Creative case studies for GCSE geography with OCR: GA annual conference April 2016

For our creative case studies workshop we wanted to get people thinking about what creativity can mean when teaching case studies. To explore these ideas we used the city of Liverpool to investigate two key ideas across both GCSE specifications, the ways of life within the city and contemporary challenges.  When thinking about creativity we had "three E’s" in mind Enquiry, Exciting and Engaging. The case study activities in the workshop are based on an interactive Story Map (Esri) which can incorporate ArcGIS maps, text, images and multimedia content. In this context we used the Story Map as an alternative way to deliver and investigate the case study content but equally students could also create their own Story Map as part of their case study learning and consolidation at GCSE, AS or A Level. 

Click here to view the Liverpool case study Story Map

Starter Activity: Diamond nine ranking 

Key question: Which activities do you think are the most/least creative and why? 

To get everyone thinking about what it means to be creative when teaching case studies nine potential options were given from a Pechakucha to case study fact files which were to be ranked according to the most and least creative. 

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Activity 2: Culture Snap

Key question: Which 3-5 words summarise your initial impression of Liverpool? 

Stretch: What has influenced your perception and why?

This can be used as quick activity to get students thinking about a place and what the culture of that place is like, greater understanding of why students have these initial impressions can be drawn out through questioning and discussion. If students have been to Liverpool, they might have a very different impression compared to a student who is just basing their perception of Liverpool from the photographs. If their perception has been influenced by external factors what are they? This can provide an interesting starting point to get students thinking about how culture can be exported to other places e.g. Liverpool’s football teams global reach. 

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Activity 3: Multiple Deprivation

Key question: What evidence is there of inequality in Liverpool?

As a way of embedding geographical skills students can engage with up to date data from the 2015 index of multiple deprivation based on seven elements of deprivation (income, employment, education skills and training, health and disability, crime, barriers to housing and services, living environment).  Students should use the data to extract, interpret, analyse and evaluate the data as part of the development of their cartographic skills. The red indicates the most deprived areas and the blue the least deprived areas. 

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Activity 4: Contemporary challenge, housing availability 

Key question: Why is housing a contemporary challenge in Liverpool in the 21st century? 

This resource can be used to help encourage students to make connections and help support their extended writing. The green hexagons are the issues associated with housing in Liverpool and the blue hexagons are supporting facts and figures. Students should be encouraged to make as many links as possible between the green and blue hexagons to help them answer the key question.  Some students could also draw on additional information from the Story Map to help embed their geographical skills further. 

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It was good to meet lots of you at the GA conference and thank you to all of you that participated in the workshop. It was great to see everybody getting involved and we really appreciated your feedback.  If you try out any of the ideas in your lessons or have any further suggestions, please let us know at Geography@ocr.org.uk or @OCR_Geography we look forward to hearing from you.