3.1.1.1 Water and carbon as natural systems
Systems in physical geography: systems concepts and their application to the water and carbon cycles inputs - outputs, energy, stores/components, flows/transfers, positive/negative feedback, dynamic equilibrium.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• The concept and use of models by geographers as simplifications of a complex world.
• The concept of systems frameworks as a type of model fundamental to most areas of geographical understanding.
• Classification of systems and common characteristics of systems.
• How the four major subsystems of the Earth are interlinked.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.2 The water cycle
Global distribution and size of major stores of water - lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and atmosphere.
Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• That the Earths water is distributed between: oceanic water, cryospheric water, terrestrial water and atmospheric water.
• Where water is stored globally, the volume of water in each of these stores, and how long water might remain in each of these stores.
• Students will be able to describe and explain the characteristics of each of these stores.
• The limited amount of freshwater economically and physically accessible for human use.

Suggested timing
1.5 hours

3.1.1.2 The water cycle
Processes driving change in the magnitude of these stores over time and space, including flows and transfers: evaporation, condensation, cloud formation, causes of precipitation and cryospheric processes - at hill slope, drainage basin and global scales with reference to varying timescales involved.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• That on Earth water exists in three forms: solid ice, liquid water and gaseous water vapor, and identify the factors that move water between these different states and stores.
• The idea of latent heat and energy in the context of evaporation and condensation, and how they relate to major atmospheric processes like cloud formation and precipitation.
• Different forms of precipitation in the UK and other areas of the world, such as the tropics.
• Cryospheric processes: concept of glacial and interglacial periods and the impact on the cryosphere.
• That the water cycle operates at different scales.

Suggested timing
2 hours

3.1.1.2 The water cycle
Drainage basins as open systems - inputs and outputs, to include precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff; stores and flows, to include interception, surface, soil water, groundwater and channel storage; stemflow, infiltration overland flow, and channel flow.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to describe and explain:

• The characteristics and inputs, stores, transfers and outputs of a drainage basin system: precipitation, interception store, throughfall, stemflow, infiltration, soil storage, vegetation storage, transpiration, infiltration, surface storage, evapotranspiration, overland flow/sheet flow, throughflow, percolation, groundwater store and flow, channel flow, and run off.
• The difference in scale between the global water cycle, drainage basin and hill slope, and that drainage basins vary hugely in scale.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.2 The water cycle
Concept of water balance.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• The concept of water balance
• Inputs, outputs and stores, and the soil moisture budget.
• How evapotranspiration, precipitation, vegetation and soil storage are linked.
• That local and regional climate characteristics will influence the soil moisture budget.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.2 The water cycle
Runoff variation and the flood hydrograph.

Learning outcomes

• Students to understand how river flow rates are measured and how data can be used.
• Students will be able to describe and explain the characteristics of a storm and flood hydrograph. Rising limb, peak discharge, lag time and receding limb.
• Students to understand human and physical factors affecting a storm and flood hydrograph.-
• Students to understand the relative speeds of water transfers identified in the drainage basin lesson.

Suggested timing
2 hours

3.1.1.2 The water cycle
Changes in the water cycle over time to include natural variation including storm events, seasonal changes and human impact including farming practices, land use change and water abstraction.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• How seasonal changes in different regions impact the inputs, stores, transfers and outputs in the water cycle.
• How floods and droughts affect water stores and transfers.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.2 The water cycle
Changes in the water cycle over time to include natural variation including storm events, seasonal changes and human impact including farming practices, land use change and water abstraction.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• How human activities of deforestation, agriculture and soil drainage affect the water cycle.
• The reasons for these human activities.
• How each one affects stores and transfers within the water cycle at different scales.

Suggested timing
2 hours

3.1.1.2 The water cycle
Changes in the water cycle over time to include natural variation including storm events, seasonal changes and human impact including farming practices, land use change and water abstraction.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• How water abstraction affects the water cycle.
• The reasons for water abstraction in different areas.
• How water abstraction affects stores and transfers within the water cycle at different scales.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.6 Case studies
Case study of a river catchment(s) at a local scale to illustrate and analyse the key themes above, engage with field data and consider the impact of precipitation upon drainage basin stores and transfers and implications for sustainable water supply and/or flooding.

Learning outcomes
These lessons will help students to:

• Illustrate how the hydrological system affects channel flow, by identifying the stores and transfers in the catchment.
• Analyse the relationships between inputs and outputs in a local river; be able to link the catchment characteristics to flows of water.
• To understand implications for flooding on a local river, and how this can be managed, and/or explain how water is abstracted, and how this can be managed sustainably.

Suggested timing
2 hours

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
Global distribution, and size of major stores of carbon - lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere biosphere and atmosphere.

Learning outcomes

• Students to understand the features of carbon as an element, its versatility and importance as a component of organic and inorganic compounds.
• Students to understand the origins of the carbon that we study in the carbon cycle.
• Students to be able to describe and explain the global stores of carbon, including: lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, identifying organic and inorganic carbon.
• Students to understand that organic and inorganic carbon is moved between stores at different rates via a range of processes.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
Factors driving change in the magnitude of these stores over time and space, including flows and transfers at plant, sere and continental scales. Photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition, combustion, carbon sequestration in oceans and sediments, weathering.

