New
New
Year 8

Lives around the world

I can describe some of the similarities and differences of living in different places around the world.

New
New
Year 8

Lives around the world

I can describe some of the similarities and differences of living in different places around the world.

These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.

These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Life varies around the world in a range of different ways related to physical and human geography.
  2. There are similarities as well as differences in how we live around the world.
  3. There is inequality in wealth and housing within countries.
  4. Average incomes give us perceptions about a country but they give us a limited understanding of what a place is like.

Keywords

  • Climate - an average of weather conditions (e.g. rain, sun, wind) in a place taken over a long period of time (usually 30 years or more)

  • Inequality - the uneven distribution of resources, opportunities, and living conditions

  • GDP per capita - the total monetary value of all the goods and services produced in a country over a year divided by the population

Common misconception

Everyone in high-income countries in the UK is wealthier than people in low-income countries like Kenya.

The average income in the UK is higher than in Kenya, but there is a big variation in both countries. There are very wealthy people in Kenya and people on very low incomes in the UK.


To help you plan your year 8 geography lesson on: Lives around the world, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

You could easily adapt this lesson so that pupils use computers to investigate lives around the world using the dollar street website.
Teacher tip

Equipment

Atlases may be useful in this lesson.

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

Loading...

Prior knowledge starter quiz

Download quiz pdf

6 Questions

Q1.
What is a wealthy country likely to have?
A small population
No cities
Correct answer: Good schools and hospitals
Q2.
What do people need for a good quality of life?
A fast car
A large house
Correct answer: Food, clean water, and healthcare
A warm country
Q3.
What is life expectancy?
The number of people in a country
Correct answer: How long people are expected to live
The number of children in school
The size of a city
Q4.
Why do some countries have less clean water?
They don’t need it
Correct answer: Not enough money for water pipes and treatment
They have too many lakes
Q5.
Which of the following are physical geography factors?
wealth
Correct answer: climate
politics
Correct answer: landforms
Q6.
What does ‘development’ mean in geography?
The number of people in a country
Correct answer: The improvement of people’s quality of life
The amount of land a country has

Assessment exit quiz

Download quiz pdf

4 Questions

Q1.
What does GDP per capita measure?
The number of people in a country
Correct answer: The average income of people in a country
The total population of a country
Q2.
Which of the following is most likely to affect inequality between countries?
Correct answer: Differences in climate and natural resources
The number of languages spoken
The number of tourists
The size of a country’s population
Q3.
What does inequality mean?
Correct answer: Differences in wealth, opportunities, and living conditions
The average life expectancy in a country
The number of people in a country
The education level of a population
Q4.
Is everyone in high-income countries like the UK wealthier than people in low-income countries like Kenya?
People in low-income countries are always poorer.
Yes, everyone in high-income countries is wealthier.
Correct answer: No, there are still poor people in high-income countries.