Cultural Geography Blog

One of my favourite presents for Christmas was an engraved bottle of Shackleton whisky. This is a recreation of a whisky which was taken by Sir Ernest Shackleton to Antarctica in 1907. Slainte...

what3words is a global grid of 3m x 3m squares where each square has been pre-allocated a fixed and unique 3 word address. 75% of the world suffers from inconsistent, complicated or inadequate addressing systems. This means that around 4 billion people are invisible; unable to report crime; unable to get deliveries or receive aid; and unable to exercise many of their rights as citizens because they simply have no way to communicate where they live. It means that in remote locations water facilities can’t be found, monitored and fixed; and schools, refugee camps and informal settlements remain unaddressed. Even in countries with advanced systems, people get lost, packages aren’t delivered and businesses aren’t found. Poor addressing is costly and annoying in developed countries, but limits growth and threatens lives in developing ones. what3words means everyone and everywhere now has an address. Source: What 3 Words website. Over the Christmas period, they launched a new phot...

Recommended as a film to watch over the Christmas period...

Today is Midwinter's Eve: the 20th of December It it today that the action starts in Susan Cooper's 'The Dark is Rising'. This year, I will be re-reading the story in the company of thousands of others in a reading which has been orchestrated by Robert MacFarlane and Julia Bird. The hashtag #TheDarkisReading is trending on Twitter in the UK in the Top 5, so a lot of discussion around the book. I've just read the action that takes place today, as Will Stanton prepares for his 11th birthday tomorrow, and the snow starts to fall, the rooks behave strangely, and "the Walker is abroad"... If you have a copy, join the action, and if not then buy one or get it on Kindle Unlimited or some other way....

Christmas holidays are a chance to catch up on the fun projects which have to be pushed to one side during term time. I've got quite a few lined up for the next few weeks to keep me active... One project which has been staring at me for months now is the box of Classroom Geographer journals kindly donated by Neil Sealey. This journal was the first to really offer a chance for teachers to read what other teachers were doing in their classrooms, as there were few opportunities to network in the 1970s and 1980s. There was much talk of the 'New' Geography, and of traditional topics and approaches being replaced by the quantitative ideas of Central Place Theory, statistical models and early simulation games. It was published through the 1970s and 1980s, starting out at 20p per issue (including postage), with around 5 issues a year. It's been a good few hours now spent reading through the journals in date order, and finding interesting perspectives on Geography (so far ...

This is starting in just over a week's time... I shall be taking part. The Dark Is Rising: A Midwinter Reading Group. Starting this Midwinter Eve (20 Dec), @juliamarybird & I are running a worldwide read of Susan Cooper’s great novel, The Dark Is Rising. Details here: https://t.co/qg4CJXAwke Hashtag #TheDarkIsReading . Spread the word & join us! pic.twitter.com/D5oB9xp9Ke — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) December 10, 2017

For the last couple of years, there has been a teacher-led CPD event called Teachmeet HistoryIcons . It was developed by a group of history teachers, and runs very successfully with some sponsorship and support from companies and individuals, which mean the event is free to delegates. The next event is taking place in March 2018. A group of geography teachers has been working on developing a Geography- related event which, with the backing of our History colleagues has now been organised by a rather fine group of  teachers, with a similar logo, and which will be hosted by the lovely folks at the University of Birmingham. It will take place in June 2018. You can sign up to join the Waiting List for a ticket from the Eventbrite page. Tickets are FREE, but SOLD OUT. The event has a keynote from a teacher and an academic, although Teachmeets don't traditionally have a keynote, this one does... and for some reason the very lovely and generous Mrs. Humanities, who is on the organ...

As a member of the Geographical Association's Secondary Phase Committee for the last 13 years (with a short break while I worked for the GA), I've presented many times at the GA Conference since, and also been involved in national curriculum change discussions, awarding body consultations for new GCSEs, consultative groups, book reviewing and many other contributions to the work of the GA. Follow us on Twitter too please @GA_SPC This year we are tweeting out 125 Top Tips. We've produced a series of Top Tips before, and you can access or download them all from our SPC page on the GA website. Here's the Advent Calendar that I put together to get the project off to a good start too... Geography Top Tips Advent Calendar by GeoBlogs on Scribd Keep following for the next 125 days, which are also a countdown (or count up) to the GA Conference in Sheffield. 2018 marks the 125th anniversary of the GA, hence the 125 tips Follow us on #125geotips and please feel f...