Choosing Your NEA Topic

Geography coursework makes up 20% of your overall A Level grade, so its important and it can be a way to boost your grade up if you are not great at exams. And choosing the topic can definitely be hard!

Initially, don’t worry about coming up with an exact title, come up with an idea, make a mind map of what sub-questions you would have and how you would collect data. When this is done decide on a title.

You should also check with your teachers if the topic you have chosen is appropriate and fits within your specification - I know it’s the summer holidays but most teachers probably won’t mind, mine have all said they wouldn’t mind if we emailed them over the summer.

 

What you need to think about:

·         Your NEA must link to the specification of your exam board.
·         Can you link your other subjects into your coursework? For example; if you do media can you do a topic about the representation of a place in the media (someone in my class is doing the representations of Liverpool in the media), if you do biology could you do something about ecosystems?
·         Which part of geography interests you the most- physical or human or a way to link the two together?
·         Can you actually collect the data you need? For example; don’t do your NEA on tectonics if you live in Britain. And can you collect all the data you need in the time you have?
·         Do you have enough ways to include both qualitative and quantitative data? And can you make a conclusion from the data you collect?
·         The sub-questions/objectives you come up with, and do they link to the title?

       You also need to make sure that:

·         Your research does not just rely on questionnaire data

            Your sub-questions don’t mean the same as your title and they are not too vague

       Your title is not too narrow and simplistic that you will struggle to collect data.

 

Example NEA topics:

·         Urban microclimates

·         Rural rebranding

·         Rivers

·         Ecosystems

·         Representations of ________ in the media

·         Glacial erratics and landforms

·         Coastal management

·         And there are loads more!

 

Useful links for your coursework and ideas:

Have a look at this bit first if you still have no idea - https://www.geography-fieldwork.org/a-level/before-starting/

https://www.geography-fieldwork.org/a-level/ The different topics and ideas linking to different topics