Geographical skills: maps, graphs and statistics
Skills marks are scattered across all three papers and are the easiest marks on the course to secure — if you practise the mechanics until they are automatic.
Lesson overview
What you'll learn in this lesson
Plan enquiries, select sampling and presentation methods, analyse data and evaluate conclusions.
Key learning points
- • Cartographic skills
- • Graphical skills
- • Statistics
- • Describing data in exam language
This lesson at a glance
- 30 minutes
- 16 parts to scroll through
- 4 quick checks
- Marked quiz at the end
- Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses
Words to know
Scroll down — the lesson carries on below
Watch & discover
Part 1 of 16
Watch first
Geographical skills: maps, graphs and statistics
An English teaching video on this topic from erin meryl mcgurk. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.
In a nutshell
Plan enquiries, select sampling and presentation methods, analyse data and evaluate conclusions.
Learning cycle
Part 2 of 16
Learning cycle 1 of 2
Part 1 · Cartographic skills
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 3 of 16
Learn
Cartographic skills
Four and six-figure grid references, scale and distance, compass direction and bearings, contour patterns, cross-sections, and reading aerial and satellite images. Practise describing a distribution using both a direction and a named feature.
Explore the idea
Part 4 of 16
Learn
Graphical skills
Choose the presentation that matches the data: line graphs for continuous change, bar and divided bar charts for categories, pie charts for proportion, scatter graphs with a line of best fit for relationships, choropleth maps for regional patterns, and proportional symbols for magnitude at points.
Quick check
Part 5 of 16
Quick check
Which graph type best shows a relationship between two variables?
Quick check
Part 6 of 16
Quick check
When is the median preferable to the mean?
Reset break
Part 7 of 16
Pause
That's sitting 1 of 2 done
Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.
Learning cycle
Part 8 of 16
Learning cycle 2 of 2
Part 2 · Statistics
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 9 of 16
Learn
Statistics
Mean, median, mode, range, interquartile range and percentage change. The median is more useful than the mean where extreme values distort the data — say so when asked to justify a measure.
Explore the idea
Part 10 of 16
Learn
Describing data in exam language
Give a general trend, quote figures with units, then identify an anomaly. Three sentences in that order will collect nearly every describe-the-data mark on the paper.
Quick check
Part 11 of 16
Quick check
What does a choropleth map show?
Quick check
Part 12 of 16
Quick check
What is the three-step structure for describing data?
Explore the idea
Part 13 of 16
Worked example
Model answer: 'Describe the pattern shown in the graph' (3 marks)
The graph shows a broadly positive relationship: as distance downstream increases, channel width increases, rising from about 2 metres at site 1 to roughly 11 metres at site 10. The steepest increase occurs between sites 6 and 8, where width almost doubles. Site 4 is an anomaly, recording a width of only 3 metres despite lying midway down the profile, which may reflect a resistant bedrock section constraining the channel.
Challenge round
Part 14 of 16
Game · Sort it
Which of these are true?
Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.
True
Not true
Mastery quiz
Part 15 of 16
Marked quiz
End of lesson quiz: Geographical skills: maps, graphs and statistics
4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.
1. Which graph type best shows a relationship between two variables?
2. When is the median preferable to the mean?
3. What does a choropleth map show?
4. What is the three-step structure for describing data?
Lesson round-up
Part 16 of 16
Lesson round-up
Ready when you are
Quiz score
Not sat
Games
Not played
Points this lesson
0
Best run
0 in a row
Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?
Ask LunaDo the work
Your written work for this lesson
This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.
Flooding on the River Calder
The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.
Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.
Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.
Written for Good Learning Co.
Reading questions
- List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
- Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
- Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.
Case study notes
WritingWrite the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.
Half a page
Explain answer
WritingAnswer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.
8–10 sentences
Map or sketch
DiagramDraw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.
1 map with a key
Data work
Working outPlot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.
1 graph + 1 sentence
Saved as you type.
Part 1 of 16 · Watch & discover