Works in the UK and the US. This version uses UK school terms (Reception, Year 4, secondary school); the US version uses kindergarten, Grade 3 and high school. · US version of this page
Maps, places, people and the planet – geography from picture maps in Reception to university fieldwork, for learners in class, at home and out of doors.
This department is planned and ready to build – it needs funding
We have planned what the Geography Department will teach and how it will work. Building it takes funding, so for now you can read our plan below and use the Classfern pages for geography that are already live.
No dragons left on the map – or are there?
Every corner of the planet has now been photographed from space, yet plenty of geography still feels unexplored to a child: why rivers bend, why one town floods and the next doesn't, why people move across the world. The Geography Department is planned to send learners off the edge of what they know, map in hand.
Maps first
Map skills run through the whole plan. Reception children will draw routes around a picture map and learn left, right, near and far. By Year 4, learners will read keys, compass points and grid references; older students will tackle scale, contour lines and map projections – including Mr Mercator's own, and why it makes Greenland look about as big as Africa. Map-reading questions will be Marked by Classfern.
Places, people and planet
Around the maps we plan units on weather and climate, rivers and coasts, volcanoes and earthquakes, cities, farming, trade and migration, with case studies from the UK, the US and every other continent. Data tools will let learners turn climate figures into graphs and spot the patterns for themselves.
A world map that asks questions
One planned game puts a blank outline map on screen and asks learners to find countries, capitals, oceans, mountain ranges and rivers, starting with their own continent and spreading outward. It adapts as they improve, and every answer is checked instantly.
Fieldwork that stays private
Geography is best done outdoors. Fieldwork sheets for a traffic survey, a river study or a local land-use map will help learners collect their own data and keep it as Evidence kept at home. Teachers and parents can pair them with the trip planning and risk assessment tools Classfern already has. For those heading to university, we plan an introduction to mapping data and to writing up an independent investigation, Judged by a teacher or parent (rubric).
Mr Mercator, the man who flattened the world
Gerardus Mercator solved a problem sailors had wrestled with for centuries: how to draw a round world on flat paper so that a straight line on the chart keeps a constant compass bearing. Our Mr Mercator is a careful craftsman with a fondness for sea monsters in the margins, and he will cheerfully admit that every flat map gets something wrong.
Already open: the Music Department
Classfern's first department, our flagship Music Department, is open now. Teachers put its play-along lessons up on the board for the whole class, and hand out printable parts to take home. Geography lessons will be just as easy to show on a big screen – and just as easy to print for muddy boots.
Here be funding?
The department is mapped out and ready to build; what it lacks is funding. If you teach geography or work with maps, data or the environment, we would love your ideas.
Already on Classfern for geography
Support the Classfern appeal
Every Classfern department is ready on paper, but each one needs funding before we can build it. A gift of any amount helps build Classfern – including new departments like this one – and keeps the free tools free for teachers, families and learners.
Support the Classfern appeal →
Classfern is a small business, not a charity. The support page explains how gifts are used.
Can you help? Teachers and subject experts – tell us
If you teach geography or know it well, we would love your ideas, examples and corrections for this department.
All Classfern departments · Visit the Music Department, our flagship