Geography Revision Topics for Year 8 Leavers
The topics and chapters listed below are based on the New Syllabus first examined in February 2011 – some of your
revision guides contain sections required for the old examination – only revise sections listed below. Page numbers
for the revision guide may vary depending upon the edition you have – use the contents page carefully. Ensure you
revise your case studies thoroughly and can quote them accurately in examinations.
Children in Year 8 for a second year (leavers) should revise all topics, those who have come from form 7 this year do
not have to revise Economic Geography, Environmental Geography or settlements for the Christmas Examination.
WEATHER AND CLIMATE (PAGE 2 – 13)
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Instruments
The water cycle
Rainfall types
Factors affecting temperature
A humid temperate climate (Britain)
A humid tropical climate (Amazonian rainforest)
Microclimates
CASE STUDY
Hurricane Katrina 2005
LANDFORMS, WEATHERING AND EROSION (PAGE 14 - 34)
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Rock Types
Igneous, Sedimentary, Metamorphic
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Types of Weathering
Physical, chemical and biological weathering
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Features of the River Basin (page 16 – 22)
o River Processes
o Features of the Upper course
o Features of the lower course
o Coastal Erosion
o Coastal Transportation
o Coastal Deposition
o Landslides
o Causes and effects of floods (river and coastal)
CASE STUDIES
Boscastle floods 2004 (flooding in a MEDC)
Flooding in Bangladesh 1998 (flooding in a LEDC)
*EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES (PAGE 42 – 60)
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Tectonic Plates and plate boundaries
Types of volcano
Effects of an eruption
Preparing for a volcanic eruption
Why people live near volcanoes
Factors determining severity of damage
CASE STUDIES
Soufriere Hills volcano, Montserrat- LEDC ( p.47)
Kobe earthquake, Japan – MEDC (attached)
*ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY (PAGE 61- 63)
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Employment structure
Location of an industry
Industry as a system – Input/Throughput/Output (follows the Toyota case study)
Globalisation
CASE STUDIES
Secondary Industry – NIKE – LEDC ( p.63 )
Secondary Industry - TOYOTA – MEDC – attached
SETTLEMENTS (PAGE 67 – 70)
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Functions of a settlement
Reasons for the site or situation
Settlement hierarchy
Settlement patterns
Conflicts over land use
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES ( PAGE 71-78)
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Protecting the Environment
The purpose of national parks in the UK
CASE STUDIES
Management of Exmoor ( p.75 )
ORDNANCE SURVEY MAP SKILLS
Pupils should be able to understand:
 4-figure and 6-figure grid references
 eastings, northings
 spot heights, triangulation points and contours
 direction
 orientation (8 points of the compass)
 distance/scale (using 1:25000 and 1:50000 scale maps)
 area
Children should be able to:
 follow routes
 identify relief and landscape features (slope steepness, plateau, flood plain, valley,
headland, bay, ridge etc )
 annotate and draw simple sketch sections
 use maps in decision making e.g. where should a car factory be located?
 understand site, situation, function and shape of settlements
Global Location
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Learn and practise the locations listed in your revision guide (pages 102 to 127)
Ensure you look at all continents
Learn: countries, capital cities, major cities, mountains, deserts, rivers, seas, oceans and major
lines of latitude and longitude (especially the Prime Meridian!)
Also ensure you can mark the location of your case studies clearly on a world map.
GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR REVISION
Economic Geography
The Toyota Car Factory at Burnaston - Case Study
In this case study you will discover that:
• Making cars is a secondary industry
• Toyota is a transnational corporation (TNC)
What is Toyota?
• Toyota is a Japanese car manufacturer
• Toyota is the largest Japanese car manufacturer
• Toyota is the third largest car manufacturer in the world. Ford is the largest and GM the second
largest. (as of 2007, Toyota is now the world’s largest car manufacturer)
Why did Toyota want to build a factory in one of the 15 EU countries?
• Toyota (like all car companies) wanted to increase their worldwide sales.
Why did Toyota choose to build their new factory in the UK?
• The UK Government made it clear they wanted Toyota to build their new factory in the UK and
would give any help it could. (Money))
• The UK is a large market for new cars and is in the centre of Europe. (Markets)
• Workers in the UK worked longer hours for less pay than workers in some other EU countries and
strikes were less common, i.e. higher productivity ( Labour)
Why did Toyota choose Burnaston for the site of their new factory?
