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Year 11
AQA

Urban fieldwork

I can collect primary and secondary data in an urban area to help me answer a geographical enquiry question.

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Year 11
AQA

Urban fieldwork

I can collect primary and secondary data in an urban area to help me answer a geographical enquiry question.

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Share activities with pupils
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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. There are many geographical enquiry questions that you can investigate in urban areas such as towns and cities.
  2. Data collection techniques in an urban area can investigate quality of life, sustainability and regeneration.
  3. Secondary data can provide contextual information about urban populations and spaces and how these have changed.

Keywords

  • Regeneration - changes made to a built environment to try to improve the area for residents and workers

  • Bipolar scoring - a score scale that uses both positive and negative values

  • Proxy indicator - a variable which indirectly suggests that another variable may be true

Common misconception

Secondary crime data tells us about the economic prosperity of a place.

Crime data can be misinterpreted. The data does not give any details about the economic status of the victim or the perpetrator. It is also assumes that the perpetrator lives in the area where they committed the crime, for which there is no evidence.


To help you plan your year 11 geography lesson on: Urban fieldwork, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Cities can be thought of as dynamic beings with multiple, complex variables interacting together at once. Students need to recognise that urban spaces are meeting points of lots of areas in geography. Students should understand the links between these topics before they start some urban fieldwork.
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Equipment

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Content guidance

  • Risk assessment required - outdoor learning
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Supervision

Adult supervision required

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Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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Starter quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
Someone's lived experience is...
Correct answer: what someone's day-to-day life is like.
how someone's age affects their perspectives.
how an outsider views a place or a situation.
what someone wishes a place to be like.
Q2.
Roads, bridges, buildings, ports and train lines could collectively be called...
Correct answer: the built environment.
the unnatural environment.
the people's environment.
the structural environment.
Q3.
Which of the following might be considered a regeneration project?
Correct answer: Building a new shopping centre
Correct answer: Converting a warehouse into exclusive apartments
Welcoming international migrants to a place
Resurfacing a road at a major junction
Holding a public consultation to gauge the views of young people
Q4.
Which location is least likely to be studied in an urban area?
retail spaces
residential areas
transport hubs
Correct answer: national parks
Q5.
The UK national is a survey sent out every 10 years to each household in the UK to find out detailed information about the population.
Correct Answer: Census
Q6.
__________ is the state of living where residents do not have, or have access to, the resource is and services necessary for them to have a reasonable quality of life.
Correct answer: Deprivation
Inequality
Development
Privilege

Exit quiz

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4 Questions

Q1.
Which of the following is an example of a bipolar scoring system?
Correct answer: +3 +2 +1 0 -1 -2 -3
10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
5 4 3 2 1 0
5 10 15 20 25
Q2.
Which of the following statements is true?
Correct answer: Crime data shows where crimes take place.
Crime data indicates areas of deprivation.
Crime data shows areas of under investment.
Crime data only shows reported violent crimes.
Q3.
Sort these steps for carrying out a clone town survey into the correct order.
1 - Tally whether types of shop are independent or part of a chain.
2 - Times total types of shop by 5, total independents by 50 and total chains by 5.
3 - Add these three values and divide by the total number of shops in the survey.
4 - Place answer on the clone town continuum: score of <30 indicates a clone town.
Q4.
Studying the sustainability of changes in an urban area could mean studying the -term impacts on people and the environment.
Correct Answer: Long

Additional material

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