New Edexcel Geography from 2008 onwards

Catlin Arctic Survey

2011-08-07T13:04:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year, I followed the progress of the latest expedition of the Catlin Arctic Survey.
The team were exploring the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, and then drilling down through the ice to carry out a range of experiments aimed at exploring aspects of the ocean waters, which are at the heart of the Earth's oceanic circulation.

Digital Explorer's Jamie Buchanan Dunlop was involved in the expedition, which involved camping on the ice.

Now, I've been asked to get involved with the project by producing some teaching materials related to the work that the good folks were up to while camped out on the ice.

The explorer Pen Hadow was involved, as were a number of scientists and colleagues with a range of useful skills and experiences. They were also using some interesting equipment, including Niskin bottles and sensors called "peepers". While they were on the ice they also had a Twitter chat with my friend and colleague Kenny O' Donnell and his students.

Image: Catlin Arctic Survey

Watch out for some resources for KS3 and KS4 which will emerge on the website before too long...

Flood Management CPD with Simon Oakes at the RGS

2011-07-08T02:59:00.001-07:00

This could be a really useful evening !!

The Royal Geographical Society is putting on an evening for teachers to update their knowledge of Flood Management, presented by the rather wonderful Dr. Simon Oakes...
It's the next best thing to seeing my 'High and Dry' lecture :)

Subject Knowledge Updates are a series of evening sessions each focusing on a different theme, covering the basic information for teaching that topic and providing up to date case study material and resources. The next session in this series looks at UK Flood Hazard Management.

The DfE Schools White Paper 2010 The importance of Teaching highlights a need for subject knowledge to be included in CPD:

“It is also vital that we give teachers the opportunity to deepen their subject knowledge and renew the passion which brought them into the classroom”.

This UK Flood Hazard Management Subject Knowledge Update will:

Provide up to date and new case study material and information.
Give an overview of the key facts and information that should be highlighted when teaching UK flooding.
Help teachers who have not taught UK flooding for a while, or never studied it, to teach it effectively and confidently.
Provide some resources and case studies for you to take away for use at KS3, KS4 and KS5.
Encourage enthusiasm to teach UK flooding and give ideas of how to link it with other topics and themes.

About the session

This course is aimed at all teachers with an interest in (i) up-dating their teaching of UK flood hazard management for 16-18 teaching and (ii) developing innovative fieldwork incorporating some of the latest ideas in studies of flood plain risk management in the UK. Recent events – including the 2007 floods that brought £3bn losses and the devastation of Cockermouth in 2009 – will be explored as background to new developments in flood hazard management and water policy (including a look at hi-tech flood warnings and the growing importance of the EU Water Framework Directive). Attention will be paid to the demands of the new AS/A2 examinations and there will hands-on activities too during the evening. Curriculum connections with the teaching of climate change will be highlighted where appropriate – including consideration of whether or not recent extreme weather events in the UK are symptomatic of a genuinely changed climate.

About the presenter

Dr Simon Oakes’ post-doctoral research includes consultancy work for DEFRA and the Environment Agency while working with Middlesex University’s Flood Hazard Research Centre (focused on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and the likely effectiveness of ‘hi-tech flood warnings); he has also worked as DfE climate change curriculum advisor for Geography. Simon has been the lead writer of the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Geography in the News’ website since 2003 and is an Associate Editor of Geography Review magazine. An A-level examiner since 1995, he currently serves as a Principal Examiner for Edexcel and Chief Examiner for the International Baccalaureate diploma. He teaches part-time at Bancroft’s School.

Details

Topic: UK Flood Hazard Management

Date: Wednesday 28^th September 2011

Venue: Royal Geographical Society with IBG, 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR

Time: 5pm – 7pm (registration from 4.30pm for a prompt start). Refreshments will be available.

Format: 90mins lecture style followed by 30mins of discussion and questions.

There are 20 places available on this course.

Please note: this course is for teachers only.

Costs

Members (School Members / Fellows / ECT Members / Young Geographers) £30 inc VAT

Non Members £40 inc VAT

Booking information

To book please return the booking form and your payment to Claire Wheeler, Education Department, RGS-IBG, 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR. T: 020 7591 3053 F: 020 7591 3001 E: c.wheeler@rgs.org

Please note that that payment must be received before the event or the place may be withdrawn. Booking form at http://www.rgs.org/teachercpd

No refunds will be given for cancellations less than 3 weeks before the event.

Geography of Disease

2011-07-07T12:12:00.001-07:00

This is another one of those blog posts aimed at uncovering a 'hidden' resource on the GA website that is freely available to anyone....

Geography of Disease was a project that was led by John Lyon, and was funded by the Wellcome Trust

Wycombe High School shared the resources that they produced as a result of their participation on their excellent website (on the Moodle platform...)

The resources are excellent ! You need to check them out if you are proposing to teach something about disease.
There are resources on Disease in Society - with a focus on Myxomatosis, the Black Death, HIV/AIDS, Cholera, Malaria, Bilharzia and Avian Influenza.

Check out Durham University's disease spread simulations too...

Great resources if you are teaching IB Geography, particularly the FOOD and HEALTH module of which more to come later in the year !

NQT Conferences in November 2011

2011-07-07T08:28:00.001-07:00

The flyers for the latest GA CPD events have been published on Scribd.

I am leading two NQT Conferences in November 2011

NQT Conference: Making a difference in the classroom

If you are going to be an NQT Geographer or you are going to have an NQT in your department, and you'd like to book a place, contact Lucy Oxley on 01142960088

Dreamy David...

2011-05-26T03:07:00.001-07:00

I blogged a few weeks ago about the success of David Rogers: the Chair of the GA's Secondary Committee in the Jamie Oliver Dream Teachers competition on YouTube...
You can watch his £10 000 winning video below - it's now been seen over 13000 times !

Also listen to him from earlier today on BBC Radio SOLENT - via Audioboo....

Listen!

David is off to Google London today for an awards ceremony so have a good day David....

GA Conference 2011 - University of Surrey, Guildford

2011-04-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

A number of posts are appearing over at my LIVING GEOGRAPHY blog on the follow-up to the GA Conference 2011.

There were some wonderful sessions.... but enough about me...

Anne Greaves has started to post resources from the conference on the GA WEBSITE.

Image by Bryan Ledgard
Copyright Geographical Association

Plenty of interest for those doing Edexcel specifications, and great to see some blog readers there...

Population matters....

2011-03-20T04:02:00.001-07:00

Earlier in the week, picked up on this story from the Guardian, as one of the impacts of last week's earthquake and tsunami...
It describes the particular impact that shortages of food, water and power are having on those who survived, or were evacuated from the areas affected by the combination of hazards that have hit the country.
The elderly are apparently being affected particularly badly.

The second story was from Friday morning's BBC news. Despite the rise in obesity, the UK population is still enjoying longer life expectancy.

The third was prompted by a conversation with Carl Lee in Sheffield on Wednesday. He put me on to the latest Danny Dorling book, which I promptly ordered, and it arrived on Friday.

There are plenty of interesting sections which could translate into the classroom.
I liked the introduction: "Geography Matters", which includes the useful reminder for adult readers of the book that:
"The geography you may have been taught late on a Thursday afternoon at school is not the geography that is taught in universities today.."
- although in many cases it is also not the geography that is taught at schools on Thursday afternoons these days...

There are chapters on a range of themes that would be familiar to those teaching GCSE and 'A' level specifications, and this book should perhaps be available in school and departmental libraries.
Useful information on optimum populations, immigration, ageing populations and gender imbalance.
As always with Danny, plenty of thought provoking and challenging arguments and information....

Plenty of information for follow up reading in the copious endnotes too...

Another world-changing event...

2011-03-13T13:43:00.001-07:00

Updates since initial posting: 2

Just after 7am on Friday morning I pulled into a multi storey car park in central Coventry. I had set off rather earlier than I needed to ensure that I was on time for an NQT event that I was running, and as I checked my mail and Twitter feeds, news started to come in of an earthquake and tsunami...
The rest of the day was spent running the conference, and by the time I got home at 7pm that night, there was a clear sense that this was going to be very bad news for Japan and the rest of the world...

It became obvious that a lot of colleagues were hard at work over the weekend preparing a range of resources.
My colleague Anne Greaves at the GA had produced a really useful page of materials at short notice on the Friday in my absence.

Below is the text of the update that I will send to Anne for addition to the GA website tomorrow (Monday) but it is here for early access, and also for possible comment... This is a draft, and is my personal response to the events in Japan...

Update for GA website resources

The weekend of the 12^th and 13^th of March has been dominated by regular updates from the region of Japan that was most badly affected by the earthquake of the 11^th (which has been upgraded to a magnitude 9) and the ensuing tsunami and aftershocks.

The force of the earthquake has shifted the east coast of Japan by 2.4 metres, and even shifted the earth’s axis by 25cm. News footage has shown the astonishing scale of the devastation, and the power of water in a highly urbanised area. Entire towns such as Minami Sanriku seem to have virtually disappeared, and tens of thousands of people are missing at the time of writing, in the massive debris fields that the tsunami left behind.

The crisis has now been called the “worst since World War 2”, with the astonishing power of the water and shaking accompanied by the potential for a greater nuclear disaster than Chernobyl in 1986. Videos showing the swaying skyscrapers of Tokyo also provide a reminder of the efforts that have been made to protect buildings from potential earthquakes. This, combined with regular drills will have had an effect on overall casualty numbers, although some of the videos show a remarkable nonchalance as people stood and washed boats being washed under bridges that they were stood on.

The combination of hazards has had wider impacts on the country’s economy, links to global markets, car exports and manufacturing have been suspended, insurance claims will run into billions, and there are forecasts of rising energy prices. Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures are responsible for over 40% of the Japanese economy, and most manufacturing has ceased. Food rationing is taking place, and water supplies are cut in many parts of northern Japan.

Energy is currently being rationed as a large percentage of Japan’s energy comes from nuclear power, and there are fears of nuclear ‘meltdown’ at a number of nuclear reactors. Screening centres have been set up as over 200 000 people have been evacuated from the area around the reactors. A rolling programme of 3 hour blackouts is planned for the next few days. Oil refineries have been affected, and many petrol stations have closed, with long queues at others.

In the longer term, there will be a stimulus for the construction industry, as the infrastructure and many buildings will require reconstruction, but this is a long way in the future…

Thoughts on pedagogy & potential activities

The challenge for teachers in the next few weeks will be to pick an appropriate route through the large number of potential resources and activities that could be selected. Teachers as ‘curriculum makers’ have difficult choices to make, and even more so than ever where this event is concerned.

