ‘physical and environmental aspects … underpinned by the issue of sustainability’. If you consider the Pilot GCSE’s ‘An extreme environment’ theme, there are opportunities here to develop the concepts of sustainability and futures by focusing on the Sahara Desert as an example. Then the Sahel can be used as a ‘selected smaller example of a typical landscape’. This could be linked to the topic ‘Ice, rivers and the sea’ by choosing the River Nile to answer the Key Questions on flooding and its management. Turn to pages 25-28 in the Teachers’ Resource Guide for an exemplar using the Arctic Ocean and Svalbard Islands. Alternatively, you can access the Resources section via the navigation bar on the left or visit Unlocking the Archives (www.unlockingthearchives.rgs.org), where you will find ‘Antarctica’, another example of an extreme environment.

My Place

The second WJEC 159 Unit ‘concentrates on human aspects developing the concept of global citizenship’. The first two questions in the topic ‘Economic and social change influence urban development’, because it is based on the UK, allow access into many of the ‘big geographical issues’ highlighted in the Pilot GCSE’s ‘My Place’ theme. However, there are opportunities through fieldwork in the local community in preparation for the Geographical Investigation to explore some of the ideas about the ‘candidates’ personal geographies’ before considering these regional and national issues. Taken together these highlight the concepts of interdependence, uneven development and futures

People as Consumers

The two remaining topics in this Unit provide a range of opportunities to consider the Pilot GCSE’s last theme on ‘People as consumers’. Both provide contexts to explore the ‘spatial impact of a particular product and a named service’ whilst the Key Question on ‘changing shopping habits’ can be related to an example of a ‘contrasting landscape of consumption’ and ‘the ethics of consumption’ such as fair trade. This approach is underpinned by the concepts of uneven development and globalisation. An exemplar developing this theme appears in the Teachers’ Resource Guide (pages 29-39).

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