Geography · Year 9

Active learning ideas

Challenges of Rapid Urbanisation

Dive into the vibrant, chaotic, and challenging world of the planet's fastest-growing cities. This topic explores the complex reality of rapid urbanisation in LICs and NEEs.

• National Curriculum Attainment Targets
• The National Curriculum for England: Geography KS3 - Human Geography: Urbanisation

• 25–60 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Jigsaw
• 60 min · Small Groups

Case Study Jigsaw

Divide students into 'expert' groups, each focusing on a specific challenge in a chosen city (e.g., waste in Mumbai, transport in Lagos). After researching, students are regrouped into 'jigsaw' groups with one expert from each area to teach their peers about their specific challenge.

Identify the main challenges associated with the growth of squatter settlements.

Facilitation Tip

Provide structured research templates to guide the expert groups and ensure they gather the key information.

What to look for

Students write an extended answer to an exam-style question, such as 'Using a case study of a city in an LIC or NEE, assess the effectiveness of strategies used to manage urban growth'.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Relationship Skills
• Self-Management

Activity 02

• Problem-Based Learning
• 30 min · Pairs

Photo Deconstruction

Provide students with a range of powerful images depicting life in squatter settlements, informal economies, and polluted urban environments. Using a 'See, Think, Wonder' framework, students analyse the images to infer the challenges and opportunities present.

Explain how rapid urbanisation can lead to environmental problems like air and water pollution.

Facilitation Tip

Use high-resolution, evocative images to prompt deeper discussion and questioning.

What to look for

An exit ticket where students must explain the single biggest challenge facing a chosen city and justify their choice with one piece of evidence.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Decision-Making
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• Problem-Based Learning
• 45 min · Small Groups

Sustainable Solutions Pitch

In small groups, students devise a bottom-up, sustainable solution to a specific problem in a squatter settlement (e.g., providing clean water). They must prepare a short 'pitch' to the class, explaining their idea, its costs, and its benefits for the community.

Analyse the link between rapid urban growth and the growth of the informal economy.

Facilitation Tip

Encourage creativity but also require them to consider the practical limitations and potential obstacles.

What to look for

Students use a shared success criteria to review a partner's paragraph explaining the growth of the informal economy, providing feedback on the use of key terms and examples.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Decision-Making
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 04

• Problem-Based Learning
• 25 min · Whole Class

Urbanisation Consequences Web

As a whole class, start with 'Rapid Urban Growth' in the centre of the board. Students brainstorm the first-order consequences (e.g., housing shortage), then the second and third-order consequences, creating a web of interconnected issues.

Identify the main challenges associated with the growth of squatter settlements.

Facilitation Tip

Use different coloured pens to categorise links as social, economic, or environmental.

What to look for

Students write an extended answer to an exam-style question, such as 'Using a case study of a city in an LIC or NEE, assess the effectiveness of strategies used to manage urban growth'.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Decision-Making
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

A few notes on teaching this unit

Ground this topic in a specific case study from the very beginning to make abstract concepts concrete. Use a variety of media, including video clips, photos, and infographics, to convey the scale of the issues. Emphasise the links between challenges, for instance, how rural-urban migration leads to squatter settlements, which in turn puts pressure on services and fuels the informal economy.

Students will be able to analyse the interconnected challenges of urban growth, from housing to pollution, and critically evaluate the solutions designed to improve millions of lives.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• People living in squatter settlements are lazy and do not work.

  This is incorrect. Many residents of squatter settlements work extremely long hours, often in the informal economy as street vendors, waste pickers, or construction workers. These settlements are often hubs of ingenuity and hard work, created out of necessity.

• The best way to solve the problem of squatter settlements is to bulldoze them.

  While this sometimes happens, it is a destructive approach that displaces thousands of people and breaks up communities. More sustainable and humane strategies involve upgrading the settlements through site and service schemes or self-help projects, which provide basic services like clean water, electricity, and sanitation.

• Urbanisation is an entirely negative process for a country.

  Although it creates significant challenges, urbanisation is also a major driver of economic growth and development. Cities are centres of industry, innovation, and opportunity that can lead to improved standards of living for many people if the growth is managed effectively.

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Methods used in this brief

• Jigsaw
• Problem-Based Learning