GEOG4b - January 2010

[Victoria Ellis]

A space to discuss and share resources for the teaching of GEOG 4b for Jan 2010

[Graham Goldup]

Brighton and Hove are a Cycling Demonstration Town.. have contacted the Sustainability Team at the council/ LA and they are prepared to come and talk to the A Level students about the projects and plans.

Now need to think about structuring an examination style question paper, when I can get my head around it. Started teaching it today.

Have got the students to think about and research for next week

Why do we need sustainable transport options in towns and cities? (Getting them to think about Futures Geography- Health of Population, Congestion, 21st Century Planning, Green Issues and Local Authority Agendas)
What other active options are there than walking and cycling.. we had a discussion about the use of roller-blades/ skates on Brighton and Hove Seafront?
Why would Local Authorities want to bid for funding to support National strategies? What funding have they got for these Cycling 'projects' and how is it ring-fenced?
Are all in favour of cycling lanes and walking? Who is for and who is against. Apparently a book called 'the Worst Cycling Lanes in Britain' that an avid cyclist in Year 13 is bringing in tomorrow.

Also getting the students next week to produce a time-line of strategies and events - getting them to think about economic, social, environmentally driven and by whom? Is there an historic pattern of change?

[Graham Goldup]

This is the must read!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crap-Cycle-Lanes-Warrington-Campaign/dp/190...

[Jenny M]

Booklet has arrived but not got into my hands yet! In the meantime, i want to get my students just thinking about various techniques to help them choose and justify different projects. Have attached a couple of A3 sheets that were completed using the Guernsey issue evaluation material in the Redfern book. Apologies for the rough edges- was a last minute idea!

[steve]

Not receieved mine yet either GRRRRRR!!!

[Matt]

I got my exam officer on the case, and she was told that they had not printed enough!

Slightly concerning.......

[Graham Goldup]

Get them or you to ring AQA at Guildford- 01483 506506- and speak to the Geography Department or the Department that sends out pre-release information.
If you have estimated and actual entries, which they can check.. they will email you the paper as an attachment This can then be opened with a password that they supply you with.

[Lyndon Cowlard]

I attended a course re: AIB in October. It seems that 15 (ish) of the marks will be given to skills / fieldwork. I cannot see anything on this AIB that could be statistical (I may be missing something though!). They will be a question on how the students would collect data. The only skill I can see (which many others have all ready noted) is the choropleth, which seems too obvious?!

We were also told to expect 6 or 7 questions overall. No question will be worth more than 15 marks (level 3 marked question). There won't be questions worth 2 or 3 marks, which I think may be in the AIB specimen spec on Bolton?

Hope this is helpful.

[Emma Johns]

Many thanks. We have been thinking about the hint in the AIB about looking at local examples - could there be a comparison question between a place the kids have studied and Guildford?

[Gavin Locke]

I attended a similar course. We were told to look at the last 2 pages for the data and it would be obvious what presentaion / analysis would be needed. Surely it has to be a choropleth map - advantages and disadvantages? I have not done it yet but there may be a link to the most dense areas and the bike lanes etc.

Also intrigued what they may ask about collecting data. If you were to complete a study how would you go about this. I am not starting to teach it for another week, about 14 hours left then, which I think / hope will be ok?!

[Adele Burke]

Regarding the lack of possibility of a skills based question bar the obvious choropleth map is there anything stopping them (AQA) giving a bit more info in the question paper to base a stats test on. They have done this on the specimen paper for Bolton by giving the distance of each ward from the town centre and asked the students to finish a semi-completed spearmans table. There was nothing obvious in the specimen AIB that they would do this. In the real one it mentions comparing figure P2 with figure P1 and asks them to identify areas of high pop density where access to safe routes is difficult. They could give us additional data on this to complete either a relationship test on or a test of difference regarding the uptake? Just a thought!!!

[Emma Johns]

We completed the choropleth map last lesson, starting with a dispersion diagram to see the spread of data and decide on teh class intervals. I went through the technique, steps to completion, +/- and the kids decided on five classes using natural breaks in the data to do this. The map itself is as expected with a higher density in the centre, but (off the top of my head as its at school) a higher density on the western edge of the map too. Haven't yet compared it to anything else, but that is my next task once back from a wekk in Snowdonia with my Y12 class.

[Jeremy Baker]

Any ideas on what they would look at for relationship???