Teachers:

Mr John Pollock (Head of Department/Senior Teacher)

Mrs Bronagh Austin

Ms Edel Brady

Ms Maura Coyle

Ms Anne-Marie Heathwood

Mr Jim Doyle

Geography concerns itself with our environment and the ways we have adapted and made use of this environment. We seek to understand why certain 'things' are in certain locations; why earthquakes, volcanoes and mountains occur; why famine is so widespread throughout the world and why inner cities are becoming 'deserts'? Throughout each of the Key Stages we study the processes such as urbanisation, resource depletion, population growth and industrialisation. We study differences between countries, environmental pollution, desertification and ethnic diversity.

So the study of Geography at Our Lady and St Patrick's College attempts to bring our students to appreciate their surroundings and environment, to become aware of the challenges facing our planet and to realise that they have a very important to play in managing our environment.

We aim to equip all students with a variety of Key Skills and to maximise their academic progress in geography.

At Key Stage Three all students follow a course in geography based on the revised Northern Ireland Curriculum. We use a variety of teaching / learning styles such as decision-making, role-play and debating to bring the curriculum to life.

At GCSE, students follow the CCEA syllabus in Years 11 an 12. Students complete their own project work for the course following a fieldwork course during year 11.

At A Level, we offer the CCEA Modular Syllabus following the new A Level Specifications. In addition to the core modules we teach optional modules covering ethnic diversity in human geography; and earth structure and atmospheric systems in physical geography.

A vital part of Geography is fieldwork whereby the real environment becomes the classroom. In many ways it is the most exciting and stimulating part of Geography. It allows us to teach the skills of geographical investigation: to define a problem, collect the relevant data, present and analyse the data and to propose a solution to the problem. Our extensive fieldwork programme includes

Year 8 - A Microclimate Study within the College Grounds

Year 9 - Coco-cola: an economic fieldwork study

Year 10 - Settlement Geography - Newcastle and Castlewellan

GCSE - Settlement Geography - Ballymena

A Level - Sand Dunes at White Park Bay, Co. Antrim

Geography 'overlaps' many disciplines and this is the source of the subject's flexibility and integration, giving our students the opportunity to move into a wide variety of careers. Some careers like teaching, planning, surveying and cartography will use Geography directly. But there are many careers open to geographers more by virtue of the type of trained mind geographers have than by their knowledge of the subject. Our increasing use of Geographic Information Systems, the world-wide web and various computer applications has enabled us to buy in a small cluster of Pentium computers linked to the College's computer network. Students are encouraged to make good use of this mini network within their study of Geography.