Curriculum key concepts

1.1 Place

1. Understanding the physical and human characteristics of real places.

2. Developing ‘geographical imaginations’ of places.

• Weather and climate are key elements of places, affecting physical landforms, habitats and human cultures and survival.

1.2 Space

1. Understanding the interactions between places and the networks created by flows of information, people and goods.

2. Knowing where places and landscapes are located, why they are there, the patterns and distributions they create, how and why these are changing and the implications for people.

• Understanding weather and climate requires understanding spaces - the atmosphere, land masses, oceans
• Climate determines the what grows where (e.g. Earth's major biomes)
• Learning about weather introduces concepts such as latitude, altitude an distance from the sea.

1.3 Scale

1. Appreciating different scales – from personal and local to national, international and global.

2. Making links between scales to develop understanding of geographical ideas.

• The tutorials focus on UK weather and climate but to understand this, global scale processes are explained
• The physical processes of air movement take place at different scales
• Some tutorials encourage students to consider the weather at specific places within the UK.

1.4 Interdependence

1. Exploring the social, economic, environmental and political connections between places.

2. Understanding the significance of interdependence in change, at all scales.

• Whilst the tutorials do not explicitly address interdependence of different groups of people, they do show how physical weather processes in different places are connected.

1.5 Physical and human processes

1. Understanding how sequences of events and activities in the physical and human worlds lead to change in places, landscapes and societies.

• Weather and climate are major physical processes
• The tutorials do not cover how weather affects the land (e.g. erosion), but they may provide a starting point for a more in-depth study of such effects.

1.6 Environmental interaction and sustainable development

1. Understanding that the physical and human dimensions of the environment are interrelated and together influence environmental change.

2. Exploring sustainable development and its impact on environmental interaction and climate change.

• The climate change tutorial addresses both human and non-human climatic influences
• We have not covered 'sustainable' responses to climate change (e.g. renewable energy) in any depth.

1.7 Cultural understanding and diversity

1. Appreciating the differences and similarities between people, places, environments and cultures to inform their understanding of societies and economies.

2. Appreciating how people’s values and attitudes differ and may influence social, environmental, economic and political issues, and developing their own values and attitudes about such issues.

• We do not explicitly cover cultural issues, but it would be interesting for students to explore the influences weather and climate may have on different cultures and how they may lead to cultural diversity.