Cultural Geography Blog

Food choices are important... Intensive or organic? To eat meat or not? Watch the film below, and read this accompanying piece from the Guardian which takes this a step further, and explores the importance of intensive farming and our potential food gap, which was flagged up by the World Economic Forum.

Mark Steel has been touring the country for quite a few years now, doing his 'In Town' shows. He does a lot of research, and wanders around the town, and then does a show where he gently explores some of the local culture, including quotes from bulletin boards and online discussions. A sort of cultural geography / sense of place type approach to a comedy show. King's Lynn was the subject of a recent show. As a resident of the town for ten years, and having spent twenty years working there and teaching a few thousand of its residents, I know all the references here, and was amused to hear someone shout out "this is West Norfolk" when Mark referred to King's Lynn as being in North Norfolk... as he pointed out - if you go North from Lynn you end up in the sea, so that must make it fairly north within the county... also plenty on the rabbits of Hardwick Roundabout and a passable accent... Listen to the show here. Some more clips and bits from previous s...

I came across a reference to this app last week and have used it every day since. If you have a library card you need to enter your card details into the app and hopefully your library service is accessible from the app. I know that not all areas of the country are featured. I am lucky that in Norfolk, a library card lets you borrow and return books to and from any Norfolk library, and not just in your own particular town. The Forum in Norwich is a wonderful library with a massive range of books and other media, and I can access that via this app and download up to 6 books to the app and onto my phone. My journeys to and from work this week were accompanied by Alan Garner's 'The Owl Service', and I now have 'Stig of the Dump' lined up for next week.

United Nation has announced 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages.   These are vital to indigenous communities. I'm keen to connect with other teachers to do something around this in 2019, so reaching out to overseas colleagues, particularly those who might be in the Arctic area.  I was particularly taken by Romesh Ranganathan's visit to Nunavut, which was shown over the Christmas period, and made a point of exploring the cultural strengths of the community, and the importance of the language and traditions such as singing and dancing. I know that there is a real link between language and the landscape, and it is this I would be keen to pursue, partly based on my interest in the writings of Hugh Brody and Barry Lopez.

An article in the Independent on the likely impact of Brexit on the full English breakfast. One for our geography of food unit potentially...

I've blogged about the Weddell Sea Expedition before, and it's now underway, and has been getting quite a lot of coverage as well.  It was on today's ITV Local news. The Agulhas II is the vessel which is heading for the Larsen C ice shelf to explore the huge berg which broke off last year, and carry out other research, with an additional aim of trying to get to the area where Shackleton's ship 'Endurance' sank. Follow the expedition's Twitter feed here. Visit the expedition's website. The RGS has created some really excellent resources to accompany the exhibition. These include maps, lesson resources, videos and other media . An impressive effort. I've also got some copies of the posters which are being sent to all schools by the RGS-IBG. Image: copyright SPRI and other expedition partners - sourced from Facebook conversation "We've just received our expedition kit after arriving safely in Cape Town. The first of three fl...