Students are likely to come with questions, and anxieties, and teachers will need to tackle those sensitively. These are likely to form the basis for the response: a lesson that is planned too rigidly might not enable some of those important questions to be answered. Try to ensure that at least one computer with internet access is available for research. It may be possible to access the live news stream from NHK news: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/

Some sense of the scale of the disaster might be appropriate to explore, using Google Earth or other mapping software e.g. GIS mapping, perhaps using some of the available free tools such as ESRI’s ArcGIS online explorer: http://explorer.arcgis.com/ (a map of earthquakes in Japan has already been created)

Students could perhaps be placed in a ‘newsroom’ hot seat – maybe preparing materials for the Google Crisis Response website that is mentioned later in this resource. Alternatively they could be interviewing a survivor, or prepare questions for a rescue worker on their way to the disaster area. They might be asked to prepare / design applications that would be useful for residents and other people in the affected areas.

Use the Sky News home page or Newseum site http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/ to explore the front pages of newspapers in the UK / around the World.

Possibly a Wordle of the headlines could be constructed, to explore the language of tragedy, and how to work on some of these issues to raise the morale of people in the affected areas.

Alternatively, take a Japanese poetry form: the haiku, and pupils could write a response to what they have seen and heard, perhaps adding a hopeful note…

There could be an exploration of how the shape and height profile of the coastline of Japan may have funnelled the waters further inland and at a faster rate in certain locations.

Teachers should perhaps take a lead from students at the start of the lesson, to assess the possible focus for part of the lesson:

What do they know ?

What would they like to know ?

What should they know ?

If we are having a debate about core knowledge in geography, should ‘tsunami’ be in there ?

Remember geographical enquiry: the choice of stimulus material will be to identify appropriate images and then offer potential for research and reflection.

Is it perhaps too early to be dissecting the disaster ?

If any colleagues have thoughts on these ideas, or would like to provide further examples that they have planned, we would be very pleased to receive them and share them more widely.

Links and connections

The BBC News website has an astonishing video: one of many, showing the force of the water as the tsunami hit:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12725646

UPDATE: Watch the BBC NEWS SPECIAL on iPLAYER - thanks to TC for link

Some colleagues have been hard at work producing resources which they are happy to share.

Andy Knill, who teaches in Essex spent most of the weekend compiling a tremendously useful Google Document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HFePGoc8m2zLIQDQEksKJqTMeqPJvpLGCzJLuQxCfSU/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMHrw5IH#

This contains a large collection of possible sources of information and Twitter feeds to follow for updates.

Becky Pook from Peacehaven School was quick off the mark with a creative and well-referenced resource which explored not only the physical background to the event but also the emotional response. It includes some interesting ideas for model making and creative use of images. Many thanks to Beccy for sharing.

http://www.slideshare.net/serrula/japanese-tsunami-11311
Japanese tsunami 11/3/11

View more presentations from Beccy Pook

Another Slideshare, which contains a range of images is: http://www.slideshare.net/effat57/the-japan-earthquake-and-tsunami

Ollie Bray wrote a blog post which concentrated on the effort of Google and other technology firms to update their imagery as quickly as possible to enable assessment of the damage and some before/after comparisons.

http://olliebray.typepad.com/olliebraycom/2011/03/post-earthquake-images-of-japan-google-earth.html

There was also a useful link to Google’s Crisis Response Dashboard: http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html - this provides a range of links including a person finder and some dramatic YouTube clips.

Mark Howell blogged his thoughts – another example of the importance of teacher blogs:

http://markhowell101.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/floating-teaching-and-the-japanese-tsunami/

Some interesting thoughts on the issues of teaching a fast evolving news story.

Heathfield School, where blogging is embedded in the curriculum was also commendably quick off the mark with some Year 6 tasks – thanks to @DeputyMitchell on Twitter.

http://y62011.heathfieldcps.net/2011/03/11/earthquake-strikes-at-japan/

Jon Snow of Channel 4 news is writing his SnowBlog from Sendai in Japan: http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/

GeoEye: an image provider, has some useful Before and After images, which have been shared by the New York Times. The webpage has a useful slider to enable comparisons:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html?hp

The US Pacific Fleet has started an aid operation called Operation Tomodachi, and there is a useful Flickr set here from the people involved:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/compacflt/sets/72157626119790243/

The UK charity Shelterbox is already active in the area, as are many other charities and international search and rescue teams. Follow the Shelterbox teams on: http://www.shelterbox.org/

James Reynolds (http://twitter.com/typhoonfury) travels the world filming in disaster zones and he has made his way to Japan as well as posting regular updates via Twitter. A useful ‘contact’ to follow over the coming days.

There was also the amazing story of Hiromitsu Shinkawa who was rescued from the roof of his house while floating many miles out to sea.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365831/Rare-glimmer-hope-tsunami-ravaged-Japan-man-rescued-clinging-roof-obliterated-house-middle-sea.html

The story of the town of Minami Sanriku is a sober, large scale example of the power of nature…

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/minami-sanriku-the-town-that-disappeared-in-the-japan-earthquake/story-e6freuy9-1226020730156

I have not considered the nuclear events here, but there is certainly going to be a major review of nuclear safety and energy policy in the months to come...

Thanks also to many other colleagues, including John Sayers, James Baird, Kenny O Donnell and Tony Cassidy for their thoughts.

UPDATE: Thanks to Noel Jenkins for the suggestion of Google Fast Flip (which was a new one on me) for a rapid way to view a range of newspaper headlines for the Wordle task that I suggested above... This could also be used as a way of exploring the particular area of the story that was focussed on...

Finally, for those who would like to involve students in fund-raising, or donate to the disaster appeal.

Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org.uk/japantsunami

Plenty of Urban links...

2011-03-06T05:44:00.001-08:00

There were 3 or 4 "urban-related" tweets in my overnight feed that I caught up with earlier 'today' while having my breakfast...
Part of my daily routine now is to look at what has happened while I slept, and e-mail any interesting tweets to my e-mail account, so that I have a record of the links, and can follow them up when I have a moment...

This weekend, there has been an urban theme to many of the updates. Several of them were from the excellent @urbanphoto_blog stream... You need to follow them if you don't already.

One led me to the Twisted Sifter blog, from which I got this remarkable image, which apparently shows the suburbs of Mexico City marching into the distance, irrespective of topography.

The images were from Pablo Lopez Luz

I haven't explored the site further, but it seems to have a range of interesting images and other content.
The second site, which was equally arresting is a description of the development of a new (or perhaps not so new it seems) 'city' stretching out into the Caspian Sea from Baku, and called Oily Rocks.

The Liquid Infrastructure blog has the story and more amazing pictures of this complex structure.

Next was the news of a fire in the Garib Nagar slum in Mumbai. One of the houses affected was the home of an actress who featured in the film "Slumdog Millionaire". Of course there were thousands of other people affected too...
This was followed up by another newspaper article on the slums of Mumbai, and plans to bulldoze Dharavi. One to extend into the idea of local politics and ownership of land...

This was followed by a tip-off from Bob Digby to an article on the increased threat that coastal settlements in the UK are likely to face
A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation relates to the idea of Social Justice, and looks at the impact on disadvantaged UK coastal communities.
Click HERE to download the report as a 1.4 Mb PDF file

The possible impacts on East Anglia (as featured in the report) are summarised below...

• Weakening and collapse of cliffs due to desiccation as a result of higher summer temperatures and lower precipitation; also cliff destabilisation as a result of decreasing vegetation cover.
• Weakening and collapse of cliffs due to increased precipitation in winter, which causes more water to penetrate into desiccated cracks.
• Higher rates of coastal erosion from higher sea levels, more frequent storm surges and weakened cliffs.
• High erosion will cause enhanced rates of longshore drift which may pose threats to the major ports of Great Yarmouth, Felixstowe and Harwich.

And finally, was an article by Rick Poynor on the book "Edgelands", which I am reading via Kindle app at the moment, along with some images of these peripheral areas.

So basically, Twitter - thanks to the Flipbook app - has replaced the need for me to buy a Sunday newspaper...

Silent Snow

2011-01-27T02:11:00.001-08:00

One of the findings of a recent trip to Salzburg was a project which was connected with one my colleagues on the trip...
It's a documentary called Silent Snow (referencing the classic 'Silent Spring') and looks at the spread of toxic chemicals into the communities of circum-polar lands, and other locations, despite the chemicals being banned many years ago.
This is affecting their health.
DDT is banned in many countries, but is still being used in Africa.

SILENT SNOW

The website has a link to a trailer for the film.

The Silent Snow project

The Silent Snow project aims to raise awareness of this problem and consists of both a short and a feature length documentary by Jan van den Berg, educational material for schools and this website. In the short film the subject is introduced by following two young girls in Greenland and the way in which they are confronted with the pollution of their environment.

In the feature length documentary a young Inuit woman travels around the world looking for the causes of this pollution. As such the film highlights not only the consequences in the polar region, but also the causes and dilemmas, such as the use of DDT against malaria in Africa. This film will premiere in February 2011 in Nairobi at a conference organized by UNEP.

Commercial break...

2011-01-12T04:29:00.001-08:00

You deserve to get one of these for yourself, or your wife or husband or partner, or a friend, or as a prize....just buy one...

Now available from the GA's online merchandise store...

iPhone 3G / 3GS case, which has been given a GA makeover...
Show your support for Geography and the GA wherever you go, and protect your iPhone at the same time..

Can't wait for mine to arrive :)

FrozenUK

2010-12-22T08:17:00.001-08:00

Started a new Twitter stream yesterday to collate stories of the Big Freeze...

Follow @FrozenUK for the cold weather geographical digest... or add #FrozenUK to your tweets and I'll pick it up and add it when I get the chance...

There is more snow falling as I type this...

FrozenUK

2010-12-22T08:14:00.001-08:00

There is more snow falling as I type this...

The Ning's the thing...

2010-12-17T08:17:00.001-08:00

Nings have developed nicely since I first saw them in 2006-7...
At the time, I was teaching geography and the 'A' level specifications were being reviewed.
I set up a NING to support my 'A' level teaching, and to share resources and discussions relating to the work that was being carried out. Another NING was made private to my students, so that work within school could be developed further. I also created other networks for colleagues.
That first main NING now has over 2200 members !

At the 2008 Scottish Learning Festival, I attended my first teachmeet, and presented on Nings in a short 7 minute presentation slot.

When I joined the GA, I took NINGs with me, and the GA's online professional network was born, as was the now thriving PRIMARY CHAMPIONS Ning, which is closing in on the round figure of 1000 members

Earlier this month, the pre-release materials for the January 2011 Edexcel exam was released, and there was an immediate response:

Over 20 new members joined the network
Over 100 members joined a group to discuss the new pre-release material and others joined related groups
There were over 100 contributions to discussions about the materials, particularly on the tectonics hazards question, which has now had almost 50 replies and contributions..

