Geography IA - some tips on choosing a topic? (other than urban one)

[Nicanniko]

Hello everybody

I am doing Geography at HL and I have to start planning my fieldwork (and finish it quite soon). As I have been absent from school since 3 months because of health problems, I'm forced to think it up and collect data on my own

I really love geography and would like to do something of value, but I'm struggling to find an appropriate topic

I'd prefer to avoid anything connected with big cities (that doesn't feel like my cup of tea). I live near a river - but I believe it would be extremely difficult to collect data by myself, with no special equipment (I suppose my school doesn't have it). The same with soil degradation (there's plenty of farmland nearby). We also have some minorities (mainly Gypsies people, some Asians and Armenians), a quite popular touristic castle... I don't know, just normal kind of stuff in a small town.

Do you have any ideas what topics of syllabus I could cover? Perhaps globalization...? I'd really appreciate some advice

[flinquinnster]

I will tell you honestly that I am seriously regretting taking geography because of the IA. I hate practical fieldwork, and I just feel as though that the structure we had for approaching it in our class was flawed, hence exacerbating my own procrastination tendencies and avoidance of geography in general.

I too struggled to find a good topic. I spent about 4 months changing back and forth between topics. And to be honest, I don't think I chose the best one that I could have (I'm doing something - allegedly - that is related to urban shops or something). So yes, a good topic is critical.

From my own experience, I would strongly advise you to go against urban - which you've decided on anyway. I think that the river investigation (looking at Bradshaw model etc.) would probably be pretty easy and a decent IA to do due to its strong quantitative nature and data, but by yourself, it is hard. However, could it be possible to recruit some friends/family to help? For demographic-related topics, you have to be careful not to rely too much on secondary data because they really don't like that. For tourism, I think you could have interesting investigations there - especially with a good, single focus. Globalisation might be more difficult in a small town - but you could look at the influence of chain stores in terms of cultural exchange or something like that.

To be honest, I'm not sure that my advice is that useful given the state of my own IA! But make sure once you have chosen a topic that you commit to it. Plan out every single detail, hypothesis and piece of data you intend to analyse - so you know that everything is helping you investigate something that is real and measurable.

Otherwise, I wish you the best of luck. Start it early, try and finish it early, and don't leave it to the night before - it is very difficult to collect primary data in one day!

[Nicanniko]

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience!

So, taking into account feasibilty of these investigations, I've created such a list of ideas:

• something connected with river (probably I'd found someone to help me, but how to take measurements with no special devices... )
• globalisation - chain stores etc.
• leisure & tourism - and here I have:

A. Holiday and leisure habits of residents of a neighborhood
B. How are leisure/sport facilities distributed and used?
C. Different perceptions of visitors and residents around a tourist attraction (well, it's quite strange)

• transport:

A. When and where does traffic reach saturation during peak hour?
B. How adequate is car parking?

• and population:

A. What are the structure and characteristics of the population of two contrasting areas? (I think it would be difficult with no secondary data, and, besides, those contrasting areas... I'm not sure we have such)
B. Commuting/migration patterns in the area? (I like this one)
C. What factors explain the location of schools? (I'm afraid it's not that carefully planned, but who knows)

I'd be extremely grateful for some suggestions! Which one do you think would possibly be the most fruitful and could enable me to score most points?

It's my first fieldwork ever, and, having no experience, it's so hard to deduce (or actually guess) which topic may be appropriate I'll consult it somewhen in the future with my teacher, but I'd like to be well prepared. And, by the way, I'm intending to study geography, so I can't allow IA to make me dislike it

Edited June 11, 2013 by Nicanniko

[Nicanniko]

In case somebody was interested - well, I'm almost done with choosing a topic (at last ). It's something like this (I haven't worded it precisely yet):

What is the impact of Warsaw agglomeration on town X [my place of living - I'd like to remain a bit anonymous ] in terms of retailing/structure of services?

I've just added the ending - in terms of retailing - because I believe it would be too broad to analyse in general during one fieldwork (it's about education & work, cultural & leisure activities, etc.). So I'm going to make a questionnaire about shopping preferences and explore structure of services in my town.

Perhaps anyone could comment on methods?

Edited July 4, 2013 by Nicanniko