The Diploma Programme geography course integrates both physical and human geography, and ensures that students acquire elements of both scientific and socio-economic methodologies.
Geography takes advantage of its position to examine relevant concepts and ideas from a wide variety of disciplines. This helps students develop an appreciation of, and a respect for, alternative approaches, viewpoints and ideas.
The geography course embodies global and international awareness in several distinct ways. It examines key global issues, such as poverty, sustainability and climate change. It considers examples and detailed case studies at a variety of scales, from local to regional, national and international.
Please click on the arrow for a detailed breakdown:
| Unit / Block of work | Key Episodes / Questions | Length of time. | Possible Symbol? | Learner Attribute(s) |
| Paper 2 – Changing population | Population and economic development patterns – How population varies between places? | 22 lessons | Line graph increasing | Inquirer |
| What affects the processes of population change? | ||||
| What influences the places people live? | ||||
| Challenges and opportunities – Population possibilities and power over the decision-making process | ||||
| Paper 2 – Global climate – vulnerability and resilience | Causes of global climate change – How does natural and human processes affect the global energy balance? | 22 lessons | Thundercloud | Communicator |
| Consequences of global climate change – What are the effects of global climate change on places, societies and environmental systems? | ||||
| Responding to global climate change – What are the possibilities for responding to climate change and who has power over the decision-making process? | ||||
| Paper 1 – Leisure, tourism and sport | Changing leisure patterns – How does human development processes give rise to leisure activities? | 25 lessons 19th January | Football | Knowledgeable |
| Tourism and sport at the local and national scale – How do physical and human factors shape places into sites of leisure? | ||||
| Tourism and sport at the international scale – The varying power of different countries to participate in global tourism and sport | ||||
| What are the future possibilities for management of, and participation in, tourism and sport at varying scales? | ||||
| Internal Assessment | Planning | 10 lessons | Clipboard | Reflective |
| Investigation | ||||
| Write up | ||||
| Paper 1 – Urban Environments. | ||||
| Part 1 – Variety of urban environments | Characteristics of urban places including: site, function, land use, hierarchy of settlements (including megacities), and growth processes (planned or spontaneous). | 25 lessons | Thinker | |
| Factors affecting the pattern of urban economic activities (retail, commercial, industrial), including physical factors, land values, proximity to a CBD and planning. | ||||
| Factors affecting the pattern of residential areas within urban areas, including physical factors, land values, ehtnicity and planning. | ||||
| The incidence of poverty, deprivation andf informal activity (housing and industry) in urban areas at varying statges of development. | ||||
| Part 2 – Changing urban systems | Urbanisation, natural increase and centripetal population movements, including rural-urban migration in industrialising cities, and inner city gentrification in post-industrial cities. | |||
| Centrifugal population movements, inlcuding suburbanisation and counter-urbanisation. | ||||
| Urban system growth including infrastructure improvements over time, such as transport, sanitation, water, waste disposal and telecommunications. | ||||
| Case Study of infrastrcuture growth over time in one city. | ||||
| The causes of urban deindustrialisation and its economic, social and demographic consequences. | ||||
| Part 3 – Urban environmental and social stresses | Urban microclimate modification and management, including the urban heat island effect, and air pollution patterns and its management. | |||
| Case study of air pollution for one city and its varying impact on people. | ||||
| Traffic congestion patterns, trends and impacts. | ||||
| Case study of one affected city and management responses. | ||||
| Contested land use changes, including slum clearances, urban redevelopment and the depletion of green space. | ||||
| Detailed contrasting examples of two affected neighbourhoods and their populations. | ||||
| Managing the impacts of urban social deprivation, including the cycle of deprivation and geographic patterns of crime. | ||||
| Part 4 – Building sustainable urban systems for the future | Urban growth projections for 2050, including regional/continental patterns and trends of rural-urban migration and changing urban population sizes and structures. | |||
| Resilient city design, including strategies to manage escalating climatic and geopolitical risks to urban areas. | ||||
| Two detailed examples to illustrate possible strategies. | ||||
| Eco city design, including strategies to manage the urban ecological footprint. | ||||
| Two detailed examples to illustrate possible environmnetal strategies. | ||||
| Smart city design and the use of new technology to run city services and systems, including purpose-built settlements and retrofitting technology to older settlements. | ||||
| Unit / Block of work | Key Episodes / Questions | Length of time. | Possible Symbol? | Learner Attribute(s) |
| Paper 2 – Global resource consumption and security | Global Trengs in consumption | 25 lessons. Complete by 03/11 | ||
| Impacts of changing trends in resource consumption | ||||
| Resource Stewardship | ||||
| Paper 1 – Option D Geophysical hazards | 1. Geophysical systems – how geological processes gie rise to geophysical events of differing type and magnitude. | 24-32 hours | ||
| 2. Geophysical hazard risks – how geophysical systems generate hazard risks for different places. | ||||
| 3. Hazard risk and vulnerability – the varying power of geophysical hazards to affect people in different local contexts. | ||||
| 4. Future resilience and adaptation – future possibilities for lessening human vulnerability to geophyiscal hazards. | ||||
| Paper 3 – Power, Places, Networks | How does global power and influence vary spatially? | 15 lessons 23 Feb | TNC logos | Inquirer |
| How do different places become interconnected by global interactions? | ||||
| How do political, technological and physical processes influence global interactions? | ||||
| Paper 3 – Human Development and Diversity | What ways of supporting the processes of human development exist? | 15 lessons 8th March | Principled | |
| How do global interactions bring cultural influences and changes to places? | ||||
| What is the varying power of local places and actors to resist or accept change? | ||||
| Paper 3 – Risk and Resilience | How do technological and globalizing processes create new geopolitical and economic risks for individuals and societies? | 15 lessons Spring Break | Skype Logo | Caring |
| How do global interactions create environmental risks for particular places and people? | ||||
| What are the new and emerging possibilities for managing global risks? |