A2 Level: Issues Analysis (synoptic)

The following resource and websites are those already highlighted by Mr O'Callaghan of The Kingdown Geography Blog...

1. Tourism in the Cairngorms, Scotland (from SAC - Scottish Agricultural College).
The Cairngorms became Scotland's second National Park in September 2003. The area is also used for a number of tourism activities. The Cairngorm funicular is a means of transport, pulled by cables over a track bed, allowing visitor access from the car park area up the mountain plateau. It was designed primarily for winter sports enthusiasts (skiers and snow-boarders) to replace the outdated chairlift system, but is in use all year round. In summer, however, visitors are not allowed to leave the restaurant viewing platform area, due to the potential damage their walking would inflict on the fragile mountain environment and local ecosystem. Much controversy surrounded the granting of the permission for the development to take place, with heated conflicts between conservationists and the developers.

2. The Cairngorms Campaign
The Cairngorms Campaign is a membership organisation, welcoming individuals and groups as members who support its aims of protection and appreciation of the area. The Cairngorms Campaign strives to prevent unsustainable, damaging developments and argues for better management of the Cairngorms area. It works with landowners, managers, local authorities, government and agencies to this end.

3. Building ban on second homes in the Cairngorms - Times Online
WEALTHY outsiders are to be banned from building new holiday homes in the Cairngorms National Park under plans aimed at stopping rural communities from becoming tourist “ghost towns”.

The park wants to restrict the sale of new housing within its 1,467-square-mile boundaries to people who live, work or have family links in the area. It means that outsiders will no longer be allowed to buy or build new housing for use as second homes or as holiday homes for rent.

The Cairngorms is Britain’s largest national park, with a vast mountain wilderness at its heart. It encompasses large areas of the Highlands, Moray, Aberdeenshire and Angus and is home to 17,000 people and 25 per cent of Britain’s threatened species.

Its spectacular scenery is a magnet for tourists, but in property terms has resulted in an epidemic of wealthy second-homers, who now own one-in-five of all houses within the park. That figure rises to about half in some small villages such as Braemar. The knock-on effect has been a steep rise in property prices, up by as much as 13 per cent a year, placing even the most modest, semi-detached family home beyond the financial reach of locals.

GCSE: Terminal examination on Tuesday 2nd June

This post will contain any further resources or pieces of advice that might be useful for Tuesday's exam.

Examiners tips (from 2007 and 2008 Examiners reports)
a) Where two suggestions/ideas are asked for, use two paragraphs. Remember the framework, write your first idea followed by a detailed explanation. Then, in a new paragraph, write your second idea followed by a detailed explanation.
b) Use PEE (Point, Evidence, Explanation) paragraphs for parts c, d and e of each question.
c) Practise diagram skills - can you draw sketch maps or diagrams to show volcanoes, regional differences, how global warming is caused, types of rainfall etc? Remember labels!
d) Use the first 5-10 to carefully select the best 4 questions to answer (remember, 2 questions from Section A, 1 question from Section B and 1 question from Section C).
e) Don't stereotype or generalise and have some idea of where places are - the South of Italy is NOT an LEDC, Africa is NOT a country. Know where your case studies are and be able to use the correct geographical area example.
f) Know key vocabulary, for example, economic activity, climate, physical processes. Remember that the Ozone layer is nothing to do with global warming!
g) Short and snappy answers for 2 mark questions - not paragraphs!
h) Look at command words and target the precise wording - son't just regurgitate all you know about a particular case study.
(Thanks to Mr Gurney for putting this list together)

Bearing in mind that natural hazards always appears in both Section A and Section B, make sure that you revise it in detail. Check the tectonic activity section of Bitesize. Pay special attention to the diagrams of volcanoes as we did not cover that very much in the lesson time. Make sure you know the diagrams of the plate boundaries and labels to go with them. You are often asked to explain in your labels, so they need to be good quality! Also, check the section on managing tectonic activity.

Use of your green revision guides for OCR C Geography. Not one question will be a surprise tomorrow if you have made good use of the revision guide!

To remind yourself of the layout of the exam paper and see some example questions, there is a higher tier paper here.

Some of you were requesting more of the case study templates last week. Although we had no more photocopied, don't forget that you can download a copy from here...
Case Study Template for GCSE

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GCSE: DME on Tuesday 9th June

Another teacher has shared a huge volume of resources to help prepare students for the DME exam. You can find them on 4shared in the folder named DME June 2009.

Edexcel AS Geography: Global Hazards

Finally I've finished the revision guide for the Global Hazards section of the AS course. For year 12, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have revised the Climate Change section of the course, as there will not be a specific guide produced by us. Although you will get a paper copy of the guide, it will not show the key diagrams in colour so please ensure that you have downloaded an electronic copy as well.

Global Hazards Edexcel AS Revision

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January retakes for Year 13

Here's some examples of the 10 mark case study questions that you can expect in your retakes in January...

Rivers/Coasts

• With reference to named examples, examine the impacts of river flooding on people's daily lives.
• With reference to one or more named examples, explain the benefits of environmentally sensitive river management.
• A number of hard engineering methods have traditionally been used to combat coastal erosion. Briefly describe two of these methods and for a named location explain why each was chosen.
• With reference to more than one country, examine the factors that influence government coastal management policies.
• For a located coastal ecosystem, explain how a study of the vegetation pattern can illustrate the process of succession.
• For a named stretch of coastline, examine to what extent sub-aerial processes have affected the coastal features.
• With references to named examples, examine the consequences of human activities on river environments with respect to one of the following: (a) urbanisation, (b) dams and reservoir construction, (c) water quality.
• With reference to one or more named examples, examine the relationships between the hydrological cycle and one of the following: (a) soil moisture budgets, (b) local storm events, (c) river regimes

Rural/Urban

• With reference to specific examples, examine how urban environments can be made more sustainable.
• Using specific exmamples, examine the conflicts arising from developments in the rural-urban fringe.
• Choose two contrasting rural environments. Examine the reason why the vary in character.
• Referring to named examples, examine the success of attempts to revive city centres.
• Referring to examples, explain how conflicts may arise between different groups when rural villages undergo rapid change.
• With reference to specific examples, examine the ways in which rural environments are being modified by one of the following: (a) changing farming practices, (b) the development of resources in the countryside, (c) tourism
• With reference to any named urban areas, examine the ways in which decision makers are attempting to manage one of the following: (a) traffic flows, (b) ethnic and/or religious segregation, (c) water and waste pollution, (d) provision of affordable housing.

Managing Change in Human Environments retake

For those of you in year 13 retaking this unit, here are the two revision packages I made a couple of years ago to go with the human exam. The key to success in this exam is knowing your case studies as that constitutes 30/90 marks. I will add some examples of the case study questions to this post once I have found them! We will go through past exam papers in their entirety as soon as we return to school, but the most important thing will be learning the case studies and being able to apply them to the 10 mark extended answer exam questions.

Rural Environments Revision Package
Urban Environments Revision Package