Geology A-Level Coursework Guidelines

GEOLOGY A-LEVEL COURSEWORK GUIDELINES

OVERALL STRUCTURE OF YOUR COURSEWORK

Cover sheet

Title and Contents Page

Introduction

• planning and purpose
• prediction
• procedures -methodology - how you collected the data

Implementing - your data

Presentation - your charts, diagrams, maps, sketches and annotated photographs.

Analysis – how you have analysed your data

Interpretation - your geological explanations of the data you collected

Conclusions - the final summary of your findings and the success of your predictions

Evaluation – the assessment of the success of your investigation plan, with suggestions as to how your planning, your data collection or your interpretations could have been improved.

Bibliography - list of books, websites, maps, etc. that you have used.

Rough work - draft notes, tracking sheets etc. in a plastic wallet at the back.

The coursework must not be presented in a file. Plastic wallets must not be used except to hold rough work and field notes. Use treasury tags to keep the work in order.

If you have organisational or artistic talent then you can make a large poster instead of writing a report. The poster would cover the implementing, presenting, analysing, interpretation and conclusions sections. You would need to write introduction and evaluation sections separately.

Here is some guidance about how to organise each section of your report.

INTRODUCTION - PLANNING (8 marks)

You need to plan your own investigation. It has to be different from anyone else's. You will be given a question and asked to devise a way to answer it. That is the purpose of your coursework. You will need to justify your choice of investigation and your procedures. For instance, why did you choose that particular location to collect data? Why did you collect 30 sets of data?

In your introduction you need to explain the question you are studying and then you need to make predictions which say what you expect to find. After that you should explain how you have devised procedures to answer the question. The procedures are the methods by which you collected the data and the methodology needs to be written up in a separate section of the introduction. You should give a lot of detail:-

How did you choose the type of information you collected?

How did you sample (or select) the information?

It is important that you justify your statements throughout your coursework. You should be able to 'prove' or 'justify' any statements you make or any conclusions you reach, e.g.:

Can you justify the fact that a quartz pebble you find is made of quartz? Say how you know, e.g. I tested it with a steel pin and it did not scratch so it must have a hardness of more than 6.5.

Can you justify the fact that a sedimentary rock you find is well-sorted? Say how you know, e.g. I used the grain size card and most of the particles were the same size.

IMPLEMENTING (8 marks)

This is the section in which you record the data you have collected. It must be your own data. Your raw data (field notes or experiment notes) must be handed in. Field notes, in a plastic wallet, can be fastened securely with treasury tags. You will need to cut the appropriate pages out of the yellow field notebook in some cases. Your data may consist of observations, e.g. identification of minerals or rocks, descriptions of processes or rocks and actual measurements of many types of data.

Mention the methods you used to sample (select) your data. Explain why you took the sample the way you did, e.g. I used a random sampling table on a grid on the rock exposure because it was an objective way of selecting my sample.

Recording the data should be done very neatly in your field notebooks or on paper. Use neat tables with tallies, or neat field-sketches or neatly labelled photographs. If you know the type of data you will be collecting, draw up a table before you begin to collect it, to save time in the field, e.g.

PebbleLong axis(cms) Radius (cms) Composition Orientation

1

2

Your data should be collected as accurately as possible, of course. Higher level marks are gained if you point out how you could have improved the accuracy and competence of your data collection.

PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION (8 marks)

Plan how you will present the data you have collected. It can be in the form of charts, diagrams or graphs.

Analysing means what you do with the data you collect. Sometimes it is appropriate to graph it, but often you are analysing information when you are describing and explaining a feature, or adding labels to maps, photographs and sketches. Neat tables, graphs and diagrams all help the reader understand your data.

Analysis may involve finding averages or using statistical tests or a written account or annotations and labels on diagrams. You must label and annotate your photos.

Interpreting means explaining. You should write an explanation for all the observations that you make. Remember that what might be a clear explanation to you may not be clear to someone who has not been to the same place, or done the same experiment. Your explanations need to be simple, but clear. You can explain your observations as you describe the data, or you can have a separate interpretation section.

EVALUATION (6 marks)

Finally, you will gain marks from saying to what extent the purpose of your coursework has been achieved, and saying what you could do better next time. This should be written up in the evaluation section.

Go back to your predictions to see how well they stood up to testing. Comment on how you could develop your original ideas in the light of your results. Say whether your planning could have been improved. Assess how reliable your data is and how it could have been improved.

FINAL CHECK – DOES IT ALL MAKE SENSE?

Here are some guidelines:-

• Where did you carry out the coursework (if this is field-work)? Draw maps to show the sites where you collected data. Add localities to any base maps you are given. You must use map grid references for any field localities.
• What did it look like? Field sketches, with scales, titles and labels gain marks. Labelled photographs are helpful. Buy postcards and label them fully.
• Terminology (which means the geological terms you use) and spelling should be accurate. Do not be afraid of using technical geological language that you would not usually use in speech. This coursework is meant to be understood by geologists and they will appreciate your use of the correct terms. I do not recommend that you word-process your coursework, unless you are very, very good. The process of using the keyboard gets in the way of the flow of ideas.
• You should ask someone else to read your report to correct your spelling, and check that your English is correct, even if they do not understand the geological content of the coursework.
• Number your pages and give a contents page at the start, and a bibliography (list of the books and materials (e.g. maps) you have referred to), at the end.

CswkGuidelines