Plenty of helpful ideas and resources being shared for the benefit of all members...

So come and join a NING near you...

GA Conference Programme 2011

2010-11-19T01:39:00.000-08:00

The programme for next April's conference is now available to view or download on the GA website, where you can also book a ticket, or from the link below...

Geographical Association Conference & Exhibition 2011 Programme

For those doing Edexcel 'A' level there are plenty of appropriate sessions, notably the keynote lecture by Hans Rosling, creator of Gapminder.
See you there...

One for those doing Edexcel GCSE

2010-10-02T12:09:00.001-07:00

2 great videos made by Dave Holmes.
The first is shot in London and provides some simple ideas for ethnographic fieldwork data collection.... "people watching"...

The second is particularly helpful.
It is a short video featuring Nick Blunsum: the Head of Geography at Kingsmead Community School

What's great is that Nick talks about the impact of going through the process of gaining the Geographical Association's Secondary Geography Quality Mark.

He talks about "evaluating what was good and developing areas that needed improvement" and also "giving back some of the control to students to stop the lessons being too teacher led..." - some good advice on controlled assessment too....

Thanks for sharing these Dave, and to @GeogAdviser for the tip off on Twitter....

Hans Rosling at GA Conference 2011

2010-08-19T05:40:00.001-07:00

There was some exciting news earlier this week !

Hans Rosling is the Director of the Gapminder Foundation, and produced one of the most exciting tools for geographers in recent times: GAPMINDER (now in a desktop version too)

Thanks in part to some work by our colleague Bob Lang earlier in the year, it is now confirmed that Hans will be doing the keynote lecture at the Geographical Association's conference at the University of Surrey in Guildford in April 2011.

One for your diaries: for the chance to see Hans in action - get a flavour of his presentations by watching this TED TALK.

Online booking for the conference is now available!

GA members get substantial discounts!

Full time and PGCE students get FREE registration!

Delegate fees have been frozen to 2009 levels !

Follow the GA on Twitter (@The_GA) with the hashtag: #gaconf11

This year, the conference will also be raising money for ACTION AID: the President's chosen charity.

Google Earth 4 Degrees

2010-07-16T03:50:00.001-07:00

A very exciting new Google Earth layer was launched this week.

The layer has been produced in association with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and shows information about a possible 4 degree rise in temperature

A range of YOUTUBE videos are available for use with the layer.

The Tyndall Centre were involved in its creation...

Don't forget the Teachers TV programmes which I was involved in, which has a focus on a poem looking at various degrees of warming and the potential impact on the UK.

Flooding

2010-07-15T06:57:00.001-07:00

Flooding continues to be a major issue for many householders, despite the current hosepipe bans in some parts of the country.

The LANDMARK group has just produced a resource which relates to the work of the NATIONAL FLOOD FORUM, and the very useful KNOW YOUR FLOOD RISK page.

I have mentioned the latter before, for their very useful Twitter stream of flood news, which is well worth FOLLOWING.

There is a useful video for higher secondary pupils here, relating to the risk of flooding, and the possible impact on businesses, and also the individual tasks that can be taken to mitigate the impacts of a possible flood.

This would be worth watching by GCSE or A level students....

Glasto tickets...

2010-06-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

Some tickets arrived this morning...

Now very excited..

See you in the Green Kids field for some Guerilla Geography...

I will be writing up a series of posts about the experience, and also producing some links and resources to supplement existing ideas relating to music festivals...

Just a reminder of the nice things people are saying about our Mission Explore book...

"Mission:Explore is a brilliant way to stimulate children's and young people's interest in their social and physical environment, their curiosity and their sense of the absurd. The case for risk as a necessary and exciting part of life, that needs handling intelligently, is acknowledged well. This is geography, and fieldwork, at its most creative, and has the potential to inspire a new generation of thoughtful, ethical and courageous geographers." Susan Buckingham, Professor of Geography

“it is very important for children to experience adventurous play and risk so they can learn to manage risk and keep themselves safe. Mission:Explore helps to do this in a fun and exciting way.” The Child Safety Education Coalition

"Should be compulsory reading for all university geography students" Professor Danny Dorling

Glastonbury

2010-06-11T12:47:00.001-07:00

I'm getting excited about my first visit to Glastonbury, to do missions with MISSION EXPLORE and members of the Geography Collective...

To get me in the mood, I've downloaded the wonderful MISSION EXPLORE festival guide from the wonderful GEOGRAPHY COLLECTIVE BLOG page...

Come and see us in the Green Kids Field...

I hope we won't be needing those...

Going to be working on some resources on music festivals of course too....

All images on this post by the wonderful Tom Morgan-Jones

Google Street View goes nationwide

2010-03-14T13:13:00.001-07:00

Images copyright Google

Google Street View has gone national

A huge update of Google's photography means that over 90% of the UK is now covered by the high resolution, 360 degree imagery along most roads in the UK

One of the first things that people would do perhaps would be to look at their own house, and the houses where they used to live....

Just done that myself, and you can see the house where I lived between 1977 and 1988 (ish) above, tho' it didn't look like that at the time...

There was a useful post on Simon Haughton's blog which suggested some geographical ideas for how the newly expanded Street View could be used in the classroom. Here are some (more):

1. Previewing a journey that is going to be made / risk assessments for fieldwork

2. Carrying out VIRTUAL FIELDWORK in an unfamiliar area

3. Investigate change over time in a local area

4. Clone Town / Land use surveys

5. Remodelling the models: transects from town centre outwards to test their validity

6. Comparing distant locations (Primary)

7. Taking a trip to the seaside

8. Play the "When were the images taken" game: look at clues in the state of buildings, traffic and people in the area, to see whether you can work out the time of year, or time of day, or day of the week when the cars must have taken the images...

My street was photographed in Summer, on a week-day judging by the images, but further towards the centre of the village the images turn to autumn...

9. Do a N, S, E and W, or 5 minutes in each direction from home etc.

10. Most URBAN fieldwork could be done in a slightly adapted way using the images, perhaps supported with some Flip video filming / audio files ? (remember that this is NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR REAL FIELDWORK which MUST continue....)

I have been updating a presentation I used last year, when Street View was limited to just a few major cities, which provided ideas for geography teachers on how they might use Street View in the classroom. Will share that here when it is complete....

Predictably, there has been a little kerfuffle in the Daily Mail...

Read the article and comments for a variety of views on the role of this sort of technology...

And just to show another feature: the maps can be embedded into blogs...

Drag the YELLOW PEGMAN onto the map in the appropriate place, and the Street View images will appear....

View Larger Map

Can also be viewed on my iPhone, which is remarkable really... The UK in your pocket....

Poland Study Tour

2010-02-06T04:02:00.000-08:00

For those colleagues who would like an in depth visit to a new European country for case study and research purposes...

The Geographical Association is organising a Study Tour to Poland for geography teachers in July - August 2010. The trip details are as follows:

Poles to Poles

28 July - 10 August 2010

The GA International Working Group will be leading a north to south journey through Poland from the Baltic to the Tatra Mountains, investigating the impact of EU membership on environment, economy and society.

The programme includes visits to Gdańsk, Toruń, Warsaw, Kraków, Oświęcim and the Tatra Mountains, providing a range of urban and rural environments full of contrasts.

Download: Full Itinerary

With Community Cohesion on every school's agenda and Polish children in our schools the length and breadth of the UK, this trip should be of interest to teachers of all phases, and, with the abundance of budget air services to Polish cities, within the budgets of most teachers.

Costs and Booking

Price: £825 (sharing twin). Single supplement: £295

The price includes all transport in Poland, accommodation (mostly in 3* hotels), breakfast and one main meal per day, plus entrance fees to main venues and geographical visit sites.

Please note that international flights are not included in the cost. Ryanair and Wizz Air operate flights to Gdańsk from Cork, Doncaster, Dublin, Glasgow, Liverpool, Luton and Standsted. Check their websites for further details.

Download: Booking Form

Bursary for new teachers

Two bursaries of up to £200 are available to new teachers within their first five years of teaching. Contact Adam Nichols for further information.

Fair Miles: Oxfam report...

2010-02-05T05:55:00.001-08:00

A new report published by Oxfam and IIIED is now available from the Oxfam site.

It is available to purchase, or as a FREE PDF download. (link starts download of the resource)

The report is called FAIR MILES.

I have had a quick look and it is a useful document. Thanks to @primageographer for the tipoff to this resource, which will prove useful for preparation for my GA Conference 2010 workshop on this topic....

Here's a description, taken from the Oxfam website:

Today’s food is well travelled. A pack of green beans in a Northern supermarket may have journeyed 6000 miles, or 60. But while food miles loom large in our carbon-aware times, transporting it counts for less than you might think. And there is a far bigger picture. Food is more than a plateful of emissions.

It’s a social, political and economic issue that involves millions of small farmers in poor countries who export produce to the North. They have built lives and livelihoods around this trade. By buying what they grow, you’ve clocked up ‘fair miles’.

This pocketbook delves into the realities of the produce trade between Africa and the UK, examining both sides of the equation in search of a diet that is ethically, as well as nutritionally, balanced.

Mark Beaumont: one for 6th formers to see ?

2010-01-25T05:41:00.001-08:00

Picture by Ollie Bray (I think...): Mark is the one on the right... :)

Mark Beaumont speaking tour.... Starts in March 2010, so let's hope Mark is finished by then... :)

Mark's CYCLING THE AMERICAS blog is here for all the latest on his current challenge, which is going incredibly well. He has summited Denali and Aconcagua, and is now cycling the final leg down to the end of his pan-American adventure. There are some spectacular images and video on the blog.

Mark's website is HERE.

