Primary Geography: Key Questions To Ask When Learning About A Place
Updated: Jun 10
When reviewing and revising our curriculum to ensure better humanities coverage I began to think about how there were potentially missed opportunities for children to be revisiting and re-enforcing geography knowledge and skills.
For example, when children learn about the Ancient Romans, they might learn about Italy, or indeed any of the other places in the Roman Empire. As well as ensuring that children can place the historic period on a timeline and so on, I think it is also worth them knowing about the places where events took place.
I began to think that a common approach to learning about these places might help teachers to provide sufficient and consistent information about them. I decided a set of questions that could be asked and answered whenever a new place was 'discovered' might be a good way to structure this common approach.
The hope is that, with these questions, children will begin to build up a) a good knowledge of the world, and b) a good bank of questions that they might begin to ask more autonomously whenever they come across the mention of place that they do not know much about.
I used the National Curriculum as guidance for the following questions with the intention that NC objectives would be covered multiple times during a child's time in school.
As well as sets of questions, I've also proposed some actions that might be undertaken each time a new place is learned about - one of the main aims of these actions is that children know where in the world each place that is studied is located.
A downloadable version of the below is available on my resources page:
Thanks must go to Geography Meg on Twitter for inspiring me with her CLOCC acronym.
KS1
When learning about a new place (for example, during non-geography-based units, such as history-based units) always ask and answer these questions:
COWWS:
CONTINENT – Which continent is it in?
OCEANS AND SEAS – Which oceans or seas are nearby?
WEATHER – What is the weather like there? Is it hot or cold there? Is it near the equator or the poles?
WHO AND WHAT – Who (people) and what (animals and plants) live there?
SEE – What would we see there? What is natural? What has been made by humans?
A pre-populated COWWS grid - a blank version can be found in the resources section of my website:
When learning about a new place (for example, during non-geography-based units, such as history-based units) always carry out these actions:
• 1st: Locate it on a map of the county/region it is in (and show and discuss, using simple compass directions and locational language, where it is in relation to: other places previously studied; our country; our location)
• 2nd: Locate it on a map of the country it is in (and show and discuss, using simple compass directions and locational language, where it is in relation to: other places previously studied; our country; our location)3rd: Locate it on a map of the world (and show where it is in relation to: other places previously studied; our country; our location)
• Locate it on a globe (and show and discuss, using simple compass directions and locational language, where it is in relation to: other places previously studied; our country; our location)
• Locate it on a plan perspective or on aerial photographs
• Show images of the place (avoid only showing stereotypical images, especially when studying a whole continent or country)
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KS2
When learning about a new place (for example, during non-geography-based units, such as history-based units) always ask and answer these questions:
General questions to ask about location:
HOTCLUB:
HEMISPHERE - Which hemisphere(s) is it in?
OTHER PLACES - Where is it in relation to other places we have studied or know about, including countries and continents (using 8 points of a compass)?
TIMEZONE - Which timezone(s) is it in?
CLIMATE - Which climate zone(s) is it in? (Tropical/Dry/Temperate/Continental/Polar)
LATITUDE - Where is it in relationship to the main lines of latitude (using 8 points of a compass)? (Arctic Circle/Tropic of Cancer/Equator/Tropic of Capricorn/Antarctic Circle) What is its latitude and longitude?
US - Where is it in relation to our village/town/city/county/country?
BODIES OF WATER - Which bodies of water are nearby?
A pre-populated HOTCLUB grid - a blank version can be found in the resources section of my website:
Questions to ask about the location…
…Of a continent:
• Which countries are in this continent?
…Of a country:
• What is the capital city?
• Which major cities are in this country?
• Which other countries are nearby?
…Of a city/town/village:
• Which country is it in?
• Which continent is it in?
• Which other cities/towns/villages are nearby?
• Which county/region is it located in?
• What is its grid reference?
• What are its origins?
General questions to ask about any continent/country/city etc:
Human Geography
• Who lives there?
• Which major landmarks are found here?
• What human-made features are found here?
• How was the land used here now and in the past?
• What types of settlement are found here?
• What kinds of economic activity happen here?
• Which natural resources can be found here?
• What is its population?
• (If studying a country) What do they export and where do they export it to?
• (If studying a country) What do they import and where do they import it from?
Physical Geography
• Which (terrestrial) biomes are found here? (Rain Forest/Deciduous Forest/Desert/Temperate Grassland/Tropical Grassland/ Taiga/Tundra)
• What lives there?
• What is the elevation like?
• Which major rivers and valleys are found here?
• Which major mountains are found here?
• Which natural disasters are known to happen here?
Additional, non-essential questions to ask (a non-exhaustive list):
• What is the place famous for?
• What kind of food is eaten there?
• Which religions are followed there?
• Which famous people are from there?
• What are houses and buildings like there?
• What happened there in the past?
• Which sports are played there?
• What is it like to live there?
