S5 Geography — Industrial Location and Manufacturing Shift (tutor guide) | Material index, transport cost, footloose industry

2026-11-01

Tutor lesson-prep guides · Secondary Geography

Ask why a factory sits where it does and the answer is usually that land is cheap. Material index and transport cost turn siting into an arithmetic comparison students can defend.

Objectives — Students can: (1) list location factors and separate essential from substitutable ones; (2) use the material index to classify a plant as raw-material oriented, market oriented or footloose; (3) compare two sites by cost per tonne-kilometre and explain the shift of manufacturing.

01 Prerequisites (3-minute check)

If any of these fails, fix it before the lesson starts.

Skill	Quick check	Pass mark
Mass units	How many kilograms in one tonne?	1000
Ratio	Three tonnes of input make one tonne of output: what is the material index?	3
Location factors	What does a steel mill care about most?	Ore, coal, transport

02 Lesson flow (60 minutes)

Time	Stage	Tutor does	Student does
0-8 min	Hook	Show the sourcing map of one product	Point out each transport leg
8-20 min	Location factors	Sort essential against substitutable	Rank the top three
20-34 min	Material index	4 tonnes of ore per tonne of steel	Obtain index 4
34-46 min	Transport cost	2 dollars per tonne-km over 100 km	Difference of 600
46-54 min	Footloose and shift	Bottling index 0.25; garment work moves	Give two push factors
54-60 min	Exit check	Collect and mark three questions	Work independently

03 Teaching script (read it out)

Scene 1: Location factors have weights

Raw material, power, labour, market, transport, land, government policy and agglomeration. Ask which one cannot move: a mine cannot, a market cannot, capital can.
Steel once clustered on coalfields because of bulk; aluminium smelting sits by hydro schemes because electricity dominates cost. Full-mark answers read factor plus why it cannot be substituted.

Task: pick a local factory and rank three location factors.

Scene 2: The material index is one division

Material index = weight of raw material divided by weight of product. Four tonnes of ore for one tonne of steel gives 4, a weight-losing industry that gains by sitting at the mine.
Bottling reverses it: one tonne of concentrate becomes four tonnes of drink, index 0.25, so it moves to the market. An index of 1 is neutral, and those industries are usually footloose.

Ask: why a plant with index 4 never sits beside its market (it would haul four times the weight).

Scene 3: Compare the sites in money

At 2 dollars per tonne-kilometre over 100 km, siting at the mine hauls one tonne of steel for 200 dollars; siting at the market hauls four tonnes of ore for 800. The difference is 600, a saving of 75 per cent.
Manufacturing shift runs on the same arithmetic: once containerisation cut transport costs, plants could follow cheap labour, which is exactly how labour-intensive work left Hong Kong.

Reminder: answers must state the money or the percentage, not just that transport is cheaper.

04 Question types and worked steps

Type	Example	Steps	Answer
Calculation	Material index	input weight over output weight	4
Calculation	Two-site haulage	weight x distance x rate	200 versus 800
Classification	Industry type	index above 1 raw-material oriented	4 and 0.25
Explanation	Manufacturing shift	transport down, wages differ, policy	labour-intensive work moves

Sanity check (teach this): A material index cannot be zero because the product has mass. An index below 1 rules out a raw-material location. The saving can never exceed the larger haulage bill, and 600 is well under 800.

05 Independent practice (3 questions)

Question	Answer	What to watch
Three tonnes of cane make one tonne of sugar: material index?	3	Input over output
150 km at 1.50 per tonne-km: saving from siting at the field	450, or 66.7 per cent	675 against 225
What does a material index of 1 mean?	Neutral, usually footloose	Not that location is irrelevant

06 Common mistakes and what to say

Mistake	Student writes	Say this
Inverting the ratio	Giving steel an index of 0.25	Input on top, output underneath.
Direction without numbers	Saying transport is cheaper near the mine	Use the rate given and quote the money.
Calling smelting footloose	Treating aluminium as footloose	Its power bill anchors it to cheap electricity.
Ignoring non-transport factors	Only discussing haulage	Name wages, land and policy and say which dominates.

07 Homework (paper, section and question numbers)

Secondary Geography chapter index — All chapters
DSE geography practice paper — Industry section

08 Exit check (last 5 minutes)

Question	Answer	Decision
Material index for 4 tonnes of ore per tonne of steel	4	Three correct means move on to population
Haulage difference at 2 dollars per tonne-km over 100 km	600	One wrong means redo the comparison
Where should bottling with index 0.25 sit?	At the market	Two wrong means repeat act three

09 Tutor FAQ

Is the material index worth memorising?

Yes, it is a single division and it decides the orientation.

What is a footloose industry?

One where transport is a small share of cost and neither raw material nor market dominates, such as electronics assembly.

Must the answer be mainland China?

No. Answer for the region and period in the question; Southeast Asia and the Pearl River Delta are both common.

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A TutorZone lesson-prep guide. Written by the TutorZone team; questions and lesson flow are original and are not taken from any school or publisher material.