• Burnaston was a large flat site of over 100 hectares
• There is room to expand
• It is a Greenfield site 8km from the centre of Derby
• Burnaston is next to the A38 trunk road and close to the M1.
• There is a large pool of unemployed workers wanting jobs
• Hundreds of recent job losses at Rolls-Royce and BREL (Railway Company)
in Derby
• Good access to West Midlands car components companies
• Derbyshire County Council invested £20 million in the site
• Cheap electricity available from local power stations
What have been the positive effects of the building of the new factory?
• Once the factory was built about 3000 jobs were created
• The Toyota jobs are secure because this is a successful company making a good product.
• 2,730 jobs were created directly
• More money is being spent in Derby, Nottingham and Burton.
• There has been a new M1 – M6 link road
• Six of Toyotas suppliers have moved into the area creating 300 new jobs
• A new engineering and training centre has been built to encourage young people to apply for
engineering apprenticeships.
Have there been any bad things as a result of Toyota?
Most people would say NO! The development has been a big success
Factories as a System
Inputs
e.g
Labour
Components
Land
Energy supply
Money
Processes
Assembly
Painting
Testing
Development
Design
Maintenance
Outputs
Products - cars
Waste products
All industries can be thought of as a system and all factories whether car
manufacturing, or computer companies will need Raw Materials (Inputs), an
activity, like building the car (Processes) and to produce a product or service for
sale (Outputs). The diagram above uses a car factory to simply describe this
system. Sometimes the processes which take place within a factory are known as
throughputs, both words mean exactly the same thing.
Try and create a similar Input/Output diagram for yourself using a computer
manufacturing factory – you will see that there are many similarities and that all
manufacturing companies use a very similar system.
Raw materials
Processes
Outputs
THE KOBE EARTHQUAKE - 1995
Kobe is located 32 kilometres west of Osaka on the Japanese island of Honshu. It has
a population of 1.5 million and is one of the largest and busiest ports in Japan. Kobe is
an important centre for commerce, tourism, shipbuilding, and for manufacturing steel,
rubber, and textiles.
When did the earthquake happen?
It occurred at 5.46 a.m., on Tuesday January 17th, 1995.
What happened?
Japan is positioned on the margin of the Eurasian Plate. The Philippine Sea Plate is
subducted below the Eurasian plate, resulting in Japan having greater than average
seismic and volcanic activity. An earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale hit
the city. The epicentre was on Awaji island in Osaka Bay. The earthquake's focus was
very shallow, at a depth of 15 - 30 kilometres. This resulted in extremely violent
shaking of the ground.
What were the effects?
Some 75,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed during the earthquake and its
aftershocks. Road and rail links were damaged, making it difficult for fire engines
and ambulances to reach the worst affected parts of the city. Gas and water supplies
were cut off, as were telecommunications links.
Nearly 6,000 people were killed, with another 26,000 injured. 310,000 people were
made homeless. The cost of repairing the damage was put at £60 billion.
Most deaths happened in the old residential areas where buildings had been
constructed before the introduction of designs to help withstand earthquakes. Many of
the oldest buildings were wooden and caught fire very quickly.
Although many newer buildings in Kobe were built to withstand earthquakes some of
them still collapsed. The Hanshin Expressway, an elevated road, collapsed
although it was built to withstand earthquakes measuring up to 8.3 on the Richter
scale. Other modern buildings with steel frames were designed to sway in the
event of an earthquake, yet some of these also collapsed. Others were so badly
damaged they had to be demolished.
The earthquake hit Japanese industry. The Toyota motor company had two
factories in Kobe, both of which made vehicle parts which no other factory could
make. Once these factories were put out of production, Toyota's whole assembly
system ground to a halt.
The Japanese Government was heavily criticised for its response to the earthquake.
Relief efforts were condemned for being slow, uncoordinated and badly equipped.
Since this event, an even more devastating earthquake struck Japan on Friday 11th
March 2011, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale. The earthquake produced a huge
Tsunami (10 metres high) which caused mass devastation along the East coast of
Honshu, Japan’s largest island.