Cultural Geography Blog

SOLO Taxonomy

2012-01-20T16:35:00.002Z

Thanks to John Sayers for volunteering to join me to present a VITAL CPD Teachshare on the 9th of February at 7pm.
It's on the use of: SOLO, which stands for Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes.
It really asks students to place their understanding of work on a scale of 1-5, depending on their ability to make sense of connections. It's a useful technique for discussing progression.

So, although I'll be talking SOLO, I won't be on my own....

A reminder that you can still subscribe to the VITAL CPD GEOGRAPHY portal for a very low price - if you go to the pub tonight and buy a pint and a packet of pork scratchings it'll probably cost you more than a subscription would.... although admittedly they'll taste better....

Normal service will be resumed in 2012

2011-12-18T12:39:00.001Z

I'm going to take a couple of weeks away for Christmas (although I probably won't be able to resist blogging if something important happens between now and the 1st of January 2012.)

I'm going to be doing one or two things over Christmas as well as enjoying the festive cheer

Writing a GCSE book
Completing a major resource pack for the Ordnance Survey
Planning out a Children's book I'm going to be writing
Preparing for CPD events in the New Year
Writing some Online Updates for Harper Collins
Edits and proofreading for 2 books I'm editing that are published in early 2012
Adding new content to my Vital Geography Portal
Preparing some thoughts for new Curriculum consultation
Putting together some ideas for Mission:Explore Food

On 1st of January I'll be back with various New Year thoughts...

Please join me on the 5th of January for my Teachshare on New Year New Geography

It'd be great to have your company at 7pm with your plans for the year ahead for New Year New Geography, and if you are tweeting your plans, please use the tag #nyng

Thanks to Rich Allaway for his early contribution to the tag.

Thanks to everyone who's employed me during 2011, or visited this blog and contributed in some way.

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND WISHING YOU A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR

Mary Portas Review: Saving the High Street ?

2011-12-13T10:52:00.001Z

Regular readers of the blog will know that I have an interest in the changing fortunes of town centres and have written various posts on Clone Towns, Rebranding and other projects to revitalise town centres as they face competition from out of town retail parks and the rise of online shopping.

This was also part of the 'A' level specification that I used to teach, and some ancient resources from the Cambridge Urban Field Day that we used to run are available via the link.
I also started a Flickr Group called The Disappearing High Street some years ago, and several kind photographers have contributed their images to join mine.

Mary Portas, who has featured in a number of recent TV programmes looking at changing the fortunes of retail businesses, was asked earlier in the year to explore the ways that the fortunes of the High Street could be turned round. The report was published this morning....

There is also a free KS3 resource that you can obtain from the Harper Collins website that I wrote on the changes that have taken place in the High Street: "Shop, or they start to drop". This would sit well with the report, and also the diagram opposite, which is taken from the report.
While you're there, why not subscribe to the other monthly online updates which I'm writing ?

What is important is that they are 'vital and viable'.

The report is now live on Mary Portas' website, or click here to download as a PDF (1.9 Mb)

There are 28 ideas to explore with students, who can research them, and suggest how successful they might be in your local town centre.

Right, I'm off to Tesco Extra....

Mission:Explore Food - you can help make it happen

2011-12-07T13:08:00.001Z

Last night at the Houses of Parliament, Mission:Explore came runner-up in the Educational Writers' Awards ceremony of the Society of Authors. Congratulations to the winner: 'Moon' by Stewart Ross.

We were described as having produced: 'A brave book which encourages children to explore the world around them, developing their curiosity, confidence and courage along the way…’

We're now all set to do something bigger and better, and we are planning to produce a cookbook- but not the usual type of cookbook of course...

Mission:Explore Food will be a 320 page exploration of all things 'foody' in our own Geography Collective style, and with the fabulous illustrations of Tom Morgan-Jones. For example, here's our take on the importance of eating locally sourced food...

The funding for the book will hopefully come from crowd-sourcing, and we are using a website called PLEASE FUND US to co-ordinate this.
If you are able to support us at certain levels, there are some nice rewards, such as books, posters, an invitation to our launch party, and even the chance to feature in the book yourself.

Read more on the Geography Collective blog

When you're ready, please head over to our PLEASE FUND US page. We need a good chunk of money to make this happen, although it's manageable if we take it one bite at a time.
Look down the right hand side to see the options....

