SKILLS BASE GEOGRAPHY. Keith Grimwade and Greg Hart. Hodder amp; Stoughton. pound;9.99

Cut Paste and Surf! is an interesting set of exercises and CD-Rom designed to help teachers deliver the ICT component of geography at key stage 3.

The book is brightly illustrated, written in a lively style, clear and simple to follow with a wide range of interesting case studies.

The exercises, which include such topics as contours, slopes, weather, natural hazards, demography and agriculture, are written in a way that enables students to develop skills using Word, Powerpoint and Excel. Integration with the CD-Rom provides a starting structure for each exercise and active links to a range of carefully selected websites. There is also a dedicated website for help, advice, extension work, inter-school collaboration and updated ICT exercises. Throughout the text there are many ICT tips to provide suggestions and help.

This se can be used on a school network for group work or for individual study.

Skills Base Geography is a useful book that concentrates on the skills all geographers need to identify, understand and explain patterns and provides a huge variety of interesting and up-to-date exercises and resources to develop them. These range from simple graphs and atlas exercises to more complex mapping, satellite images and information communication technology exercises. I particularly like the pull-out flaps on the front and back covers that contain seven varied map extracts.

The exercises can be used at all levels through key stage 3 and into GCSE courses. They can also provide the building blocks for coursework.

Skills Base gives clear and simple instructions. There are word boxes that contain the technical terms and form an ideal base for the further development of literacy strategies in geography departments.

John Abbett is ICT co-ordinator and geography teacher at Tupton Hall school, Derbyshire