Switching to AQA from Edexcel

AS and A-level option: Hazards

• World at risk
• Global hazards: trends, patterns and challenge of the future.

AS option and A-level core: Water and carbon cycles (Water, carbon and climate)

AS option and A-level core: Global systems and global governance

• Going global
• Globalisation, global groupings, networks, roots, on the move, world cities
• Global challenges of the future.

No equivalent at AQA

World cities

AS and A-level option: Hazards: Tropical storms

Extreme weather

AS and A-level option: Coastal systems and landscapes

• Case study of a coastal environment beyond the United Kingdom (UK) to illustrate and analyse coasts as presenting risks and opportunities for human occupation and development.
• Evaluation of human responses of resilience, mitigation and adaptation.

Crowded coasts

A-level option: Population and the environment

• Migration change: environmental and socio-economic causes, processes and outcomes in relation to regions of origin and destination. Critical perspectives on the social, economic, environmental and political implications of migration.
• Regional variations in health and morbidity and the factors that influence these variations: age, gender, income, wealth on lifestyle, nutrition, and access to healthcare in the UK and in contrasting countries at different levels of development and where health is influenced by varying environmental factors.
• The relationship between place and well-being with contrasting examples from local to global and in light of wider economic development factors and in light of differing environmental factors.

Unequal spaces

AS option and A-level core: Changing places

• Manipulation and management of the perception of place, eg to further policy ends, by agencies such as community groups, corporate entities, local and national governments, etc.
• Agents of change: local individuals and populations, community groups, institutions, corporate entities, central and local government, the media and communication networks.

Rebranding places

A-level option: Resource security

Energy security and resource futures

Energy security

A-level option: Resource security

Water security and resource futures

Water conflicts

A-level option: Ecosystems under threat

• Ecosystems and their importance for human populations in the light of continuing population growth and economic development. Human populations in ecosystem development and sustainability.
• Typical development issues in each biome to include changes in population, economic development, agricultural extension and intensification, implications for biodiversity and sustainability.
• Case study of a specified region experiencing ecological change to illustrate and analyse the nature of the change and the reasons for it, how the economic, social and political character of its community reflects its ecological setting and how the community is responding to change.

Biodiversity under threat

There is no equivalent in the AQA specification.

Superpower geography

There is no specific area of study for this but it is implied across many of the units, especially the case studies.

Bridging the development gap

There is no specific area of study for this but it is implied across many of the units, especially the case studies.

Technological fix

AS and A-level optional unit: Hazards

There is almost complete overlap between the AQA volcanic and seismic hazards and the Edexcel specification.

Tectonic activity and hazards

A-level optional unit: Cold environments

There is almost complete overlap between the specifications.

Cold environments

No equivalent in the AQA specification except for desertification in Hot deserts and their margins.

Life on the margins – food supply

AS option and A-level core: Changing places

Issues associated with economic inequality and cultural diversity in contrasting urban areas. Strategies to manage these issues.

The world of cultural diversity

A-level option: Contemporary urban environments

• Air quality: particulate and photo-chemical pollution.
• Pollution reduction policies.
• Could be part of Population issues/health:

  Case study of a specified local area to illustrate and analyse the relationship between place, health and well-being and the relationship of well-being to the environmental and socio-economic character and distinctiveness of the place and the experience and attitudes of its populations.

Pollution and human health risk

No equivalent in the AQA specification.

Consuming the rural landscape

Core skills

• use and annotation of illustrative and visual material: base maps, sketch maps, OS maps (at a variety of scales), diagrams, graphs, field sketches, photographs, geospatial, geo-located and digital imagery
• use of overlays, both physical and electronic
• literacy – use of factual text and discursive/creative material and coding techniques when analysing text
• numeracy – use of number, measure and measurement questionnaire and interview techniques.

Cartographic skills

• atlas maps
• weather maps – including synoptic charts (A-level only)
• maps with located proportional symbols
• maps showing movement – flow lines, desire lines and trip lines
• maps showing spatial patterns – choropleth, isoline and dot maps.

Graphical skills

• line graphs – simple, comparative, compound and divergent
• bar graphs – simple, comparative, compound and divergent
• scatter graphs, and the use of best fit line
• pie charts and proportional divided circles
• triangular graphs
• graphs with logarithmic scales
• dispersion diagrams.

Statistical skills

• measures of central tendency – mean, mode, median
• measures of dispersion – range, inter-quartile range and standard deviation
• inferential and relational statistical techniques to include Spearman’s rank correlation and Chi square test (A-level only) and the application of significance tests.

Edexcel skills are built in to the modules throughout the specification depending on the units studied. They are to:

• use a range of skills and techniques, including the use of maps and images at different scales necessary for geographical study
• carry out research, and out-of-classroom work including fieldwork, as appropriate to the topics selected
• use modern information technologies, including geographical information systems (GIS), as appropriate to the content develop understanding of the application and relevance of geography.

ICT skills

• use of remotely sensed data (as described above in Basic skills)
• use of electronic databases
• use of innovative sources of data such as crowd sourcing and ‘big data’
• use of ICT to generate evidence of many of the skills provided above such as producing maps, graphs and statistical calculations.