A colleague of mine used the following Question Focus to prompt student generated end of year questions in her Social Studies 8 class using the QFT.
The physical geography of a place influences patterns of settlement, trade, and conflict as well as the formation of a society’s culture.
After generating as many questions as possible the students prioritized their questions and came up with the following list of big questions (big enough to encompass almost the entirety of the current SS8 curriculum):
The following September she did same the exercise with a new class of SS8 students and they generated the following list of questions which they have not yet gone through and prioritized:
- How does conflict affect a culture’s upbringing? (Evolution)
- What does a society need from its physical geography to grow as a population?
- Do these patterns influence each other?
- What defines a culture?
- What kinds of places influence power?
- At what point of a society’s culture/development would the physical geography start to take effect?
- Why are cities settled where they are?
- Which places are affected mostly by their physical geography?
- Do these patterns overlap?
- Is the influence of physical geography usually positive or negative?
- How does the physical geography affect the hierarchy (and representing hierarchy in clothing) in a civilization?
- How does physical geography influence patterns, trade, and conflict?
- Why would they have conflict?
- How does trade start in a land?
- How would the shape and structure change to cope with the geography its located in?
- How does physical geography influence modern day society’s culture?
- How can geography affect the culture?
- Is it human nature to consume to an extent that we would settle in an alien/foreign place?
- How does society adapt to these influences?
- What could change the patterns of settlement or trade in a physical location?
- How does a society’s culture form?
- How will the physical geography influence human behaviour in that area?
- What is conflict?
- What influences a society’s formation?
- Why is culture different depending on what resources are available in the area?
- Why do some places with similar geography have different culture?
- What kind of physical geography would help patterns of settlement and trade?
- How does and doesn’t geography influence society?
- How influential is the physical geography on forming a civilization and what areas of civilization does it affect most?
- How does the location influence the pattern of settlement of any…?
- In heavily populated urban areas does the land still have a profound affect upon peoples..?
Renovating My Classroom 