Learning outcomes

• Students to understand how carbon moves between stores over short timescales.
• Students to understand the role of living things in the movement of carbon.
• Students to be able to describe and explain the processes involved in these transfers, including: photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition and combustion.
• Students to understand movement of transfer between the carbon stores, studied above, at a range of scales.- Including plant, sere and continental.

Suggested timing
1.5 hours

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
Factors driving change in the magnitude of these stores over time and space, including flows and transfers at plant, sere and continental scales. Photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition, combustion, carbon sequestration in oceans and sediments, weathering.

Learning outcomes

• Students to be able to describe and explain the processes involved in these transfers, including: burial, compaction, carbon sequestration and weathering.
• Students to understand how these link to wider geomorphological processes such as fluvial transport (and therefore the water cycle).
• Students to understand how the slow carbon interacts with the fast carbon cycle.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
Factors driving change in the magnitude of these stores over time and space, including flows and transfers at plant, sere and continental scales. Photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition, combustion, carbon sequestration in oceans and sediments, weathering.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• How the biological carbon pump links the fast and slow carbon cycles via burial and compaction.
• How organic carbon becomes inorganic carbon.
• How carbon moves between the oceans and the atmosphere.
• How atmospheric and ocean temperatures are linked, and how ocean currents move carbon.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
Changes in the carbon cycle over time, to include natural variation (including wildfires, volcanic activity) and human impact (including hydrocarbon fuel extraction and burning, farming practices, deforestation and land use changes).

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• How natural events, such as wildfires and volcanic eruptions, alter the carbon cycle.
• The relative impact of natural events and human activity on the carbon cycle.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
Changes in the carbon cycle over time, to include natural variation (including wildfires and volcanic activity) and human impact (including hydrocarbon fuel extraction and burning, farming practices, deforestation and land use changes).
Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• How human activities have affected major stores of carbon.
• The reasons behind human activities that move carbon between stores.
• Where the most significant changes are occurring.

Suggested timing
2 hours

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
The carbon budget and the impact of the carbon cycle upon land, ocean and atmosphere, including global climate.
Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• The concept of the carbon budget and how the Earth balances carbon transfers under natural conditions.
• How the carbon budget has been altered by human activities, leading to the enhanced greenhouse effect and climate change.
• How the changing carbon budget is impacting the atmosphere in terms of climate change and weather patterns.
• How climate change has different characteristics/outcomes in a range of locations around the world.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
The carbon budget and the impact of the carbon cycle upon land, ocean and atmosphere, including global climate.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• How the changing carbon budget is impacting the atmosphere in terms of climate change and weather patterns.
• How climate change is impacting the land and the lives of communities in different areas of the world.

Suggested timing
1.5 hours

3.1.1.3 The carbon cycle
The carbon budget and the impact of the carbon cycle upon land, ocean and atmosphere, including global climate.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• How climate change is impacting the oceans at different scales and in different regions.
• How climate change is impacting the land and the lives of coastal communities in different areas of the world.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.4 Water, carbon, climate and life on Earth
The key role of the carbon and water stores and cycles in supporting life on Earth with reference to climate. The relationship between the water cycle and carbon cycle in the atmosphere.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• Students to understand the significance of water (water vapour and clouds) and carbon (CO2) as greenhouse gases.
• Students to understand the dominance of CO2 in controlling the scale of the greenhouse effect.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.4 Water, carbon, climate and life on Earth
The role of feedbacks within and between cycles and their link to climate change and implications for life on Earth.

Learning outcomes
This lesson will help students to understand:

• Students to understand the positive feedback between CO2 led warming leading to higher evaporation rates and a wetter atmosphere.
• Students to understand the significance of water (water vapour and clouds) and carbon (CO2) as greenhouse gases.
• Students to understand the dominance of CO2 in controlling the scale of the greenhouse effect.
• How the changing carbon budget on the land and oceans can link to different feedback loops.

Suggested timing
1 hour

3.1.1.4 Water, carbon, climate and life on Earth
Human interventions in the carbon cycle designed to influence carbon transfers and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Learning outcomes

• Students to have a clear understanding of the concepts of mitigation and adaptation.
• Students to be able to describe and explain in detail a range of specific strategies that are employed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
• Students to understand that mitigation can occur at a variety of scales, from individual to global.
• Students will be able to explain how adaptation can be used at a local scale to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
• Students should be able to recognise that strategies to mitigate climate change have implications for development in the area they are applied, and in areas affected by climate change.

Suggested timing
2 hours

3.1.1.6 Case Studies
Case study of a tropical rainforest setting to illustrate and analyse key themes in water and carbon cycles and their relationship to environmental change and human activity.

Learning outcomes
Students will be able to describe, explain and evaluate a number of themes relating to water and climate in the Indonesian tropical rainforest, including:

• How changes in the water and carbon cycles have changed the tropical rainforest environment.
• How human activity affects the tropical rainforest.
• How climate change affects the tropical rainforest.
• Students will be able to describe and evaluate a range of strategies employed in the Indonesian tropical rainforest to reduce the effects of climate change.

Suggested timing
3 hours