Geography Units
If carrying out a geography-specific unit use the majority of the questions from STEEP in addition to the above questions in order to ask more in-depth questions about the place:
• Social
• Technological
• Economic
• Environmental
• Political
(Thanks to Geo Josie on Twitter for STEEP)
When learning about a new place (for example, during non-geography-based units, such as history-based units) always carry out these actions:
• 1st: Locate it on a map of the county/region it is in (and show where it is in relation to: other places previously studied; our country; our location; lines of latitude; hemispheres)
• 2nd: Locate it on a map of the country it is in (and show where it is in relation to: other places previously studied; our country; our location; lines of latitude; hemispheres)
• 3rd: Locate it on a map of the world (and show where it is in relation to: other places previously studied; our country; our location; lines of latitude; hemispheres)
• Use computer mapping (e.g. google maps) to zoom in to and out of the place, discussing location in relation to other known places
• Locate it on a political map (and look at nearby countries and borders)
• Locate it on a physical/topographic map (and look at elevation, mountains, rivers, bodies of water)
• Locate it on a climate map (and look at the colours used to show different climatic areas)
• Locate it on a map with a satellite image overlay
• Locate it on a globe (and show where it is in relation to: other places previously studied; our country; our location; lines of latitude; hemispheres)
• Locate it on an Ordnance Survey map (and identify its grid reference and use symbols to locate local features)
• Show images of the place (avoid only showing stereotypical images, especially when studying a whole continent or country)
Useful resources for preparing information to help children answer HOTCLUB questions:
HEMISPHERE - Which hemisphere(s) is it in?
Use Google: type in ‘ + hemisphere’ e.g. ‘Algeria Hemisphere for the following, or similar:
OTHER PLACES - Where is it in relation to other places we have studied or know about, including countries and continents (using 8 points of a compass)?
https://www.climate-zone.com/ - gives information about where any country is located in relation to nearby places
TIMEZONE - Which timezone(s) is it in?
Use Google: type in ‘ + timezone’ e.g. ‘Madagascar timezone’ for the following, or similar:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/personal.html - use this customisable site and the snipping tool to get a snip of clocks showing GMT and any other city in any other time zone e.g.:
https://www.worldatlas.com/ - click on a continent/country; use the ‘time’ tab to find out about timezones
CLIMATE - Which climate zone(s) is it in? (Tropical/Dry/Temperate/Continental/Polar)
Tropical (A)/Dry (B)/Temperate (C)/Continental (D)/Polar (E) are the main 5 classifications in Köppen’s climate classification system. More information can be found at the following sites:
https://www.mindat.org/climate.php - use the colours on the map to ascertain climate zone
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Geography/Climate - some of the terminology here is slightly different to Köppen’s climate classification system but it is useful nonetheless.
LATITUDE - Where is it in relationship to the main lines of latitude (using 8 points of a compass)? (Arctic Circle/Tropic of Cancer/Equator/Tropic of Capricorn/Antarctic Circle) What is its latitude and longitude?
https://www.climate-zone.com/ - gives the geographic coordinates for any country
https://www.worldatlas.com/ - use a world map from this site (or similar) to find and describe a place’s location in relation to the main lines of latitude. This site also gives latitude and longitude of any country and its main cities.
US - Where is it in relation to our village/town/city/county/country?
Use a map to locate both places and describe position using compass points with reference to the prime meridian (Longitude 0º, Greenwich Mean Time) as this runs through the UK e.g. ‘India is to the south east of the prime meridian making it south east of the UK’
Use Google: type in ‘ to distance’ e.g. ‘UK to India distance’ for the following, or similar (add ‘km’ to search to change unit of measurement):
BODIES OF WATER - Which bodies of water are nearby?
Use a map to locate nearby major oceans and seas
Use Google: type in ‘rivers longest’ or similar e.g. ‘rivers France longest’ for the following, or similar:
Generic resources, useful for answering most of the questions:
https://www.climate-zone.com/ - gives official name, capital, area, climate, location, geographic coordinates, comparative area, land boundaries, coastline (length), terrain and elevation extremes for any country.
https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/flags/flags.htm - flags of the world
https://www.worldatlas.com/ - for each country there are various maps (including physical, outline and location maps), basic information (including area, population, population density, currency, largest cities), history, famous natives, weather, general facts, historical timeline and more.
https://www.mapsofindia.com/worldmap/ - a wide selection of world maps can be found here including physical, political, outline, climate, tectonic plates, world time and religion maps (these maps cannot be downloaded but can be viewed on screen)
https://askabiologist.asu.edu/sites/default/files/resources/articles/biomes/world-biomes-map.gif - a useful map of the world showing biomes closely matched to the biomes selected to use (its accompanying article is useful too for defining the different biome types: https://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/biomes)
https://www.internetgeography.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/world-map-biomes-.png - a useful map of the world showing biomes closely matched to the biomes selected to use (its accompanying article is useful too for defining the different biome types: https://www.internetgeography.net/topics/what-is-a-biome/)
https://www.britannica.com – use this site to search for information about a place – best for countries, but also works for cities too – information for towns is limited.
https://tutorful.co.uk/blog/learning-geography-useful-websites-and-resources-that-will-rock-your-world - a huge list of websites and apps to support geography learning
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