Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

GCSE Geography Coursework - Rivers

I'm just starting my coursework in Geography, and have decided to choose rivers for my topic. I'm trying to choose my hypothesis today, but have a few questions.

Firstly, how many hypotheses(sp?) do you have to do? Just one? Or two or three?

Also, I can only think of one hypothesis which is River A is more polluted than River B. I'm now trying to think of a hypothesis that involves measuring velocity, width, bedload size, depth, etc.. The only one I can think of is the investigated section of River A is further down stream than the section of River B. Does that even make sense? That's the only one I can think of that uses width, velocity etc..

I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out a bit, and even give me an example of a hypothesis I could use - which uses width, depth.. Thanks.

I know I can just ask my teacher in the next lesson, but I'm doing some planning today, so I want a basic idea. :smile:

Reply 1

LH123

How do you plan to measure the levels of pollution in each river? When I did my GCSE coursework the level of equipment available was nowhere near that sort of standard.

Reply 2

turner90

Why not keep it simple?

Velocity is river A is greater than River B- Birng in bedrock size etc as further proof as the river ability to carry is greater with a greater velocity etc- while stating how it may not always be proof in your evaluation - type of rock/density of rock in River A greater than River B so although velocity is slower erosion greater because it can carry more etc...

Reply 3

pineapplechunks

LH123

How do you plan to measure the levels of pollution in each river? When I did my GCSE coursework the level of equipment available was nowhere near that sort of standard.

We don't use any special equipment, but we just look at the lifeforms in the river and do a quick visual survey - it's far from high-tec.

Thank you very much for your help Turner90. :smile:

Reply 4

sigstuff

Why don't you do: 'As velocity and riverload increases, so does the width of the channel'

If you wanted to do the one about pollution levels you could ask your council for pollution level data for the river, it's what we had to do then talk about factors affecting the leels in different sections of the river e.g river runs next to agricultural land or through an urban area.

Reply 5

Primus Pilus

I assume you're doing AQA? Luckily the Geography department at my school were helpful and so basically gave all the students doing Rivers a guide as to what to do, write, explain etc. to achieve their best possible grade. Hopefully your teacher will give you some kind of booklet like this, unless you're expected to be completely independent on this piece of work?

For my coursework, I studied one local river, with basically 6 key questions:

1. To find out if the river gets wider and deeper as it flows downstream
2. To find out if the velocity increases as the river flows downstream
3. To find out if the discharge increases
4. To find out if the valley side angles and downstream gradient decreases
5. To find out if the food plain gets bigger
6. To find out what happens to size and shape of bed load.

I then did the relevant hypotheses on each, saying what I expected using my Geography knowledge etc., then went about recording the results, put them into graphs and such, and then analysed them.

Doing what I did (and the rest of my class mates) would be best, as it means you basically focus on the main physical geography stuff you should know, thus writing everything before and after taking your results should be easy; with what you expect to find, why and all the rest, which you should know with your GCSE River topic knowledge - so you can really impress the moderators.

Hope that helps, and all the best!

Reply 6

pineapplechunks

Thank you so much for your help guys. :smile:

Reply 7

paddyman4

For my A-Level one I found a nice meander, and chose a 5 day period, with rain on the second day. I measured flow velocity and depth at various points along the cross-section on each day. I had a hypothesis about how flow velocity and depth would vary across the section on any given day, and how they would vary with time (lag time etc.).

It worked out very well.

Reply 8

-WhySoSerious?

pineapplechunks

I'm now trying to think of a hypothesis that involves measuring velocity, width, bedload size, depth, etc.. The only one I can think of is the investigated section of River A is further down stream than the section of River B. Does that even make sense? That's the only one I can think of that uses width, velocity etc..

We did our GCSE one like that

Reply 9

LH123

pineapplechunks

The only one I can think of is the investigated section of River A is further down stream than the section of River B. Does that even make sense? That's the only one I can think of that uses width, velocity etc..