Pearson Edexcel GCSE Geography A
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Lessons and practice for this course
These lessons cover selected parts of the course, including optional topics. Follow the options your class studies.
- Rivers and flooding
- Coasts and coastal change
- Urban growth and change
- Weather hazards
- Climate change
- Ecosystems
- Tropical rainforests
- Glacial landscapes
- Development and inequality
- Water resources
- Energy resources
- Geographical enquiry
- River landforms
- Coastal landforms
Map, graph and calculation practice · General fieldwork methods · Written-answer practice
My taught options
Choose the options your class studies. Your choice stays on this browser.
Practise an exam answer
Official specification and assessment requirements
Open the official qualification source
Explore selected parts of your course through skills practice, process lessons and sourced case evidence.
Issue 5, September 2025. The 2026 assessment includes revised content and an additional fifteen minutes for Paper 1.
Check your taught landscape and resource options with your teacher.
2027 assessment route
| Component | Duration | Marks | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| The physical environment | 105 minutes | 94 | 37.5% |
| The human environment | 90 minutes | 94 | 37.5% |
| Geographical investigations: fieldwork and UK challenges | 90 minutes | 64 | 25% |
Assessment objectives
- AO1: Location and process knowledge (15%)
- AO2: Geographical understanding (25%)
- AO3: Application, analysis and judgement (35%)
- AO4: Geographical and fieldwork skills (25%)
Save your taught options
Topic coverage by component
These links cover selected parts of the specification. Use your school course and the official specification to check the full requirements.
The physical environment
The extended 105-minute duration applies from the 2026 examination series.
- UK landscape overview: no dedicated concept lesson yet
- Coastal landscapes (option): Coastal processes and management — partial
- River landscapes (option): Drainage basins as systems — partial
- Glaciated uplands (option): Glacier change and measurement — partial
- Weather hazards and climate change: Hazard, exposure and vulnerability, Adaptation to changing conditions — partial
- Ecosystems, biodiversity and management: Ecosystem interdependence, Forest conversion and distant demand — partial
- Deciduous woodland: no dedicated concept lesson yet
Four and six figure grid references · Map scale and distance · Bearings · Contours and relief · Gradient · Climate graphs · Population pyramids · Scatter plots · Choropleth maps · Percentage change · Mean, median and range · Source evaluation
The human environment
- Changing cities: Urban transport and access — partial
- Global development: Measuring development — partial
- Resource management overview: Water security and competing uses, Power, energy and reliable supply — partial
- Energy resources (option): Power, energy and reliable supply — partial
- Water resources (option): Water security and competing uses — partial
Four and six figure grid references · Map scale and distance · Bearings · Contours and relief · Gradient · Climate graphs · Population pyramids · Scatter plots · Choropleth maps · Percentage change · Mean, median and range · Source evaluation
Geographical investigations: fieldwork and UK challenges
- Physical and human fieldwork: Sampling and representativeness — partial
- UK challenges and geographical judgement: Matching evidence to a claim — partial
Four and six figure grid references · Map scale and distance · Bearings · Contours and relief · Gradient · Climate graphs · Population pyramids · Scatter plots · Choropleth maps · Percentage change · Mean, median and range · Source evaluation
Fieldwork and independent assessment
Fieldwork must take place on at least two occasions in contrasting environments, with both physical and human geography addressed.
Generated exercises practise techniques; they do not replace fieldwork or supply evidence that a school has met its declaration requirements.
Case and example requirement slots
Check the requirements for each example you study. Assign saved examples to these roles from Your practice.
- Major UK city: Growth; Functions; Change; Challenges
- Major developing or emerging country city: Growth; Land use; Challenges; Management
- Developing or emerging country: Development change; Trade; Investment; Aid
- Tropical cyclone in a developed country: Named country; Impacts; Responses
- Tropical cyclone in an emerging or developing country: Named country; Impacts; Responses
- Drought in a developed country: Named country; Impacts; Responses
- Drought in an emerging or developing country: Named country; Impacts; Responses
Rainforest and deciduous woodland are both required. Woodland lacks a dedicated sequence. Drought country contrasts require additional case evidence.
The city and country conditions differ from Pearson B: this is not a relabelled B route.
What is available here
Explore maps and data, practise methods, use case evidence and try an original assessment pack.
Skills practice · Written-answer practice · Create an original assessment
Mapped content areas
- The physical environment
- The human environment
- Geographical investigations
Check your taught examples
- A country’s developmentUse the required national scale and income/development context.; Explain economic change, international connections and uneven social outcomes.; A city intervention alone cannot fulfil a national case.
- Urban growth and changeIdentify the city and its national context.; Connect opportunities and challenges to growth and migration.; A transport project covers only part of a whole-city case.
- A UK cityIdentify the city and its regional connections.; Explain social, economic and environmental change.; Add your taught evidence beyond the intervention shown here.
- Tropical rainforest use and managementIdentify the rainforest and country or region.; Explain causes, consequences and management of forest change.; An Indonesian Borneo example is not automatically a Malaysian case.
- A tectonic hazard eventName and date the event.; Separate the tectonic process from exposure and vulnerability.; Use contrasting examples where your specification requires them.
- A tropical stormName and date the storm.; Explain hazards, impacts and responses.; Identify whether a number is an estimate, observation or forecast.
- Coastal managementIdentify the defended or realigned coastal stretch.; Explain how the intervention changes risk and sediment or habitats.; Evaluate consequences for different people and timescales.
- River flooding and managementSeparate the catchment, affected settlement and intervention.; Explain rainfall, flows, exposure and response.; Assess residual risk and avoid promising complete protection.
- Water supply and securityDefine the supply area and period.; Connect physical availability, demand and infrastructure.; Evaluate financial, energy, ecological and distributional effects.
- Energy supply and transitionsDistinguish capacity from generation.; Identify the technology, location and time period.; Assess reliability, access and environmental consequences.
- An ecosystem and its managementIdentify the ecosystem’s scale and processes.; Explain interactions and human pressures.; Do not attribute every change to a single cause.