IA Geography IA Topic- Relevance to syllabus

[IBnJamSandwich]

Hi! So my topic is "What age groups utilise public transport more often in Oakville, Ontario?"

I've checked the Geography curriculum, but I'm not sure what part of the syllabus it fits in. Could someone with some information on the Geo syllabus or who has covered the topics guide me in the right direction?

So far, I think this might relate to urban stress, because if I find which age groups use public transport less, facilities for these specific age groups can be suggested, increasing ridership and thus reducing the stress of pollution from multiple cars,etc. However, I feel like this connection seems too complicated. Would this be fine, or is there another chapter which be connected more easily to my topic?

Thanks a bunch!

[flinquinnster]

Ah, Geography IA, one of the truly painful experiences of IB. It's good that you've now managed to get down to a draft research question, which you can adjust the wording of if you find it needs to be tweaked to fit your data.

At some point I too was considering public transport as a research question (something about usage near schools) and I too struggled to find the topic it should be under. Transport - unless you are considering global transport which you are not, and which in any case looks bad as a syllabus reference - does not appear explicitly in a syllabus point.

I personally agree that your best 'fit' is the urban option about urban stress. You could look at the notion of pollution, congestion and general urban design and even the different perceptual carrying capacities of urban stress on transport facilities (I'm assuming Oakville, Ontario is 'urban' though my knowledge of Canada is fairly limited) for different age groups, affecting transport usage by age. I'm assuming that you would be doing both measurements and surveys, which should be able to supply enough data to link to the urban topic.

I personally don't feel that choosing to link it to urban would be over-complicating it. As long as you establish a simple conceptual framework explaining how your question links to urban (i.e. all the stuff you seem to have summarised in your own post fairly succinctly, but with my technical terms and specific examples), it doesn't seem too convoluted. However, if you find that your own research doesn't want to fall neatly into the kind of relationships implied by the syllabus point, then you might have an issue that may end up being that you have to change your RQ - a lot easier than restarting fieldwork.

Looking at the rest of the syllabus, as core and global are generally not recommended, I can only really think of one other syllabus link. Unless Oakville is coastal (in which case you could consider looking at the coastal/freshwater environments options at a very big stretch) or suffers from extreme weather/disasters (that opens you up to infrastructure issues in extreme environments or the 'hazards' option), and with the health/food/disease option not being pertinent, that leaves you potentially with the leisure, sport and tourism option (Option E).

I don't know whether you are familiar with this option, but I think it could be good for an IA. Particularly, sub-point 6 and 7 could be relevant to you. I'll leave it up to you to look at the details as the points are quite long, but these points are basically about the distribution/intensity of access to different leisure/tourism resources in an urban area. Whilst it's a bit of a stretch to call public transport a leisure or tourism resource - and you risk twisting your question to the point where it seems ridiculously contrived to match the syllabus - if you are desperate, I feel that links can be forged to your question.

[IBnJamSandwich]

Ah, Geography IA, one of the truly painful experiences of IB. It's good that you've now managed to get down to a draft research question, which you can adjust the wording of if you find it needs to be tweaked to fit your data.

At some point I too was considering public transport as a research question (something about usage near schools) and I too struggled to find the topic it should be under. Transport - unless you are considering global transport which you are not, and which in any case looks bad as a syllabus reference - does not appear explicitly in a syllabus point.

I personally agree that your best 'fit' is the urban option about urban stress. You could look at the notion of pollution, congestion and general urban design and even the different perceptual carrying capacities of urban stress on transport facilities (I'm assuming Oakville, Ontario is 'urban' though my knowledge of Canada is fairly limited) for different age groups, affecting transport usage by age. I'm assuming that you would be doing both measurements and surveys, which should be able to supply enough data to link to the urban topic.

I personally don't feel that choosing to link it to urban would be over-complicating it. As long as you establish a simple conceptual framework explaining how your question links to urban (i.e. all the stuff you seem to have summarised in your own post fairly succinctly, but with my technical terms and specific examples), it doesn't seem too convoluted. However, if you find that your own research doesn't want to fall neatly into the kind of relationships implied by the syllabus point, then you might have an issue that may end up being that you have to change your RQ - a lot easier than restarting fieldwork.

Looking at the rest of the syllabus, as core and global are generally not recommended, I can only really think of one other syllabus link. Unless Oakville is coastal (in which case you could consider looking at the coastal/freshwater environments options at a very big stretch) or suffers from extreme weather/disasters (that opens you up to infrastructure issues in extreme environments or the 'hazards' option), and with the health/food/disease option not being pertinent, that leaves you potentially with the leisure, sport and tourism option (Option E).

I don't know whether you are familiar with this option, but I think it could be good for an IA. Particularly, sub-point 6 and 7 could be relevant to you. I'll leave it up to you to look at the details as the points are quite long, but these points are basically about the distribution/intensity of access to different leisure/tourism resources in an urban area. Whilst it's a bit of a stretch to call public transport a leisure or tourism resource - and you risk twisting your question to the point where it seems ridiculously contrived to match the syllabus - if you are desperate, I feel that links can be forged to your question.

Thank you so much! Unfortunately, my teacher stated that the urban link might be too much of a stretch. She also stated that the answer to my question is too obvious, and that it is more in relation to economics or business than geography. It's unfortunate, because I have already gone on two routes and counted the passengers and have also interviewed a manager at my local transit office. I was planning on going on a few more routes, and also going on weekdays and evenings, so that I have enough data to talk about. Do you have any suggestions as to how my fieldwork could relate to any of the topics on the syllabus? Thanks again!

[flinquinnster]

I think that transport is indeed a really difficult topic to link to the syllabus, although I personally feel that the urban link is strong enough to proceed with. I'm basing that judgement on the fact that I did my Geography IA on a topic that I felt was only very tangentially linked with urban. Whilst I suspect that my IA was the weaker part of my geography grade, it should have turned out all right. I don't think I have much to add in terms of finding other links to the syllabus, but if you can't convince your teacher of the merit of your IA, I would strongly advise you to do a rethink of your topic. In the end, whilst there is moderation, IAs are internally assessed by your teacher - you've got to stay on their good side.

[IBnJamSandwich]

I think that transport is indeed a really difficult topic to link to the syllabus, although I personally feel that the urban link is strong enough to proceed with. I'm basing that judgement on the fact that I did my Geography IA on a topic that I felt was only very tangentially linked with urban. Whilst I suspect that my IA was the weaker part of my geography grade, it should have turned out all right. I don't think I have much to add in terms of finding other links to the syllabus, but if you can't convince your teacher of the merit of your IA, I would strongly advise you to do a rethink of your topic. In the end, whilst there is moderation, IAs are internally assessed by your teacher - you've got to stay on their good side.

Thank you so much. Since I have already done some fieldwork, I decided to stick to my topic. So far my results are against the outcome that my teacher had stated, so I could definitely talk about a lot. And I still need to go during the evenings, weekends, etc. and perform surveys so I will have enough data to analyze.

But thank you so much though!