'Geography and Change' and 'Geography and Change Teacher's Resource Pack'

by David Flint, Corrin Flint and Neil Punnett - published by Hodder and Stoughton

Geography and Change - UK£10.99 (ISBN 0 340 64786 8)
Geography and Change Teacher's Resource Pack - UK£40.00 (ISBN 0 340 64787 6)

Geography and Change and its accompanying Teacher's Resource Pack have been produced for GCSE and Standard Grade courses.

There are six major topics dealt with in the book:

  • Population Change
  • Change in the Physical Environment
  • Change in the Countryside
  • Changing Resources
  • Industrial Change
  • Changing Urban Environments

In addition to the above topics the book also contains a set of Country Fact Files and a glossary. The Country Fact Files relate to four selected countries - Spain, Thailand, UK and USA, and case studies from these countries are used throughout the book. This is a refreshing approach as it enables students to build up an overall view of life in these countries, instead of the usual jumble of small case studies drawn from many different countries.

Each chapter within a topic begins by asking a few key questions and explains briefly how it intends to explore the route towards answering these questions. This structure which is increasingly common in British textbooks, should help students clearly focus their studies on the subject in hand. There are a large number of colourful and clearly labelled diagrams, maps and photographs to accompany the text and plenty of exercises to help assess student progress and comprehension. Important words and phrases, which are explained in the glossary, are also highlighted within the text. (Unfortunately though this is done in a somewhat insipid colour which doesn't draw your eye to these words and phrases, and so they don't really stand out from the rest of the text.) Finally each chapter is concluded with a summary detailing the key points to arise from the information within it.

As with their Key Stage 3 text Core Geography, Hodder and Stoughton really score with the quality of the Teacher's Resource Pack which accompanies Geography and Change. This is an extremely well thought out resource, (with the exception of the outline maps at the end of it, all of which lack a scale!). The pack contains advice on:

  • Using Geography and Change
  • Progress and differentiation
  • Integrating IT
  • Suggestions for individual studies
  • How to revise for geography examinations
  • How to answer exam questions

However the bulk of the Teacher's Resource Pack is taken up with photocopiable worksheets, three of which are available for each chapter. These worksheets are for use at three levels:

  • Support - for less able students
  • Development - to reinforce key ideas or skills
  • Extension - for the more able students

This structure readily allows teachers to plan for differentiation by resource in addition to differentiation by outcome. As such these worksheets should be welcomed by hard pressed GCSE and Standard Grade teachers for whom covering the syllabus is always the first requirement, leaving little time to develop differentiated resources of their own.

Geography and Change is described as a one-book approach for GCSE and as such its main competitor is most likely to be 'The Wider World' by David Waugh. Content wise 'The Wider World' probably just has the edge although it's a close run thing. However as with Core Geography the quality of the Teacher's Resource Pack makes all the difference, so in terms of a teaching 'package' Geography and Change has to be the winner - largely on two counts:

  • the use of four selected countries to provide case studies, and
  • the quality of the differentiated worksheets.

My thanks to Julia Morris at Hodder and Stoughton for providing review copies of these two books.

(Reviewed February 16th 1997)