Lessons · Teaching · the five questions geography asks
Five questions that work on any place
Geography asks: where is it, what is it like there, how do people and the environment affect each other, what moves through it, and what makes it a region. The five questions apply to any place at any scale, from a country to a playground.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by a state certification officer. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
The five give a pupil a way into a place they have never heard of, which is what an examination asks them to do. They also give a teacher a lesson structure that works for anywhere, which is worth more than a memorised list of capitals.
How to think about it
Apply all five to a place the class knows before using them on one they do not. Location has two kinds: absolute, which is coordinates, and relative, which is where it is in relation to something else, and both are asked for.
Worked example
Location: absolute is coordinates; relative is 'north of the river, beside the school'Both are examined, and relative is the one people actually use.
Place: what it is like there, physically and in its human characterLandscape, weather, buildings, language, work.
Human and environment: how each changes the other, in both directionsPeople drain a marsh; a river decides where a town sits.
Movement and region: what travels through, and what makes this area one areaGoods, people and ideas move; a region is defined by something shared.
Your turn
Name the kind of location given by coordinates.
Coordinates give the location
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Treating geography as a list of capitals and rivers. The five questions are the subject; the place names are what you apply them to.
Now you try
Next in Teaching
- A region is anywhere that shares something, and somebody drew the lineregions, and why they are drawn where they are
- Continents, oceans, and the lines that are not really therecontinents, oceans and the lines on the globe
- People change a place, and the place changes backhow people change a place and are changed by it