Geography - PHYSICAL FIELDWORK gcse questions

You will have carried out some physical geography fieldwork as part of your GCSE Geography course.

Name the fieldwork

Does the Bradshaw model match Cotton Dell

To what extent was your primary data collection successful? [4]

• we measured velocity at 3 different locations along the river course

• repeated 3 times and took a mean which increased accuracy

• resulted in accurate conclusions

• however, the ball would get stuck in-between rocks and needed human intervention which affected the final mean

For a physical geography fieldwork investigation which you have completed, explain why your key question for investigation was appropriate [2]

• the location was close to school

• you could study the Bradshaw model

Suggest how the students could improve the velocity investigation in order to improve the reliability of their results. [4]

• ball would get stuck in-between rocks, making the time measurement inaccurate

• could have used scientific equipment to record measurement, such as a flow metre

• this would have made results more precise and therefore more reliable

• repeated the investigation in high and low flow conditions to compare the results

Explain one factor that students would need to consider when selecting the appropriate sites at which to carry out their data collection. [2]

• if the location is safe to visit

• so the water is not too deep or fast flowing

when is a bar chart used to present data?

• makes results clearer/ visual

• can easily compare data

when is a scatter graph used to present data?

• easier to spot anomalies

• can create a line of best fit

when is a line graph used to present data?

can see changes/ trends over time

As part of a fieldwork investigation, students were investigating how sediment size changes. The table below shows some of the data which they collected.

Suggest how students could have collected this data [4]

• visit and collect rocks from 3 sites along the river

• use a sampling technique such as collecting 10 rocks from each site

• measure longest axis of rock

• calculate a mean

Justify one technique which you used when presenting your data in your physical geography fieldwork investigation [2]

• I presented my data of the velocity of the river in a bar graph

• which allowed me to make comparisons easily between the 3 sites

To what extent did your physical geography fieldwork conclusions support ideas studied in class? [4]

• the velocity of the river was studied at 3 different sites along the river and a mean was taken to make results reliable

• Overall, the results showed that the velocity increased downstream which supported the Bradshaw model

• However, it was only the mean which showed this and the individual measurements of data didn’t show this

• To fix this, we could’ve used 3 sites which are more further apart