He comes to King's Lynn on the 27th of March 2010

The other dates can be found here:

MARCH
Tues 16th DURHAM Gala Theatre 0191 3324041
Wed 17th CHESTERFIELD The Winding Wheel 01246 345 334
Thur 18th BOLTON Albert Halls 01204 334400
Fri 19th HALIFAX Victoria Theatre 01422 351158
Sat 20th MORECAMBE The Platform 01524 582803
Sun 21st HAYES Beck Theatre 020 8561 8371
Tues 23rd TUNBRIDGE WELLS Assembly Halls 01892 530613
Wed 24th SOUTHSEA The King’s Theatre 02392 828282
Thur 25th TAMWORTH Assembly Rooms 01827 709618
Sat 27th KINGS LYNN Arts Centre 01553 764864
Sun 28th LOWESTOFT Marina Theatre 01502 533200
Tues 30th BARNSTAPLE Queen’s Theatre 01271 324242
Wed 31st EASTBOURNE Congress Hall 01323 412000

APRIL
Tues 20th BUXTON Buxton Opera House 0845 127 2190
Wed 21st BARROW The Forum 01229 82 00 00
Thu 22nd MALVERN Malvern Theatres 01684 892277
Fri 23rd BRECON Theatr Brycheiniog 01874 611622
Sat 24th CARDIGAN Theatr Mwldan 01239 621200
Sun 25th LOUGHBOROUGH Town Hall 01509 231 914
Tues 27th MIDDLESBROUGH Middlesbrough Theatre 01642 81 51 81
Wed 28th WAKEFIELD Theatre Royal 01924 211 311
Fri 30th STIRLING Albert Halls 01786 473544

MAY
Sat 1st ABERDEEN The Lemon Tree 01224 641122
Sun 2nd INVERNESS Eden Court 01463 234234
Tues 4th SOUTH SHIELDS The Customs House 0191 454 1234
Wed 5th LEAMINGTON SPA Royal Spa Centre 01926 334418
Thu 6th EPSOM Epsom Playhouse 01372 742555
Fri 7th TELFORD The Place 01952 382 382
Sat 8th FELIXSTOWE Spa Pavilion 01394 282126
Sun 9th CAMBERLEY Camberley Theatre 01276 707 644
Tues 11th SKEGNESS Embassay Theatre 0845 674 0505
Wed 12th BURNLEY Burnley Mechanics Theatre 01282 664 400
Thur 13th RHYL Pavilion Theatre 01745 33 00 00
Fri 14th DERBY Assembly Rooms 01332 255800
Sat 15th STAFFORD The Gatehouse Theatre 01785 254653
Sun 16th RADLETT The Radlett Centre 01923 859291
Tue 18th HIGH WYCOMBE Wycombe Swan 01494 512 000
Wed 19th WESTON SUPER MARE The Playhouse 01934 645 544

Opportunity for 6th form students (and you...)

2010-01-21T08:33:00.000-08:00

Image by Alan Parkinson - Creative Commons

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) is offering funded courses to geography teachers and AS geographers through its Learning & Leading programme:

Funded weekend fieldwork master classes for geography teachers
Funded places are offered on weekend fieldwork master-classes for 16 A level geography teachers experiencing challenges in delivering fieldwork. The next course is:

• Dates: Friday 7 (evening) to Sunday 9 May 2010
• Course Location: FSC Rhyd-y-creuau centre, Snowdonia

Course Activities: Planning A level fieldwork, using & evaluating a variety of fieldwork techniques, field visits & case studies of glaciation, a tourist honeypot & rivers, low cost & local activity ideas, sharing ideas & adapting for use in own school

Course fees, accommodation and meal costs are all covered by the project. All you need to pay for is your travel to the course.

To apply for a place: Complete & submit the application form to Landl@rgs.org by Friday 5 March 2010

Funded fieldwork summer-schools for AS/Higher geography students
16 fully funded places are offered on a fieldwork summer school for AS/Higher geography students. The course is aimed to give students who would not normally have such opportunities, a chance to experience high quality residential fieldwork.

• Dates: Monday 23 to Friday 27 August 2010
• Course Location: FSC Rhyd-y-creuau centre, Snowdonia

Course Activities: Students will investigate and build-up case-studies of glaciation, flooding and issues relating to rural settlements, use ICT and a variety of fieldwork techniques, plan and carry out independent fieldwork investigations and team building and personal development activities.

All costs of the course are covered including travel, accommodation and meals.

To apply for a place: Student completes application form and their teacher completes a nomination form. Both forms to be emailed to Landl@rgs.org by Friday 23 April 2010

Further details & application forms:
W: www.rgs.org/learning&leading
Contact Amber Sorrell, Learning & Leading Project Coordinator:
E: landl@rgs.org
T: 020 7591 3180

New Year, New Members

2010-01-21T05:23:00.000-08:00

Image by Alan Parkinson - Creative Commons

Welcome to a new year of blogging to support the now-not-so-new Edexcel Geography specification.

The first run through is reaching its final stages now, as A2 units have been examined in the January series, and the final exams in May/June are not too far away.

The EDEXCEL NING has continued to grow at a really remarkable rate, and a growing core of members are now posting their work: documents, resources, mock exams, images, tipoffs for TV programmes etc. to support colleagues.

If you have come to this blog, but not joined the NING, it's not too late to tap in to this remarkable collaborative resource.

GA Post-16 National Conference

2009-11-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

Image by Alan Parkinson - as seen in "Look at it this Way"...

Details of the Geographical Association's first Post 16 National Conference are now on the GA website.

This will take place in London on the 22nd of June 2010

This conference will discuss ways to enhance A-level teaching and learning through two major themes: rivers, floods and management and the impact of urban change. The workshops will include ideas for fieldwork and the use of ICT, and how to prepare students for the fieldwork examination questions.

Online booking already available...

There are large discounts for student GA members.

The Climate Challenge

2009-11-21T01:46:00.000-08:00

OXFAM have launched a new website called "THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE" ahead of the Copenhagen climate conference.

It has a range of games and quizzes featuring celebrities (some of whom you may have heard of) and, usefully, a series of downloads which include the following things below to clutter up your blog post...

Your browser does not support iframes.

The game is also available in a range of languages including CHINESE....

Why might that be ?

Water Conflicts

2009-11-14T14:34:00.001-08:00

A very useful Sky News video....

Royal Academy of Art exhibition

2009-11-14T06:39:00.001-08:00

My wife went on a school art trip down to the Royal Academy of Arts and Tate Modern yesterday. Below are a few of the images she took of the sculptures outside the building.

There was also news of a forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy called EARTH: Art of a changing world...

This is timed to coincide with the Copenhagen Climate Change talks, and opens on the 5th of December and goes through to

TICKETS CAN BE BOOKED HERE

I'm in London during that period so will certainly be going along.

There is also a connection with the CAPE FAREWELL project which I used as my POLAR context when teaching the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography...

"Rebranding" in Lake District

2009-11-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

The classic "Elderly People" traffic sign has often been criticised for its depiction of an impression of elderly people that might be less than appropriate.

A recent item in the Daily Mail (my favourite online newspaper resource) showcased a response to this in the Lake District.

Cumbria Tourism placed an alternative version of the sign on the Old Man of Coniston (that's a landform by the way, not a person...)

This was part of a "rebranding" of the Lake District as "the capital of adventure"....

The ads were designed in association with Steve Messam, and are pretty cool....

The Future of Work

2009-10-28T14:01:00.001-07:00

The Future Of Work

View more documents from Jeff Brenman.

A new presentation from the creator of "Thirst"...

Via Simon Jones on Twitter...

Social Inequality

2009-09-25T05:47:00.001-07:00

Perfect for the Unequal Spaces unit at 'AS'

Image by Alan Parkinson, and available under Creative Commons license

A conference for level 3 students of Geography, Humanities, Sociology and Health Studies.

Organised by Carl Lee, and took place at the University of Sheffield.

Danny Dorling and colleagues John Pritchard and Dan Vickers from SASI were present, and presented on the issue of Social Inequality, using images from WORLDMAPPER and talking about their work.

The second session involved a discussion on tackling inquality.

Thanks to Carl for the invitation. Carl has added a range of the resources that were used at the event to the EDEXCEL 'A' LEVEL NING. It is also worth hunting out a copy of Carl's excellent book on Sheffield: "Home: a Personal Geography of Sheffield"

The SASI website features a range of very useful links for those interested in teaching and learning about social inequality.

Some notes that I took in the first part of the day will hopefully be added in due course...

Facebook Profile Template

2009-09-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

Check out the profile template of TONY CASSIDY.

The resources take the shape of a template to produce a FACEBOOK-style "profile"

The profile is for a geographical context: a landform, city, development indicator, famous person, body of water... etc.

The template is here:

What if they had a Facebook profile?

View more presentations from TonyCassidy.

And followed shortly after by a TWITTER template, also produced by the inimitable Tony...

Twitter Starter Template

View more presentations from TonyCassidy.

Quality stuff...

UPDATE: Here is some fantastic work by Year 9 students from Seaford Head Community College, who used the idea in their Geography lessons with Miss Smith. I love these. Thanks for sharing. I'd love to see some other examples...

Facebook and Twitter Profiles

View more presentations from Liz Smith.

Using Flip videos in the classroom

2009-09-16T07:53:00.001-07:00

This has great potential for use with A level students !!

If you haven't already watched this programme on Teachers TV, then you really need to.

And if you haven't already bought a FLIP (or similar) video then you really need to....

Paul Cornish, of the excellent GEOGRAPHER website helps a colleague from a different school to explore the use of video in the classroom.

This is a wonderful resource, which includes a range of ideas for using video in the classroom, and certainly went beyond how I used it: an excellent "living" climate graph example...

It led me to a new tip which I hadn't been aware of before, which provides a particularly neat method for embedding "live" YOUTUBE (or other TUBE) videos into powerpoint.

Of course, this requires the videos to be hosted on a site which is accessible in school, which may be an issue for some colleagues. You need to have a live internet connection for this to work.

I used a video from YouTube with very straightforward instructions (and then recursively used that same video when I tried the method myself):

If you have an older version of powerpoint CLICK HERE
If you have Powerpoint (Office) 2007 CLICK HERE

Had a go and it worked very well.

Needs to have a cut and paste, and then some changes to the PROPERTIES of the Shockwave flash object (video). You also have to enable the DEVELOPER tab in powerpoint if you haven't already got that enabled.

This creates a window on the slide with a video which can be made to LOOP or not, and START AUTOMATICALLY or not...

These can be included with other text and graphics (and other videos) on the same powerpoint slide in an appropriate place.

All the resources that Paul uses in his lesson are contained on the TEACHERS TV PAGE.

Would be interested to hear from colleagues who have used this method, and how they used it...

Started to put together a PPT with step by step instructions which I shall add here when I've finished it - got a few other priority things to finish first...

Latest Shift Happens update

2009-09-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Latest Shift Happens update

Because it fills 5 minutes of any CPD session...

Podcasts for A level

2009-09-15T11:04:00.001-07:00

Some useful podcasts produced in association with NERC and made available at the Geological Society website.

Thanks to Stuart Hitch for the tipoff, via SLN.

Topic include Coastal erosion in Norfolk, flooding, soils and groundwater and volcanic activity.

New GA website now live....

2009-09-04T03:17:00.001-07:00

The GA web team: Anne Greaves and Ben Major, have been working away for months with designers Ledgard Jepson on a new website for the Geographical Association, and it is now live, after several weeks of beta testing and tweaking. Visit the GA URL http://www.geography.org.uk to see the new site.

