Urban issues and challenges - The emergence of megacities

AQA GCSE Geography - Unit 2 Section A - Urban issues and challenges - The emergence of megacities

An activity packed and differentiated lesson teaching students about the characteristics of a megacity, their growth and their location. Included is a wide range of resources which can be applied in many ways.

Whole lesson > Key concept starter > Discussion prompts > Key ideas > Map/distribution activity > Graph skills > Photo analysis > Exam style questions > Class discussion > Learning evaluation > Summary activity > Homework > Lesson plan > Teacher notes > Fully resourced > Visually attractive and ready to teach!

The main aim is…
To teach students about the characteristics of a mega city, their location, their growth (and reasons for it)
To link to key concepts such as urbanisation and migration.
Make it clear ‘world cities’ share many of the same characteristics – it’s the population, the magic number, which makes it a mega city.
Statistics and population data vary. For example, Paris has a population a little over 2 million, however, in some figures a wider area is taken into account. Make this clear to the students. The emphasis should really be on the growth (the emergence) of megacities in NEE’s.

Key ideas and content…
Mega cities have a population of over 10 million people.
They have similar characteristics – similar to those of world cities.
Their emergence is mostly in Asia and more recently, Africa. There is a pattern!
The number of mega cities has grown significantly over the last 50 years.
Rural-urban migration and natural increase are driving rapid urbanisation in LIC/NEE’s.

To differentiate…
Several activities have been differentiated already – use sheets as appropriate.
Discuss and model the exam style questions.
Allow independent / group thinking time for the discussion.
Provide the key terms as a checklist when answering questions.

To extend…
Students can add information / data to the maps.
The data could be presented in different ways.
Actual examples can be added to the photo analysis activity.
Students could develop their own mark scheme for the exam style questions.

To assess…
Use the exam style questions as an assessment opportunity.
Assess the distribution description to assess distribution questions.