Eight steps to your Geography IA
Everyone has the same fieldwork question and collects the data together, in one day. Nineteen of the 25 marks are earned afterwards, by you alone.
How do the fluvial characteristics of a river change with distance from the source?
Step 1 unpacks what it commits you to.
Summer: your methodology, and your graphs and maps
Two things to bring back. A methodology of no more than 300 words, covering only the methods behind the data you are actually using — annotated photographs are the cheapest way to save words. And a set of data presentation methods showing at least five different skills, one of which must be a well-produced locational map.
The process
Each step produces something the next one needs. Grey bands name the report section each step builds; word counts are for writing that section up.
The IB sets only the 2,500-word total. These section counts are our advice and leave 50 words spare.
“If we all have the same question, what makes it mine?”
The shared part is worth six marks; the individual part, nineteen. Spend your time accordingly.
One question, one day at the river, one set of readings. The IB allows data to be collected and shared as a group.
Which variables and sites you use, how you present them, what you explain and conclude, and how honestly you evaluate it. Criteria C to F: nineteen of the 25 marks.
IB rule: after the fieldwork, the writing, the justification of methods, the analysis and the conclusion must be entirely your own.
The Asse: 13.5 km, engineered and now being restored
The Asse rises on the Dôle massif at the foot of the Jura and runs about 13.5 km into Lake Geneva at Nyon. Our nine sites fall from 711 m to 413 m over just under 9 km of channel, all measured in one day under the same flow conditions.
Reaches were straightened and confined long ago. Since about 2019 a flood-protection and renaturation scheme has covered about 4.5 km inside Nyon, and the Calèves, a tributary diverted when the motorway was built, has been reconnected to the Asse.
Where a channel has been rebuilt, its width, depth and gradient are partly a human decision, not just a product of distance from the source. So a site can break your trend, and explaining why is what the top band of Criterion D (Written analysis) asks for.
| Site | Where | Altitude | From source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Near source | 711 m | 0.35 km |
| 2 | Corner of field | 540 m | 2.67 km |
| 3 | Other end of field | 540 m | 3.08 km |
| 4 | Next to road | 515 m | 4.32 km |
| 5 | Near Paleo | 458 m | 6.08 km |
| 6 | Behind Paleo | 454 m | 6.12 km |
| 7 | Lunch | 441 m | 7.92 km |
| 8 | Near the flats | 413 m | 9.07 km |
| 9 | Near the flats | 413 m | 9.28 km |
298 m of fall over 8.9 km, a mean gradient of 3.3%. The spacing is uneven: 2.3 km between the first two sites, 40 m between sites 5 and 6. The list can change each year, so check it against the sheet you are given on the day.
Where reports lose marks
Six common mistakes, each covered in full on its step.
How to use this guide
Work through the steps in order and tick each checklist honestly: an unticked box is your next job. Signed in, your ticks are saved and your teacher sees your progress, never your writing.
One thing before you start
Your teacher gives written feedback on one full draft: what is strong and what is weak, but no corrections. Your next version is final.
So hand in something complete, not polished: feedback on four of six sections covers only four. Write in a Google Doc shared with your teacher from the start; its version history is the best evidence that the writing is yours.
Turn the shared question into hypotheses you can test.
Start step 1Anything marked “our river” is specific to our fieldwork on the River Asse at Nyon. Photographs are the author’s own.