The site looks a lot brighter, clearer and easier to navigate, and uses more of the screen’s width. Thanks to a major effort on tagging the resources, it is also easier to find things using the ‘Search’ function if they are not immediately obvious from the home page, and a new ‘Resource Finder’ should help you find something appropriate to the key stage and topic that you are interested in quickly, or items written by a particular author.

A one page user guide to the new site and how it’s laid out can be downloaded by following the link (PDF download): http://www.geography.org.uk/download/GA_NewWebsiteGuide.pdf

Members can also bookmark their most useful sections of the website on their own personal homepage. Logging in to the site will provide members with details about their account, and allow access to the journals which you subscribe to.

There are plenty of new items in the shop, which are displayed in a scrolling window, which will also suggest items that might be of relevance to you if you login.

News is easier to find, and has all been updated.

If you are not already a GA member, this is a good time to join and take advantage of the many membership benefits.

The website is also home to all the resources supporting the GA’s manifesto for school geography “a different view”.

Download the latest GA MAGAZINE from the site now

Extreme Environments CPD

2009-09-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

Teaching students about EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS in KS 3, 4 or 5 ?
There's an event planned for the 23rd of October in Sheffield which you might find useful.
It's being organised by the Prince's Teaching Institute, in association with the Geographical Association and the Fuchs Foundation.
It includes a keynote by Professor David Lambert.
Full details are available HERE.

Animoto now with added video...

2009-08-26T08:34:00.001-07:00

Here's a quick video I put together to try it out...

Nice...
Now when people ask me at CPD sessions "can you put videos into Animoto" I can say, "Yes, yes you can...."

Cultural Globalisation

2009-08-26T05:21:00.001-07:00

Another Twitter tipoff is the CULTURAL MUSIC maps (thanks to the #musicmapping hashtag, which is worth further investigation)

This uses the GRACE NOTE service, which is used to add TRACK INFO to iTunes and other music player software, such as my Creative Zen XFi....
As you can see, the map can be used to focus on a particular country, and you are then presented with the current most popular Top Ten artists and albums for that country.

So in Spain for example, there is currently an interest in Michael Jackson and U2, but also some local artists.
This is particularly interesting when related to places such as China or Japan.
These seem to have fewer European and American acts, particularly Japan. Mousing over the acts and albums tells you a little more about them.
Worth using for investigating cultural globalisation and the spread of certain musical artists worldwide.

Which countries have indigenous artists resisting the cultural imports ?

Lady Gaga big in China ? - enquiry into why ?

Devon Coastal Landscapes

2009-08-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

Some images which people may find a use for, from my family holiday....

A little Flickrslidr slideshow of some of my favourite Devon images

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Urban Geographies of Brighton

2009-07-13T04:27:00.001-07:00

Nice Urban Geographies of Brighton work by Liz Smith.

Urban Geographies

View more presentations from Liz Smith.

Discovering the Arctic

2009-07-13T03:21:00.000-07:00

The sister site to Discovering the Antarctic has now been launched, and is live.

Discovering the Arctic has a range of resources, images and activities which make it an essential visit for those using the Polar regions as a context for learning activities.
Developed by the RGS-IBG in association with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Scottish Association for Marine Science, and the British Antarctic Survey.

Climate Change projections

2009-06-27T06:44:00.000-07:00

Part 1 of the outcomes from Flood Management 09 at the Barbican earlier this week...

Many of the speakers referred to the latest climate projections which had been released on the DEFRA website earlier that week, and had been reported in many of newspapers.

Hilary Benn introduces the projections as being very 'sobering'.

5 things that need doing:

1. to protect people from the immediate risks
2. to plan (e.g. motorway drainage, emergency plans) for the future - the adaptation report is currently being consulted on until September (one for 6th formers perhaps to get involved with
3. to work internationally on a climate agreement

Also refers to importance of Copenhagen 2009 - the website is well worth visiting - has plenty of useful resources for teachers and students

4. to play our part - reduction targets need to be met - working towards a LOW CARBON UK

5. supporting individuals e.g. through the Act on CO2 campaign.

The models can be seen by following the links from DEFRA site above.

A Met Office introduction to the projections here:

Delve into the projections page to find all sorts of maps, graphics and information on the likely changes between now and 2080 on a range of climate indicators.

Explore these with students...

Also head over to the UNEP Seal the Deal site.

Leeds University free CPD for Secondary Geography

2009-06-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

Quite a lot of relevance to some Edexcel topics...

The annual event for secondary geographers will take place later this month: on Saturday the 20th of June, at Leeds University.

http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/downloads/school/corporate/Teachers_Workshop_May_2009.pdf is a PDF file with all the details that you will need. Some excellent sessions.

Visit the website for more details on how to book - there are still spaces available.
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/corporate/ga

The event is free, and delegates will be given refreshments, a buffet lunch and materials to take away.

Geography Training: Edexcel units possibly ?

2009-06-01T02:40:00.000-07:00

Geography training has a new face: well, two 'new faces' actually...

From 1st June 2009, a new geography CPD provider is available.

Launching today is a new CPD training opportunity for colleagues in the UK, and beyond...
GEOGRAPHY TRAINING joins together the Geographical Association's own Alan Parkinson, with International Baccalaureate specialist, and creator of Geography all the Way: Richard Allaway.
In addition to the existing face-to-face and online CPD opportunities available from the Geographical Association, we offer a tailored service, with training to match your needs, at a venue to suit you.

Areas of speciality:

Creative approaches for the teaching of Geography
The use of Information and Communication Technology in Geography teaching
Recent changes to the Key Stage 3 and GCSE programmes
International Baccalaureate Geography - including the 2009 syllabus change
IGCSE Geography
Training focused upon application such as Google Earth, GIS applications, web2 tools etc

If you are interested please get in touch to discuss our availability and the necessary fees.

Hazard Revision Resource

2009-05-10T13:09:00.001-07:00

Produced by Jo Blackmore

Global Hazards Edexcel AS Revision

Publish at Scribd or explore others: School Work Study Guides, Notes, history global

Geography of Disease

2009-05-09T01:29:00.001-07:00

How did the pig get on the roof ?
....the swine flew...

Great BRAIN POP animation

For those using the "Geography of Disease"

GeographyPages

2009-05-02T07:20:00.001-07:00

New look for GeographyPages - now with added Manifesto....

Tornado Websites

2009-04-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

Firstly, again via Paul on SLN, there is a link to an online GIS style resource...

Discovery Channel

STORM CHASERS

There is also a TORNADO CHASE GAME

If you're on Twitter, you can also sign up to follow the NETWEATHER forum team on their storm chase... Has a live stream to follow when the chase is on !

One for you or your AS students ?

2009-04-22T04:35:00.001-07:00

Free Fieldwork courses: Teacher Master-class & AS Student Summer School

An opportunity for students and teachers alike...

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) is providing fully funded opportunities for AS geography students and for geography teachers through our Learning and Leading programme.

They are offering fully funded places on two separate residential courses, based at the RGS-IBG in London led by experienced staff from the Society and other professionals. Full costs will be covered including accommodation, food and travel to and from RGS-IBG:

Teacher Fieldwork Masterclass: Monday 17th - Friday 21st August 2009
Teachers will visit a wide range of sites in London which provide opportunities for teaching and learning in geography – topics include the Olympics and sustainability. The course will cover a variety of fieldwork techniques, ideas for low cost and local fieldwork and safety management and ideas for easy to use ICT and GIS. There will be opportunities to share experiences with other teachers and plan and create resources to take back to school and share with others.

AS student Fieldwork Summer School: Monday 24th - Friday 28th August 2009
Students will visit a wide range of sites in London which provide opportunities for learning in geography. They will have the opportunity to develop investigative skills and use a variety of fieldwork techniques. They will find out about further study and career options in geography. The course will provide opportunities for personal development, working with other students from around the UK, building confidence and independence.

The aim of the programme is to increase the opportunities and motivation for self development among young people through the use of fieldwork, specifically supporting those who may not have been able to undertake such activities due to challenging circumstances or a lack of opportunity and who are keen to continue their geographical studies at university. In relation to teachers this supports the development of a department’s provision in geography.

We are requesting applications for both courses by Friday 8th May 2009. Further details and application forms can be downloaded from www.rgs.org/L&L or by contacting:

Amber Sorrell
Learning and Leading Project Coordinator
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
T: 020 7591 3180
E: landl@rgs.org

Added on behalf of Amber Sorrell

Plastiki 17 days from launch...

2009-04-11T07:41:00.001-07:00

Just been writing some resources for the GA's website on the forthcoming PLASTIKI expedition.

The GA will be involved in tracking and reporting on the voyage and providing some curriculum materials for using the voyage in the classroom by UK geography teachers.

The PLASTIKI is a vessel made from recycled plastic bottles. It will set sail from San Francisco in 17 days and counting (there is a countdown on the main website page linked to from above) and visit various locations reporting back on major environmental themes.

It will complement the current voyage of the BBC Box, which is another useful maritime example. The Box is currently in the Indian Ocean.

GeoTube

2009-04-03T01:47:00.001-07:00

David Rayner has been busy again, and has produced a very useful new VIDEO 'CHANNEL' called GeoTube, which is hosted on a site called FLIGGO.

This is not banned in schools (well, not yet anyway)

It has a collection of useful videos, and this will grow over time.

Twitter and Data Mining

2009-03-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

Flood Contingency map copyright the City of Fargo

Have been following a few stories recently, and using the idea of 'data mining' the 'Twittersphere' as a resource.

On the BBC News this morning, there was a report on the city of FARGO in North Dakota, where people were being evacuated due to record levels on the Red River..

For many people in the UK, 'Fargo' puts them in mind of the classic Coen Brothers film with the woodchipper... For others, it's paired with Wells on the side of stagecoaches in westerns...

For the residents of the city though, the current issue is that of record levels of flooding on the Red River, up to almost 41 feet above normal.

'Trending' on Twitter (i.e. one of the most popular current words or tags that are included in people's 'tweets') is the word FARGO

Using a service like TWITTER SEARCH or TWITTERFALL, the tweets with the word FARGO in them can be seen as they appear: sometimes 20 or 30 a minute... With the latter, they 'cascade' down the screen as they appear.

This is particularly useful because the nature of Twitter means that many users will post links to news reports, background reading, pictures of current events, or their personal thoughts, which means that an event is being 'broadcast' in a number of short inputs, but together these can be assembled to create an 'alternative narrative' for the events.

Reading the tweets is fascinating, as each one has a particular 'angle' or 'message', many offering a perspective on the story which makes one think about the event in a different way, and would provide tremendous material for some high-level descriptive or persuasive writing.

