Geography

Outline of the BGE S1-S3 course topics

S1 S2 S3
1. Atlas Skills 1. The Empty lands – Rainforests, Hot Deserts and the Tundra. 1. From Mountains to the Sea – Glaciations, Rivers, Limestone and Coasts
2. OS Map Skills 2. Rich World/Poor World – Development, Population, Urbanisation, Aid and Trade 2. China
3. Contrasting landscapes – Kintyre and Glasgow 3. India 3. Advanced Weather – Synoptic charts and Forecasts.
4. Natural Hazards – Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Tropical Storms, Tornadoes and Floods 4. Campbeltown Fieldwork Project – Traffic and Land-use.

 

Homework is issued when required.  Depending on the topic and the skills being developed this may mean frequent homework or, for example, when working in groups or on poster work there may not be any homework issued at that time.

N4 Course

As well as passing the 3 internal units , students at N4 level must also pass an Added Value (AV) Unit.  This is an Assignment based on fieldwork which is conducted in Campbeltown.  This is presented in the form of a short piece of work with maps, graphs and text and is also assessed internally against the criteria issued by the SQA.

N5 Course

The students have to pass the 3 internal units and the Course Assessment involving an Assignment (25% of their final mark – 20 marks) and an external exam (75% of their final mark – 60 marks).  Both of these parts of the Course Assessment are marked externally by the SQA.

The Assignment write-up is completed under exam conditions in class before the end of March and the final exam is in May.  They will also be required to sit a Prelim exam in January.

Students will be issued with a Bright Red N5 Revision Textbook to help with their revision.

Useful links for N5 Geography

SQA Past Papers and Marking Schemes

N5 Specimen Paper and Marking Scheme

The Specimen Paper uses 2 maps – Dingwall and Coventry.  If you would like a paper copy of the maps to use when revising please ask your teacher or, you could access the relevant areas using the Digimap for Schools resource.

Higher

The students have to pass the 3 internal units and the Course Assessment involving an Assignment (marked out of 30 marks) and an external exam (marked out of 60 marks).  Both of these parts of the Course Assessment are marked externally by the SQA.

The Assignment write-up is completed under exam conditions in class before the end of March and the final exam is in May.  They will also be required to sit a Prelim exam in January.

Students will be issued with the Leckie and Leckie Course Notes textbook and a Bright Red Higher Revision Textbook to help with their classwork and revision.

Higher reminder – In the exam, in the Global Issues section you only do Question 8 (Development and Health) and Question 9 (Global Climate Change).

Useful links for Higher Geography

SQA Past Papers and Marking Schemes

Higher Specimen Paper and Marking Scheme

Higher Specimen Paper Map (probably easier to ask for a paper copy to work with)

Higher Exemplar Paper (Map available from the Geography Department)

BBC on-line Higher revision materials

(Make sure you are using the ‘New’ Higher Geography site)

Global Issues – we only do Development and Health and Global Climate change.

Advanced Higher

The students have to pass 2 internal units and the Course Assessment.

The 2 internal units are based on Geographical Methods and Techniques and a Geographical Issue.

The Course Assessment involves a Project or Folio, consisting of a Geographical Study of no more than 3,000 words (marked out of 60 marks) and a Geographical Issue (marked out of 40 marks).  Both of these parts of the Course Assessment are marked externally by the SQA along with the exam which is marked out of 50 marks.

The Folio is required to be completed by the end of April.

There is limited teaching in this course which is very good preparation for Higher or Further Education.  Students are essentially guided through the requirements of the course.

Useful links for Advanced Higher Geography:

SQA Old AH Past Papers and Marking Schemes (some sections of these are still useful)

SQA New AH Past Papers and Marking Schemes

To be added when available.

SQA AH Specimen Paper

SQA AH Exemplar Paper

SQA Exemplar Paper – Guidance on its construction

All NQ Courses 

Senior Phase National Qualification (NQ) Courses

For all NQ courses a useful OS map tool is:

Digimaps for Schools (this is for pupils only – the Licence does not allow printing of maps for parents or carers):

Link: http://digimapforschools.edina.ac.uk/

Username and password: (note that the password is case sensitive – lower case letters only).  The password changes every September.

Username: PA286JS

Password: wrulls45          [This password is valid from September 2016]

All NQ courses in Geography require students to complete 3 internal units based on :

1.    Physical Environments

2.    Human Environments

3.    Global Issues

The content and depth of the units varies between the levels of study.

There is an internal assessment required to be passed at the end of each of these units.  The internal assessments are all on a Pass or Fail basis, the standard for a pass being set by the SQA.

All courses will have homework set on a regular basis.  For N5, Higher and Advanced Higher students this will often involve the use of Past Paper questions.

Pupil Information about studying Geography

I choose to study geography because I felt it would benefit my university application as it’s a literacy based subject. I sat national 5 before sitting the higher course and I would recommend doing this as it would be very challenging to crash higher, however it is not impossible.

In national 5 and higher the sections are the same – physical environments, human environments and global issues however the topics within each of these sections differ. In national 5 you study things like rivers, within the physical environments section whereas in the higher physical environments section you study atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere. Out of these topics I enjoyed atmosphere and lithosphere the best out of the physical environments however the other two topics are much shorter therefore you can pass them quickly.

The human environments section was my favourite section of the course as you learn about population and urban and rural environments. When I sat the higher we studied Glasgow and Rio de Janeiro. Within the rural section you also cover the impact and management of rural land degradation, this didn’t interest me as much however it is easy information to pick up and learn.

In the last section you study health, which covers Malaria and development indicators as well as primary health care strategies. The Malaria and primary health care topics interested me the most out of everything you learn in the health section.

In the higher for geography you also have to sit an assignment which is 30% of your overall grade. For my assignment we went up sand dunes and gathered information on them such as the pH levels in the sand at different point in a sand dune and the variety of speci3es on the sand dune at different points. I can’t say I enjoyed this much however it is definitely worth making an effort with it as in the overall exam I got an A and my assignment was 28/30.

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