Good geography evidence counts what happens in an area. It does not need the names of the people or the numbers of the houses. This lesson shows how to design a recording sheet that keeps the evidence and leaves the identity out.
It belongs to designing a small ethical geographical investigation. Real fieldwork is arranged with your school and teacher, so check with them before collecting anything.
What is the rule?
Record by area and category, not by person or address. If a note could lead a reader to one named person or one house, rewrite it.
A test: if you lost the sheet in the street, would the finder learn anything about a particular family? If yes, the sheet holds too much.
Worked example: bins set out for recycling
The numbers here are made up for illustration. A student wants to see whether recycling bins are set out evenly along four lane segments on collection day. Each segment has 30 homes.
The unsafe sheet lists “No. 4 Mr Tan: bin out” and “No. 9: no bin”. It identifies households and could embarrass someone.
The safe sheet uses one row per segment:
| Segment | Homes | Bins out | Share out |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 30 | 18 | 60% |
| B | 30 | 12 | 40% |
| C | 30 | 21 | 70% |
| D | 30 | 9 | 30% |
Total homes: 4 × 30 = 120. Total bins out: 18 + 12 + 21 + 9 = 60, so 60 ÷ 120 = 50% overall. Segment C is highest at 70% and Segment D is lowest at 30%, a gap of 40 percentage points.
The sheet answers the question about evenness, and no house or person appears on it.
The mistake that loses marks and trust
A common slip is to keep extra detail “just in case”, such as house numbers or notes on who was at home. The extra detail adds risk and no evidence for the question.
| Identifying note | Safe replacement |
|---|---|
| House 14 has two bins. | Segment B: 2 bins at one home counted as 1 home with a bin out |
| Photo of a family at the gate | A tally mark only, no photo |
| The Lim family never recycle | Segment D: 9 of 30 homes had a bin out on this day |
The last row also shows a second risk. One day of data cannot support a claim about what a family “never” does.
How do I record in the field?
Prepare the sheet before you go. Use codes for areas, a tally column for counts, a time column and a notes column for weather only. Write no names, and keep the sheet safe so only you and your teacher see it.
Decide what a tally means before you start, such as “a bin with a recycling symbol at the kerb by 9 am”. A clear definition keeps the counts fair. The graph evidence and fair-comparison lab helps you set out the table you will fill.
Check yourself
Original scenario: a student plans to count cars outside a school to study congestion. A draft sheet has columns for number plate, driver’s face description and time. Redesign the sheet and say what question it can still answer.
Answer
Remove number plate and driver description. Keep time in 10-minute blocks, plus columns for “cars stopped” and “cars moving”, recorded as tallies.
It can still answer: “How does the number of cars stopped outside the school change between 7:00 and 8:00?” The sheet holds counts by time, and no car or person can be identified from it.
What to study next
Go on to presenting limitations and student-authored findings without fabricating fieldwork, which covers honest reporting of what you recorded.
To have a teacher look over your recording sheet with you, see online one-to-one Geography tuition.