This is the sort of creative work that can act as a useful counterpoint to what we might call more 'traditional' resources and classroom activities. Used occasionally it might provide a useful 'news room' style event which could engage pupils and provide a memorable (even compelling) learning experience.

The city's website also has a great deal of useful information in the form of planning and floodplain maps HERE.

There are also other tags or hashtags e.g. #fargoflood emerging as the event develops.

The nature of these events is that they are ephemeral, and teachers would have difficulty planning a session in advance in many cases. The new KS3 PoS includes a deal more flexibility than in the past, and this means that there is a chance that if an event happens that is relevant to the particular units that are being taught in a longer term scheme, that time can be given to exploring events 'as they happen'... This sort of reactive, immediate work could prove to be valuable in preparing students for the sort of employment that they may well have in the future.

Of course, another issue is that what compels large numbers of people to 'talk' about the same thing is generally (although you can argue with me here) something 'negative', so we reinforce the idea of disaster geography, rather than reflecting on more positive changes and events. One can imagine that the next major earthquake, volcanic eruption etc. will all create a major outpouring of tweets... Are we still to have our first major post-Twitter disaster ?

In the meantime, my thoughts are with the people of Fargo as they watch the waters rise. My best wishes to you all, and of course to other settlements in the area, as although the focus may be on Fargo, other communities are also suffering....

Gapminder reminder....

2009-03-26T02:15:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Ollie Bray, who's in Vienna, for posting this link - if you haven't seen Gapminder before, you need to check it out... This was always fantastic for use with GCSE and 6th form groups. Visualisation is the new rock and roll...

Climate Change Imagery

2009-03-25T13:21:00.001-07:00

Google Earth Blog has a very useful post about some remarkable imagery showing glacial retreat...

Has link to this VIMEO VIDEO, which is one example of available material...

AK-03 Columbia Glacier from Cliff from Extreme Ice Survey on Vimeo.

Exeter Urban Rebranding

2009-03-23T01:57:00.000-07:00

Some great work from Jo Blackmore and colleagues /students at Okehampton College on an URBAN REBRANDING fieldtrip to Exeter.

Good to see the EDEXCEL NING turning into a really positive outcome: useful images and an excellent model for a fieldwork booklet. Thanks for sharing...

Exeter Rebranding Fieldwork Booklet

View more presentations from JoBlack.

Photosynth: a possible fieldtrip activity

2009-03-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

After the school run today, it was a quick trip up to Hunstanton to take 164 pictures of the famous stripy cliffs: the southern end of the cliffs near the promenade - thanks to my Nikon D40X that took about 5 minutes as I wandered from the carrstone boulders in the tidal zone, to the base of the cliff and zoomed in on some of the individual rocks in the red and white rockfall zones. The light wasn't ideal, but that wasn't really the point in this case.

I then batch-resized the images ready to create a PHOTOSYNTH.

Taking my cue from Ollie Bray's BLOG POST, I installed Microsoft Silverlight, and then PHOTOSYNTH itself (having to keep reminding myself to use Internet Explorer rather than my usual Chrome)

PHOTOSYNTH installs 2 programmes: a web-browser plugin for viewing the 'synths' and an application for creating them.

If you've read this far and are thinking "what's a Photosynth anyway ?", here is a DESCRIPTION.

A detailed GEOLOGICAL GUIDE of the cliffs can be viewed here (PDF download)

You will need to use INTERNET EXPLORER to VIEW THE PHOTOSYNTH...

Also embedded below: needs SILVERLIGHT TO VIEW, and to be viewed in IE or Firefox

Let's try to collect together a GEOGRAPHICAL library of Photosynths...

If you've made one, please let me know....

Google Street View UK launched

2009-03-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

GA HQ on Street View - Image copyright Google and associated imaging partners...

Today is the launch of the widely anticipated Google Street View. I had an invitation to attend, and would like to have been there, but had another appointment today pre-booked.

Just following the LIVE LAUNCH on Sky News, which is also going out on TWITTER. People on TWITTER noticed it last night before the official launch.

UK cities covered so far

England
- Birmingham
- Bristol
- Cambridge
- Coventry
- Derby
- Leeds
- Liverpool
- London
- Manchester
- Newcastle
- Norwich,
- Nottingham,
- Oxford
- Scunthorpe
- Sheffield
- Southampton
- York
Northern Ireland
- Belfast
Scotland
- Aberdeen
- Dundee
- Edinburgh
- Glasgow
Wales
- Cardiff
- Swansea

Results are in...

2009-03-13T06:05:00.002-07:00

January module results are now in for the AS Units.
Join THE DISCUSSION on the NING.

Also celebrating the first 100 posts on the blog.

Thanks for reading...

BBC Box Update

2009-03-13T06:05:00.001-07:00

It's been a few weeks since my article on the BBC Box was featured in the GA Magazine.
A recent e-mail from James Woolven, who teaches in one of the GA's CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE reminded me to check on the box, and it has recently arrived in BRAZIL.
The BBC website follows some of the goods that arrived in the USA from China into the stores where they were sold.
The box was then loaded with a cargo of 'household goods'.
The box is now in Santos in Brazil, and there is another very useful BBC ARTICLE describing the changing economic circumstances facing Brazil. This would be very useful for 'A' level GLOBALISATION topics.

Thanks to James for also telling me about the AIS Ship Tracker website. It has a map which shows the current position of container shipping vessels around the coast of the UK. Click on a ship to find out more details of what the ship is carrying and where it is heading...

Red Nose Day

2009-03-13T01:51:00.001-07:00

Don't forget to donate to Red Nose Day

Billy Connolly in Canada and Nunavut

2009-03-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

Bought a cheap copy of Billy Connolly's 'Journey to the Edge of the World' in a well known supermarket yesterday...Visit the ITV website for more details on the series, which would be good viewing for those people studying Extreme Environments and Cold Environments

There are some good descriptions of the changing landscape of areas like Nunavut, the majesty of icebergs and glaciers, and the experience of climbing one of the Tuktoyaktuk (also known locally as 'Tuk') pingos.

The ITV website has an interactive map and video footage, and you can catch up with episodes on the ITV PLAYER for the time being. There's also a GALLERY OF IMAGES.

Plenty of associated press and blog posts as well to flesh out the content.

The DVD is available from next monday, and features Billy's travelogue, which may provide an engaging classroom resource, although it has a 15 certificate, so there could be some 'fruity' language - your 6th formers will probably have heard it before though, maybe even from you ;)

Here's a taster...

DFID Consultation - Global Poverty

2009-03-10T03:55:00.001-07:00

The Fight Against World Poverty
Where next for the UK?
Your chance to shape the debate...

CONSULTATION MEETINGS at venues around the country....

“The Global community faces enormous challenges. The economic crisis, food security, climate change, energy insecurity, conflict, rising population – these are challenges of unprecedented magnitude which affect us all, and in particular the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. The nature of this interdependence means that it has never been so important to invest in our common future.” Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development (10 Feb 2009)

In response to the challenges currently being faced the Department for International Development (DFID) is working on a new narrative for international development that will culminate in a White Paper that will be published in July 2009.

At these events you’ll hear from a DFID Minister, a speaker from one of the many organisations that work hard to help eliminate global poverty e.g. Oxfam and inspiring stories from volunteers who have worked on an international development project. You’ll have the chance to ask the speakers any questions you have and to take part in debating a particular topic at your table that will be fed back and inform the direction of DFID’s work.

Latest edition of New Scientist

2009-02-26T09:06:00.001-08:00

How to Survive the Coming Century...

The latest issue of New Scientist magazine has an article with an interactive map on how the world might look with a warming of 4 degrees celsius.

A fairly dystopian view...

2009-02-23T06:10:00.001-08:00

There are still a few places left on an Africa day, which is going to take place at the Royal Geographical Society on Friday the 6th of March. The day will be led by Graham Goldup, and focus on updating teachers' subject knowledge, and promote collaboration between schools and teachers that have an interest in the continent.

Full details are available by clicking HERE, or on the picture below.

There are some top-notch speakers and the event will take place in the august surroundings of the RGS.

Ning members' photos...

2009-02-22T06:12:00.000-08:00

Find more photos like this on Edexcel GCE Geography 2008

London 2012: both sides of the coin...

2009-02-19T03:27:00.001-08:00

My daughter is currently doing some half-term homework: designing a 50p coin to commemorate and celebrate the London 2012 Olympics, as part of a competition being run by Blue Peter...

Meanwhile, here is Noel Jenkins with the first of a planned series of videos looking at the impact in Portland, where the sailing events are going to be held.

Impact of the 2012 Olympics on a local business from Noel Jenkins on Vimeo.

Snow Day

2009-02-04T23:44:00.001-08:00

Another load of snow arrived in West Norfolk. 65 schools closed at the moment in West Norfolk.

All the family off school - as I was working from home today, I don't really get the benefit...
Just added my details to the #uksnow map that Ben Marsh produced.Join the map by tweeting #uksnow then first part of the postcode, then score out of 10

e.g. #uksnow S66 8/10

Also check out OLLIE BRAY's POST on making use of this in the classroom along with Google Earth.

Extreme Weather or Not ?

2009-02-03T12:29:00.001-08:00

"We're very lucky in the band in that we have two visionaries, David and Nigel, they're like poets, like Shelley and Byron. They're two distinct types of visionaries, it's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water."
Derek Smalls in 'This is Spinal Tap'

Today, as with yesterday is a 'snow' / 'duvet' day across many parts of the country. The BBC NEWS reported the traffic problems in and around the country. They didn't mention that much about other parts outside of the capital, mostly London yesterday, but anyway. The snow has now moved North, and the chaos continues.

At lunchtime yesterday it was out to collect my kids from their primary school, which has closed early due to the weather forecast being a worsening situation. This morning was an interesting slippy walk, but they were safely delivered.

Today, the newspapers have some very creative headlines and stories, and there have been some interesting journeys to work by a lot of colleagues.

For the first time, the ice and snow has prevented me getting up to Sheffield.

Instead, I'm working through a range of projects the deadlines for which seem to have piled up this week.

One additional resource that I have been putting together is for some UEA PGCE colleagues.

Meanwhile, over in Australia, there is a record breaking HEATWAVE which has led to parts of daily life grinding to a halt.

Back to the snow finally, The Register: the satirical website had a funny report, although it has a rude word, so you can find it yourself if you want the full version.

There was also a good map on the GOOGLE MAPS MANIA website, which was related to TWITTER, and is mentioned in this BBC NEWS REPORT.

A #uksnow map...

Worth collecting the various impressions of the impact of the snow.

One ironic one was that the cost to the British economy was apparently over £1 billion, which is of course small change these days....

The Daily Mirror had the best headline of the day !

Google Earth 5 now available to download.

