Year 7 - Geography
Types of rainfall
Weather and climate: how do they vary?
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit teaches pupils about the physical processes that help explain our weather and climate. Pupils will use fieldwork to investigate weather in their local area. Pupils will also learn about how and why our climate is changing.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to describe how rain forms and understand different reasons for its formation.
Key Notes
- Relief rainfall occurs when warm moist air from the ocean rises up over mountains.
- Convectional rainfall occurs when the sun heats up the land, when it cools and condenses it forms rainclouds.
- Frontal rainfall occurs when a warm front meets a cold front.
- The west of the UK is generally wetter than the east.
Vocabulary To Learn
- Evaporation: the process of something changing from a liquid state to a gaseous state
- Precipitation: water that falls from the sky as rain, snow, hail or sleet
- Sublimation: conversion of a substance from solid to a gaseous form
- Relief: the physical shape of the land in an area, including its height and steepness
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- There is only one type of rain; it is all the same.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain this geography topic using two clear key points.
Relief rainfall occurs when warm moist air from the ocean rises up over mountains. Convectional rainfall occurs when the sun heats up the land, when it cools and condenses it forms rainclouds.
2. Define this geography term and use it in an example. 'Evaporation'
the process of something changing from a liquid state to a gaseous state.
3. Correct this common geography misunderstanding.
Mistake: There is only one type of rain; it is all the same. Correction: Students will be exposed to the three different types of rainfall: relief, convectional, frontal.
More Lessons In This Unit
- Actions to tackle climate change Study Guide
- Anticyclones Study Guide
- Causes of climate change Study Guide
- Depressions Study Guide
- Fieldwork: Analysing, concluding and evaluating microclimate data Study Guide
- Fieldwork: Planning and collecting microclimate data Study Guide
- Fieldwork: Presenting microclimate data Study Guide
- Impacts of climate change on the UK Study Guide
- Past climate change Study Guide
- The UK's climate Study Guide
- Weather and climate Study Guide
- Weather and climate forecasting Study Guide
- World climate zones Study Guide
Browse all guides in the Year 7 Geography guide library.