Teaching Resources for GCSE and A-Level Geography

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Environment and Empire is a collection of free teaching resources for GCSE and A-Level Geography. The resources are designed to highlight two major themes:

• The effects and consequences of empire on geography
• The contributions of non-European people to the study of geography

The aim is therefore to contribute to both diversifying and decolonising the teaching of geography.

The resources cover five major topics: climate change, hot deserts, tectonic hazards, tropical rainforests, and cold environments. Case studies range from the 1935 Quetta Earthquake in British India (modern-day Pakistan) to deforestation in early twentieth-century British Malaya (modern-day Malaysia). Through these case studies, the project highlights the contributions of a number of “Key Figures”, many of whom are left out of traditional accounts of the development of physical geography. These include the Indian meteorologist Anna Mani, the Pakistani seismologist Rashid Ahmed Khan Tahirkheli, the Sudanese desert scientist Balgis Osman-Elasha, and Chukchi explorer Nikolai Daurkin.

The resources are all curriculum-aligned and are designed to fit into existing timetables. The resources are specifically aligned to components of the AQA GCSE and A-Level Geography specifications. The resources should also be of more general use to those teaching according to other exam board specifications.

The project is the result of a collaboration between the Dr Arjan Gosal (Faculty of Environment, University of Leeds), Dr James Poskett (Department of History, University of Warwick), and Leeds Council.