2009-02-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

Are you up to date ?
The latest version of Google Earth has been put on the website to download.
It's Google Earth 5
It features the much anticipated Ocean flood and surface data, plus new historical imagery and improved touring facilities.
Get yours today.

Extreme Weather ?

2009-02-02T02:32:00.000-08:00

As the 4 Seasons sang
"Oh what a night, late December back in '63.."
and it was, because I was born then.
Theo K, a Twitter contact led me to this classic YouTube video showing the snow of that winter, and how the trains kept running....

and today....

A possible new assessment model for the future

2009-01-23T06:08:00.001-08:00

You can't escape assessment....but you could e-Scape assess.....

The GA has been involved, with Goldsmiths College, in an exciting trial of a new method of assessing student's geographical work, using handheld technology (PDAs) to create a digital portfolio, which is then assessed using a method called 'comparative pairs'. This is a more robust method of comparison between individual pieces of work than the traditional method of moderating pieces of coursework. It was suggested by Alastair Pollitt, former head of research at Cambridge Assessment, based on earlier work in the 1920s (see later)

The final report on the trial, written by Fred Martin with David Lambert has now been made available on the GA website, along with further details on the project.

The trial involved schools taking part in a field visit to Porthcawl, and exploring the issue of rebranding on their return. There are links to other projects which involved the use of handheld technologies, and also the idea of media landscapes. The report also mentions a range of other field investigations which Fred Martin produced.

An e-portfolio was created as a result of the process, and this was judged by comparing each portfolio with all of the others, and saying in each case "which is best" ? The software that was used was an online system, which meant that judging could take place at a time and place to suit the judges within the (fairly tight) timeframe that we were given.

Over time, the software decided that there were some pairs that didn't need to be compared (if you take the 'best' and the 'worst' piece from a sample, you don't really need to compare them to see which is best as it's fairly obvious...)

As one of the judging team, I have to say that this whole process was a fascinating insight into the techniques (and in some cases, deficiencies) of the current systems of assessing large numbers of exam candidates. I certainly learnt a great deal about the way that assessment works. A related issue is that this could form an approach to the management of controlled assessment, as the software on the PDAs could be set up to

The appendices in the report, which can be downloaded from THIS PAGE of the GA website would reward closer reading by those who are interested in an alternative approach, which also taps into the

The later appendices contain too many 'hard sums' for me, but I think they say that I was a reasonable judge - was I more Craig Revel Horwood than Bruno Tonioli ?

For those who also want a little more, Tony Wheeler has published a useful summary of the whole process on the FUTURELAB website's FLUX section, and there is also a TEACHERS TV programme on e-assessment. Mobile phones are mentioned here too (iPhones perhaps ?)

This includes a useful analysis of the comparative pairs method, and the reason why an e-portfolio makes the judging of this a possibility....

Alastair explained how Louis Thurston had developed this theory of assessment in the 1920s, based on simply comparing one piece of work directly with another. Alastair argued that abstract assessment criteria did not help in the process of marking, as examiners inevitably convert the abstract into concrete exemplars, increasing variability and unreliability. So why not just compare work directly? If enough comparisons between two different pieces of work are made by enough judges, a very reliable rank order emerges (the one that always wins moves to the top, the one that always looses goes to the bottom and the others spread appropriately between). I understand that QCA use this system already to monitor inter-board comparability, basically to ensure an ‘A’ in maths from OCR is the same as an ‘A’ in maths from Edexcel.

The problem lies in the scale of the award. With twenty paper scripts and half a dozen judges it can be done round a table, but when there are thousands of scripts and dozens of judges it becomes a logistical impossibility. However, with the advent of web-based portfolios, like the e-scape set of portfolios, are available anywhere and anytime each assessor has an internet connection. Multiple copies can be viewed at anytime, making the paired process possible in a high-stake assessment for the first time.

GIS at the GA

2009-01-20T05:48:00.000-08:00

Just been browsing the new "GIS for A-level geography" book written by Peter O' Connor

This is available from the GA Shop: priced just under £30 for GA members.

It's the first book of its kind to cover GIS at this level.

After an introduction to GIS, which includes a range of practical applications. I like the fact that it starts with a simple image of supermarket loyalty cards. When I used to teach 'A' level ICT, there was a section on the importance and value of data collection of this type, which can be used to populate a database of geo-referenced data linked to individual's shopping patterns.

The book explores methods and techniques of data analysis and GIS output and applications.

What teachers will perhaps find particularly useful are the 5 practical exercises which use ArcView 9.2 (a 12 month trial of the software and mapping data are included on the DVD that accompanies the book)

1. Where are all the people ? - map the UK's population density

2. How do patterns of crime vary across England and Wales ?

3. Is there a relationship between crime and levels of urban development ?

4. How does economic and social structure vary across the Cambridge urban-rural fringe ?

5. Mapping areas of low flood risk

Every activity has been fully explained with screenshots of every step of the process and full descriptions of which key to press....

Young Geographer of the Year

2009-01-12T03:15:00.000-08:00

An extension activity for your AS geographers !!

Get your students in on this year's competition.

More details at the GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE website.

The theme this year is ARCTIC.

Sponsored by Explore – the leading adventure holiday company, this year's winners win a place on an Arctic expedition, prizes for your school and more. The competition is open to young geographers throughout the country under the age of 18 years

We want you to carry out a project that involves a journey to the Arctic. What would you take with you and why? What would ensure your journey’s success? Your project should reflect a thorough investigation into the geography of the Arctic and a realistic portrayal of a journey to the North Pole. We would also like you to include one luxury item for your journey and an explanation of your item of choice and your reasons for choosing it.

Your entry can take whatever form you think is most appropriate – be it a written report, a short video film, a photographic essay, an audio file or a mix of all of these. The most important thing is that you plan and research accordingly for your Arctic journey and most of all – make sure to be creative and have fun!

Prize: 16–18 years

WIN! A place on the month-long expedition Arctic Adventure to East Greenland in July 2009, courtesy of BSES Expeditions.

The winner will depart in mid-July and will begin with a complicated journey via Iceland and southern Greenland. The expedition will involve three phases in the field – the science phase will build on long-term work in the area, including geology, survey work, fluvial and glacial studies, ornithology and invertebrates; in the trekking phase, groups will explore the mountains and undertake challenging journeys along ridges and through valleys to explore rarely visited areas; and in the mountaineering phase, groups will be trained in snow and ice techniques such as crevasse rescue, in order to undertake multi-day journeys on the glaciers and explore these untouched glaciers and mountains.

This is a chance of a lifetime to go on one of BSES’s extraordinary expeditions and to visit an amazing place that most people just dream about! To find out more about this expedition, visit www.bses.org.uk

Terms and conditions of expedition

• You must be aged 16–18
• Must be available between mid-July and mid-August 2009
• Winner will be thoroughly interviewed by the expedition chief leader, and participation is strictly subject to his approval
• All participation is subject to a satisfactory medical check by the expedition chief medic
• The winner is responsible for their own travel and other associated costs to and from the UK point of departure/return for the expedition
• The prize does not include any personal kit, such as rucksack, sleeping bag, clothing and the like
• The winner must have a good understanding of the English language

Prize: 13–15 years and 12 years and under

WIN! A five-day Arctic Ice Adventure to Sweden, courtesy of Explore – the leading adventure holiday company

Based in the northern outpost of Kiruna, your adventure starts with a dogsled safari. With teams of huskies attached to each sled (along with a skilled local doing the driving!), we ‘mush off’ into the wilderness. There’s also the option of snowmobiling cross-country and over frozen lakes towards Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest peak. And every night, there’s the chance to enjoy that most traditional of Swedish activities: a sauna.

On a visit to Jukkasjarvi, we overnight at the world-famous Icehotel, where everything from the chandeliers to the glasses for your drinks is made of ice. We can also play Father Christmas and ride our own reindeer sled, and enjoy a range of optional activities – from snowshoeing and ice-fishing to cross-country skiing.
You’ll love: • Trying a Swedish sauna • The thrill of dog-sledding • Meeting Sami reindeer herdsmen

PRIZES FOR SCHOOLS

All winning schools will receive a library of books worth £100 each, courtesy of Dorling Kindersley.

The Advisory Unit: Computers in Education will provide the schools of the winners of the 13–15 year and 16–18 year categories with a full site licence of AEGIS 3 –
their award-winning education geographic information system. There will also be further prizes from Ordnance Survey.

All finalists and their teachers will be invited to an awards ceremony at the RGS-IBG on Tuesday, 26 May 2009.

For more information and to download an entry form, you must be registered on www.geographical.co.uk. Click here to do so. If you are already signed up to the site, simply log in and click on the tab 'Members area'.

Groups on the NING

2009-01-08T13:36:00.001-08:00

The Edexcel NING now has 12 groups.
There are 6 for the Unit 3 topics, and 6 for the Unit 4 topics.
Visit, Join, Contribute...
Each group has all the ENQUIRY QUESTIONS entered as discussion starters, or you can add your own discussions.
Don't forget that any reply or discussion starter can also have documents attached.

Cultural Geography

2009-01-08T13:35:00.000-08:00

Just been adding some sections to the EDEXCEL GEOG NING which now has over 420 members. Come and join us if you haven't already....
Noticed that one of the options for the GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH topic (which is Unit 4) is:

Option 4: The World of CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY (Extract from Edexcel Document)

Culture
Culture is a complex concept, with multiple meanings but universal importance to human populations. In many parts of the world consumption is the dominant, but not the only, culture. Culture varies spatially and has a distinct geography, with some areas being relatively homogenous while others offer greater diversity. Large urban areas often produce diversity, which is reflected in the population, services and built environment of cities. Attitudes to cultural diversity differ, both personal and political/national.

Cultural Patterns
Globalisation is seen by some as a key process in driving culture towards a global model, and media TNCs and communications technology aid this process. However, the pattern is complex and localised cultures do survive and new cultures can still be generated. Culture, to some extent, determines our attitude to the wider environment in terms of consumption, conservation, exploitation and protection. Attitudes to the environment differ between cultures; however, the dominance of today's consumer capitalism is difficult to resolve with pressing environmental concerns.

1. Defining Culture and identifying its value

Enquiry Question
What is the nature and value of culture in terms of peoples and places ?

2. The Geography of Culture

Enquiry Question
How and why does culture vary spatially ?

3. The impact of Globalisation on cultural diversity ?

Enquiry Question
How is globalisation impacting on culture ?

4. Cultural attitudes to the environment
Enquiry Question
How do cultural values impact on our relationship with the environment ?

