Overview of the new syllabus
By Marjorie Henry, Contributor

Students from Denbigh High School were big winners for four different dishes at the festival. - Nathaniel Stewart/Freelance Photographer

It is the start of a new school year after your long holiday break. I do trust that you had a restful, yet enjoyable holiday. For those of you who are now in grade 11 (fifth form), this is the year for your external examinations, the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), which begins in May 2007. Did you use some of the holiday to review work done in grade 10 (fourth form)? I hope you did. The CSEC Syllabus started at that level for many of you so revising the work already done is ensuring that you are well on your way to preparing for the examinations.

Since you have chosen to do geography, you will be the first set of students to be examined on the new syllabus. Because of this, I feel it necessary to take some time to share with you on this new syllabus. At the very outset, let me encourage you to purchase a copy of the syllabus for yourself. With your own copy, you can take time to go through the document carefully in order to be more aware of what to do. This relates not only to the topics to be studied, but also the format of the examinations.

In contrast to the former syllabus which had three main sections, this new syllabus is organised under four main sections. These sections are as follows:

SECTION I: Map Reading and Field Study

Generally speaking, the objectives for Map Reading remain the same. These include the interpretation of a topographic map of any Caribbean territory; measurements of distances; giving directions in terms of compass bearing and the compass points; calculation of gradients; description of landforms, drainage vegetation, land use, settlement and communications and the explanation of relationships between them; locating places using latitude and longitude; construction of graphs and charts as well as the interpretation of them.

Those of you who will be sitting the examination at the general proficiency level, you must do a field study report. This constitutes the school-based assessment (SBA). I will discuss this further in another lesson.

SECTION II: Natural System

Topics here include internal and external forces; limestone environment; the coast; weather, climate, vegetation and soil.

SECTION III: Human Systems

The content in this section falls under two broad headings, namely, population and settlement and economic activity.

SECTION IV: Human Environment Systems

This is the new section that has been introduced. Natural Hazards and Environmental Degradation make up the content of this section. The sub-topics under environmental degradation are pollution, global warming, coral reef destruction and deforestation.

Do not be alarmed by the new titles. Indeed, there are new areas, but much of the old syllabus remains. Things have just been reorganised and regrouped, generally speaking. In order to interpret the syllabus properly, you should link the Specific Objectives with the Content for each section.

One textbook that I would recommend highly for the new syllabus is the New Edition of the Caribbean Environment For CXC Geography by Mark Wilson. It was specially revised in keeping with the new syllabus. Again, may I encourage you to purchase a copy of the syllabus for yourself.

In the next lesson, I will share with you on the revised format of the examinations.