A level Geography Core Themes

A level Geography Core Themes

1. 60% of AS and A Level

   • AS includes one human and one physical theme
     • A level: All four themes

2. Water and carbon cycles

   • the distribution and size of the most important stores of water on land, in the ocean, atmosphere and cryosphere, and the factors driving change in the size of these
   • the pathways which control cycling between land, ocean, atmosphere and cryosphere, and the processes which control transfers within and between them at a range of time (minutes to millennia) and space (hillslope to global) scales.
     • land use change
     • evaporation and condensation
     • formation of clouds and causes of precipitation
     • runoff generation
     • catchment hydrology
     • water extraction and groundwater
     • cryospheric processes
   • the links between the two cycles using climate as a key context for exploring these linkages and for developing and applying understanding of the role of feedbacks within and between the two cycles
   • the pathways and processes which control the cycling of carbon within and between land, oceans and atmosphere at a range of time (seconds to millions of years) and space (plant to continental) scales.
     • land use change
     • photosynthesis
     • carbon sequestration
     • fossil fuel combustion
     • decomposition
     • respiration
   • the distribution and size of the most important stores of carbon on land, in the oceans and the atmosphere, and the factors driving change in the size of these

3. Landscape systems, one of the three:

   • drylands
   • coastal landscapes
   • glaciated landscapes

4. Global systems and Governance

   • Global Systems, pick one subtheme
     • international trade and access to markets in the contemporary world
     • patterns of human development and life expectancy
     • processes and patterns of global population migration
   • Global Governance, pick one subtheme
     • governance of the global commons (selecting either Antarctica or the Earth's atmosphere or the oceans)
     • human rights and the geopolitics of intervention
     • sovereignty and territorial integrity
   • Global Systems
     • the nature of economic, political, social and environmental interdependence in the contemporary world
     • how unequal flows of people, money, ideas and technology within global systems can sometimes act to promote stability, growth and development but can also cause inequalities, conflicts and injustices for people and places
     • how unequal power relations enable some states to drive global systems to their own advantage and to directly influence geopolitical events, while others are only able to respond or resist in a more constrained way
   • Global Governance
     • the role of norms, laws and institutions in regulating and reproducing global systems, and analysis of the geographical consequences for citizens and places
     • how attempts at global governance (including theUN) can work to promote growth and stability but may also exacerbate inequalities and injustices
     • how interactions between the local, regional, national, international and global scales are fundamental to an understanding of global governance

5. Changing place; changing places, focus equally on two subthemes:

   • relationships and connections, focus on one of:
     • changing demographic and cultural characteristics
     • economic change and social inequalities
     • food production, circulation and consumption
   • meanings and representations, focus on one of:
     • place making and marketing as revealed and contrasted in the work of a range of formal and informal agencies or their materials
     • cultural and artistic approaches to representing place
     • lived experience of place (i.e. how people see, experience and understand places) in the past and present