25% of the grade · 20 hours · 25 marks

Internal Assessment

A written report on primary data you collect yourself, answering a geographic question you choose. Fieldwork skills start in Year 1 so that the IA is not the first time you meet sampling or evaluation.

§ 01

Timeline

Mini investigation

Year 1, Semester 1 · sessions 27–30 — A low-stakes rehearsal of questions, methods, data and evaluation. Nothing here counts, which is the point.

Possible topic selection

Year 1, Semester 2 — Pick a topic tied to taught syllabus content and to fieldwork you can actually carry out locally.

Fieldwork proposal

Year 2, Semester 1 — Question, geographic context, methods, sampling strategy, safety and equipment, all approved before you collect anything.

Data collection

Year 2, Semester 1 · one protected day — Shared class methods, individual responsibility for the report. A contingency date is booked at the same time.

Analysis workshops

Immediately after fieldwork — Organise, map, graph, calculate and interpret while the fieldwork is still fresh.

First draft

~3 weeks after fieldwork — A complete draft. This is the one round of feedback the IB permits.

Revision window

2–3 weeks — Act on the feedback, then verify citations, figure numbering and word count.

Final submission

Before Year 2 revision begins — Deliberately early, so the report does not consume exam preparation time.

Still to fix

The fieldwork topic, site, collection date, draft date and final deadline get set as soon as the 2027–28 school calendar and the school approval process are available.

§ 02

What the report has to do

Roughly 2,500 words. The marks are spread across the whole investigation, not concentrated in the conclusion.

A real geographic question

Narrow, local, and answerable with data you can collect in a day. If it could be answered from a website, it is not a fieldwork question.

Justified method

Say which sampling strategy you used and why that one. An unjustified method costs marks even when the data is good.

Presentation that argues

Every map, graph and table should exist because it shows something. Number them, caption them, and refer to them by number in the text.

Honest evaluation

Name the specific weaknesses in your own data and say what you would change. Vague self-criticism earns nothing; precise self-criticism earns marks.