Geography Independent Learning: Population In China

Katherine Parr: Lead Teacher of Geography at Hodgson Academy shares her latest independent learning success story.

This half term saw Year 8 students studying the topic of population. As part of the unit of work students were asked to work in teams to come up with a ‘BIG question’ surrounding the population in China. The students were given no other information but were asked to research at home information on the population. With this research each pupil was asked to come up with a question about China’s population in which they could answer over the next few lessons. Some of the brilliant questions included:

·         Why did China’s population get so big?

·         What is the China one child policy?

·         How many people are there in China that are aged over 90?

·         What were the main punishments for people who had more than one child?

·         Why did the government think it was right to take extra children born and put them up for adoption?

·         What happened if a woman gave birth to twins?

From the initial research these questions were formed. In groups of four students were able to spend one lesson and one home work researching the answer to their question.

Students then came up with criteria that they had to follow in order to present their findings this lesson- what would they need to get their target level? How would they achieve this? The end of this session when each project had been fully presented in poster form, the students had to swap their project and evaluate their fellow class mate’s work. How would they improve? Is there any information that they were missing? The project was then returned and the student had to act on advice.

The final part of the project saw the Year 8’s presenting their projects, informing the rest of the class of their initial question and then what they had found. What did they find interesting about this?

 

Each student had then the opportunity to work with the level descriptors to come up with the level they thought their project and teamwork deserved. Their teacher would work with this when marking their work.

Safe to say each member of the class worked extremely hard to ensure that they had a fully completed, in depth answer to their initial question which was presented to the rest of the class successfully.

Well done to Year 8 for investigating China’s population!