A corner of some foreign field...

Image by Flickr user Trojan Llama made available under Creative Commons license

The World Cup kicks off in a few days time...
Don't forget the wonderful World Cup resources at the GA website... (already had around 2000 views apparently...)

The flags are coming out. Saw a customised car at the weekend with vinyl red cross, and red crosses on the wheels...

Had an idea for an investigative project using web searches and other information to build up a picture of the locations where there are groups of people who have a connection with each of the countries that have qualified for the finals.

For example, students will perhaps have heard of Chinatown in London (and Manchester, and indeed several other towns and cities....)

But what about the Little Italies, or South Korean communities ??

My nearest town (just about) is Swaffham in Norfolk. It has a large Portuguese community, and in the last few years, this has grown substantially.

So, there will be a lot of supporters of Portugal gathering in the building in Swaffham pictured at the top of the post (it has a satellite dish so they should be OK...)

Students could be asked to identify these potential little corners of England that will turn blue and yellow, or red and green for the next month...

Create an alternative map of the UK, with flags to represent local concentrations of different nationalities and cultures...
Extra points for finding places that are local... if in doubt, head for London, where most of the world's nations can be found, as seen on the WORLD IN ONE CITY blog.

Also check the locations where Brits can be found...
The excellent BBC BRITS ABROAD section has a range of excellent maps and statistics.
Almost one in ten British people live permanently abroad...

I will develop this idea further in a few days time...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the trail of the 'Detectorists'

Image
As I was in Suffolk last week, I headed for Framlingham as I knew that there were various locations from the series 'Detectorists' and also a wonderful pub just a few miles away where we could go for lunch. Parked up in the Market Square, and from there it was a short walk to several locations. Here are plenty more on a map. Managed to track down four locations: the outside of the 'Two Brewers' pub (the interior was filmed elsewhere), Lance's upstairs flat, the shop where Lance's former partner sells Spiritual goods and scented candles, and the village hall where the DMDC met. Here's me outside said hut. Don't forget the uniformbooks book of course. Still available and an excellent read.
Read more

Jonathan Meades on Sustainability

Image
Have blogged about Jonathan Meades before, and his particular presentation style which I like... Lunchtime today was spent in the company of the first in the series "Off-Kilter", made for BBC Scotland and was about Aberdeen . I liked the look of the area known as Fitty. Towards the end, he moved on to Donald Trump and his controversial plans for a golf course in the sand dunes close to Aberdeen. He called the planned development "New Trumpton on Sea" and talked about gated communities and their absentee residents. He riffed on the idea of ' sustainability ' and how every architect and development trumpeted its sustainable credentials. New words like : "Sustain-abulous" and "Sustain-astic" ! Called it "architectural correctness"... "It's a slogan of conformist unoriginality..." "The very act of making a building is energy hungry and vastly wasteful even if the building is an eco-igloo of Fairtrade otter dropp...
Read more

A Picture of London

Image
One of the projects that I have pencilled in for the summer is some major writing for IB Geography, including a unit on Urban Environments. As a result I've been collecting a whole range of resources to provide inspiration for some creative tasks... Last night I had an hour out in the middle of Eurovision to catch this wonderful programme on BBC2. It was A Picture of London told through the eyes of taxi drivers, crane operators, Big Issue sellers, street cleaners etc. Some wonderful stories and archive films, and the odd John Martin painting... Also great visualisations of how London might have looked if some of the architects' plans had actually been built... You should try to catch the programme on iPlayer before it disappears. From its early years until the present day, London has provided powerful, emotional inspiration to artists. This documentary evokes the city as seen by painters, photographers, film-makers and writers through the ages; the perspectives o...
Read more