IB Geography HL case studies

IB Geography HL · Put your knowledge to work in context.

IB Geography HL is the higher-level route through the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme's geography course, taken by students who want a social science with a strong spatial and environmental edge. It suits candidates who enjoy linking physical processes to human decisions - migration flows to labour markets, flood risk to land-use planning, commodity chains to uneven development - and who are willing to handle data as well as argument. The IB Geography HL case studies are 5 cases and about 5,043 words.

Kestrel Bay: Pro-Natalist Subsidies or Working-Age Migration?

Kestrel Bay is a district of 240,000 people on a high-income country's coast. Its age structure has shifted fast: 26% are 65 or older (national average 19%), the total fertility rate is 1.2, and life expectancy is 84.

1,021 words, about 5 min 2

Eastvale Heat Plan: Cool Roofs, Trees or Electric Buses?

Eastvale is a city of 1.15 million people in a subtropical valley. Mean summer maximum temperature is 34.2°C, and the urban heat island intensity reaches 4.6°C at night in dense central wards, compared with 1.1°C in garden suburbs.

1,084 words, about 5 min 3

Almar River: Reservoir or Demand Management in a Drought Year?

The Almar River rises in a landlocked upland country and crosses into Beran, a low-income coastal state, before reaching a delta of 1.8 million people. A 2016 treaty allocates 60% of annual flow to Beran and 40% upstream, but in 2024 upstream storage and irrigation expanded and actual dry-season flow at the border fell to 72% of the 1990–2010 mean.

956 words, about 5 min 4

Sarakonda Export Zone: Jobs, Linkages and Mangrove Damage

Sarakonda is a low-income country of 19 million. In 2018 it created a 40 km² export processing zone (EPZ) beside a new deepwater port, financed by a 2.1 billion loan from a foreign state-owned bank.

960 words, about 5 min 5

Pebble Size Along a Pocket Beach: Testing a Spearman Result in the IA

For her HL internal assessment, a student tests whether beach sediment becomes finer with distance from a headland on a 1.3 km pocket beach. She measures five sites at 0, 300, 600, 900 and 1,200 m.

1,022 words, about 5 min