Some of this has a real overlap with the PILOT GCSE, which once again suggests that there are some links between this spec and the pilot making it a good 'follow on' course.
For some ideas, check the CULTURAL LABELLED posts on my PILOT BLOG (which has now been closed to new posts)

Another Onion starter for Risky World

2009-01-08T04:02:00.000-08:00

Hurricane Bound For Texas Slowed By Large Land Mass To The South

Off the wall concentric circles starter....

2009-01-08T03:48:00.000-08:00

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

GA Magazine

2009-01-07T01:55:00.001-08:00

The latest edition of the GA Magazine is now available to download from the GA website (you need to log in first...)This is a particularly good issue, but then I have to declare an interest: I edited the issue, along with David Rayner.
In addition to the usual features, such as a particularly good Webwatch, there are some feature pieces on the concept of INTERDEPENDENCE.

The middle section was the bit I edited.
Highlights of the issue include:

"Thinking inside the box": an article on the BBC 'box' project by me
"Connecting Classrooms": an article by Graham Goldup on a project to develop a school link with Arusha, Tanzania & Brighton schools
"Windwards Revisited": an article by Martin Crabbe on the ongoing links that he has maintained following a trip to the Windward Islands in 2005
"Interdependence Day": a summary of the report by Joe Smith of the Open University
"Food glorious food - but for how much longer ?": an article by me on a TDA CPD unit that I'm writing - contrary to what it says in the magazine it's not quite finished yet....
"Cheap food and global interdependence" by Peter Jackson of the University of Sheffield
"Into Africa" - Emma Cook talking about her toolkit book
"A Thorny Issue" - Louise Ellis talking about her toolkit book

There is also an outline on A DIFFERENT VIEW: the Manifesto for school geography which will be launched at the GA Conference.

Thanks in particular to David Rayner, Graham Goldup, Joe Smith, Peter Jackson, Martin Crabbe, Louise Ellis and Emma Cook

USGS Global Warming Links

2009-01-04T03:17:00.001-08:00

With thanks to Stuart Hitch via SLN (text of original post...)

"About 125,000 years ago, during a warmer climatic interval in the last interglacial stage, sea level was about 6 meters (about 19.7 feet) higher than it is today.

About 2.2 million years ago, during an even warmer inter val, sea level is estimated to have been 25 to 50 meters (about 82 to 164 feet) higher."

Good to see some acceptance that the world HAS been warmer in the past and that sea levels HAVE been higher instead of the usual "warmest decade on record" scaremongering. Presumably these were totally natural warming events - if not those prehistorics must have had hellish carbon footprints!

http://www.usgs.gov/global_change/glaciers/glaciers_sea_level.asp
http://www.usgs.gov/global_change/glaciers/default.asp

Also worth a look ..... repeat photographs of glaciers ...... some have retreated and some have advanced.
http://www.usgs.gov/global_change/glaciers/repeat_photography.asp "

Asteroid Impact: Risky World

2008-12-30T08:34:00.001-08:00

This is being passed around the web a lot at the moment...

Risky World starter ?
Happy New Year !

Merry Christmas to all my readers...

2008-12-23T10:58:00.000-08:00

Image by Ronald Lampitt

See you in 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

2008-12-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

Image by Eric Schockmel under Wikimedia Commons

New film from Danny Boyle: "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE"...

There's an associated feature in today's Observer, which looks at the area of Mumbai called Dharavi where the film was made...

There are some very useful descriptions of some of the inhabitants of the area, which could form the basis for classroom activities, and help to build up a picture for students.

A DHARAVI Audio slideshow too, which is an excellent resource....

Interesting detail on the financial surplus that Dharavi creates, which compares sharply with the huge debt that the UK has...

Other movies with associations with being filmed in 'slums':

City of God

Incredible Hulk

Michael Jackson's video for "They don't care about us"- filmed in Rocinha

City of Men

Favela Rising

Line of Passage

The Constant Gardener

La Haine (?) - not quite slums...

Have I missed any ?

How do colleagues use these films ?

How about FAVELA TOURISM ?

Check the GEOGRAPHY PAGES page on Favelas.

How accurate is the portrayal of favelas ? (Guardian article)

Planet Earth Online

2008-12-17T13:04:00.000-08:00

A new website from the NERC: PLANET EARTH ONLINE.

Plenty of relevant material for AS / A2 topics....

Training course in Slapton

2008-12-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to David Holmes for passing on details of a course which is being put on by the Field Studies Council in February, specifically for centres doing the Edexcel 'A' Level Specification.

Innovative approaches to fieldwork within the NEW Edxecel specification

In February 2009 FSC Slapton Ley is offering an exciting INSET opportunity for teachers following the new Edxecel A Level specifications.

The two day course will provide an insight into how to use innovative approaches to fieldwork to deliver the new specification, along with how to make the best use of ICT materials.

To find out more please download the course leaflet below or contact the centre directly on 01548 580466.

Flyer pictured below: visit the EDEXCEL NING page for more details.

If you're doing the spec, join the NING !!

Ice, Ice Baby

2008-12-16T07:47:00.000-08:00

Nice presentation on Iceland from Alan Doherty...

Iceland - Just ice

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: moraine ice-margins)

The disappearing High Street

2008-12-14T07:56:00.000-08:00

A casualty of Urban rebranding schemes ?
How can it be made "vital" and "viable"....

An excellent audio-visual SLIDESHOW of a High Street, part of an excellent resource (try the tabs) on the BBC Magazine page.

Living Geography is happening on your High Street right now. Why not go down there and come back with a photostory: no more than 5 images, capture your High Street, before it disappears....

I've set up a FLICKR GROUP called "The Disappearing High Street", and kick started it with a few images from HUNSTANTON.

Add your pictures...

Urban Earth: for unequal spaces...

2008-12-03T04:51:00.000-08:00

One of the most creative geographers I've had the pleasure of working with over the last few years is Daniel Raven Ellison.
Earlier this year, he visited London, Mexico City and Mumbai and walked across them, taking an image very 8 paces to create these compelling movies for URBAN EARTH.

Below is the MUMBAI film....

A Newcastle Urban Earth event is planned for the 25th of January 2009 - more details later.

Thanks for the mention in the end-credits too Dan... Unless if was a different Alan P...

Credit Crunch Geographies

2008-12-03T02:08:00.001-08:00

Just putting this resource together at the weekend.
Has anyone else spotted any trends in the Credit Crunch that have been reported in the media relating to geography: these could relate to employment, consumer products, lifestyle changes, population change or other aspects...

Add comments below, particularly if there is an article which accompanies it, and provides some additional detail...

Urban Splash in Sheffield

2008-11-30T06:03:00.000-08:00

A useful description of the plans for rebranding these flats...

BETT 2009 - technology for Geography

2008-11-26T08:39:00.001-08:00

A nicely written piece in yesterday's Education Guardian: the annual supplement for the BETT show. I've written the Geography preview for the show for the last 3 years. The image of the Nintendo DS with Sim City being played is mine too.

The ONLINE VERSION is now available.

Check out the rest of the BETT Preview too.

I'll be at Teachmeet and will be manning the GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION's STAND in the SUBJECT ASSOCIATION area on Saturday the 17th of January.

Interdependence Day Seminar

2008-11-19T08:03:00.001-08:00

Sheffield University Geography Department - 18th November - 4.15pm
Thanks to Dr. Tariq Jazeel for inviting me to yesterday's seminar by Dr. Renata Tyszczuk from the Architecture department of the University of Sheffield on the Interdependence Day project , which looks at the nature of global environmental change, as we enter the era that has come to be known as the Anthropocene : one of human landscape- alteration and environmental instability.
It explored interdependence as framework for discussion on human alteration of the world.
It also featured the Mappae Mundi project
This project is currently being developed with partners at the Open University and is a cross-disciplinary venture between Geography and Architecture, between `writing the earth´ and `making place´. Its ambition is to `put stories back into maps´.
Renata talked about 2 events at the Royal Geographical Society, and the publication “Do good lives have to cost the earth ?
Also passed out some broadsheets from the Interdependence Day meetings, including an excellent article: “London Inside Out” by Doreen Massey, which was familiar to me from her book “World City”.
Talked about 2 story-based pieces:
We don’t know when it’s coming in (PDF download)
Relating to clothing, and connections the British Antarctic Survey, and the charity clothing shop where items were sold.
We don’t have a survival kit (PDF download)
New maps for an island planet, and ideas of provisionality and uncertainty.Thanks to Dr. Jazeel for the invitation.

One of the other groups that attended the Interdependence Day project day was RED REDEMPTION.

They have produced an intriguing CLIMATE CHALLENGE GAME, which can be played online.

Remember that your students are 'all' playing games - everyday geographies...

Ning Groups

2008-11-19T04:28:00.001-08:00

We now have 13 groups on the Geographical Association's NING. Some are shown below:

Once you've signed up for the Ning, feel free to join an existing group, or suggest another group that you would like us to create !

2008-11-12T14:01:00.000-08:00

David Lambert, Chief Executive of the GA is delivering a lecture at Sheffield University tomorrow tonight.

It's part of the Centenary Lecture Series.

Department of Geography Centenary Lecture
Geography in schools: misheard or misplaced?
Professor David Lambert (Chief Executive of the Geographical Association)
5:30 pm Richard Roberts Auditorium

I shall be in the audience, and will be doing some live blogging and also posting updates to my TWITTER FEED.

If you want to JOIN IN, then JOIN TWITTER if you haven't already and CLICK TO FOLLOW ME on TWITTER.

Will also add BLOG POSTS HERE, and depending on my internet connection (which should be OK in central Sheffield) will also upload some PICTURES....

Coming up on the 8th of December is another rather fine lecture which I shall also attend:

Department of Geography Centenary Lecture
Beyond critical - some spaces of optimism in a globalised world
Professor Doreen Massey (Open University)
5:30 pm Students' Union Auditorium

GIS Resources

2008-11-03T12:24:00.001-08:00

Those people who are concerned about how to teach about GIS should visit the ESRI site for plenty of materials.

First of all is a powerpoint which explains ALL ABOUT GIS

Another page has links to a load of resources, including an interactive movie outlining the connections that you have with GIS through the day.

Check these resources out !

Are you ?

2008-10-23T14:51:00.001-07:00

Re-presenting Urban Space

2008-10-22T01:50:00.000-07:00

Just listening to Dan Ellison talk on US Public Radio from last night.

You can download an mp3 of the talk, which I strongly recommend that you do.

Dan starts by referring to Doreen Massey and her work on perceptions of urban spaces and also the representation of places. He started by walking across Salisbury and exploring its ecological footprint.

He also talked about the issue of surveillance, and the issues with photography, and how he worked out the route for the walks based on inequality.

Photograph taken every 8 paces, and then turned into stop-motion films.

Also explored school geography, and how the media over-represents certain areas of cities.

Online CPD.... I urge you to listen !