Thanks in advance for your support and look forward to launching the book at the Hay Festival in 2012.

Remember that Mission:Explore was a National Trust / Hay Festival Outdoors Book of the Year for 2011

Culture - the latest Digital Explorer site...

2011-12-05T18:42:00.001Z

I've been working with Jamie Buchanan Dunlop over the last few months, adding some new resources to the OCEANS DIGITAL EXPLORER website.

The Digital Explorer empire is now expanding to CULTURAL matters, linking in with the idea of Citizenship and (as always) a link with real world exploration.

Check out the new CULTURAL WEBSITE which has some superb resources.

The FILMS and PHOTOS section looks like being an amazingly useful resource for exploring Citizenship issues.

New Rorys StoryCubes set

2011-12-03T10:32:00.001Z

Regular readers of the blog will know of my love of Rory's Story Cubes. I use these in my CPD sessions, and link them in with the creation of geographical narratives: geography as 'writing the earth'.
The latest set of cubes is now available to purchase from the Creativity Hub website, and will be in shops in the UK in a few weeks time.

Story Cubes Voyages is a whole new set of dice for story-telling which can be used in combination with the previous sets, or by themselves...

My cubes are on order...

Olympics Park

2011-11-23T18:03:00.001Z

Visited the Olympics Park earlier for a meeting in the area about a forthcoming project....

Thanks to Bob Digby for the maps and other information on the park that he kindly provided in advance. It was my first view of the Olympics Stadium, although we didn't have time to walk round as far as the View Tube to get a better view...

Interestingly enough there were quite a few Olympics related things in my Twitter stream over the last few days.
A nice image from @mrjmutton who was at the Olympics Park yesterday - looking a bit grey then - a lot brighter today.

A set of Google Sketch-Up models of Olympics buildings, thanks to Keir Clarke.

Next came an article in the Daily Mail on the security costs of the games - because the venues have been finished early there's now more to look after, especially given the possible terrorist threat. This is apparently costing £250 000 a day.

And then via @The_GA came a link to a Daily Telegraph article which looks at the way that shops in the area around the Olympics park are looking to cash in on the games. The giant new Westfield shopping centre: apparently the biggest in Europe, was certainly busy today.

After that there was the story about the new uniforms for the people who are going to be helping people. Each of the volunteers and other people will be getting a range of clothing and other items to wear during the games: apparently they will be swamping the city.

My question on that was to wonder where these uniforms were made. Did their manufacture support the British clothing industry ?

And finally there's the Playfair website, with its game, which is about having a sweat-free Olympics, and would be worth a look.

Photosynth: Alan Parkinson - will upload it to the Photosynth website when I get a moment....

Excellent graphics work by Fabian Gonzalez

2011-11-19T17:13:00.001Z

A tweet led me to this website via a few intervening clicks and links...

These images are the work of Fabian Gonzalez.

I'd like to share tone of them with you here, as they link nicely with the overall theme of the blog. Happy to remove them if requested.

The image shows Superheroes as FLAGS. The re-presentation of flags is something that geographers will be familiar with...
Which can your recognise ?

The images (and others) can be purchased as art prints and on clothing. Would make a good Christmas present for the geographer in your life....

New blog by Rob Hindle

2011-11-16T13:05:00.001Z

I've blogged about Rob Hindle's poetry before: HERE and HERE for example.

Rob's based in Sheffield, but has lived in various locations in the UK, and also lived and worked in Spain for a time. His collection on the Sheffield Flood of 1864 inspired a mapping activity that I developed as part of the ESRI / GA GIS courses, where students could identify the locations where victims of the flood may have been found, and trace the course of the flood waters.

Worth following Rob's new blog to get further insights into the creative process and his sources of inspiration.

Also check out Mark Jones and Bernadette Fitzgerald's work on creative urban poetry in Teaching Geography in 2010

Eleanor Rawling's chapter in Graham Butt's book 'Geography, Education and the Future' is also recommended.

And a final Geography poetry link is the work of Mark Cowan, who wrote the poem that features in Degrees of Change - the programme on Climate Change that I made with Brook Lapping for Teachers TV

VITAL Teachshare: Google Earth Placemarks

2011-11-15T10:04:00.001Z

My next VITAL Teachshare will be on Wednesday the 16th of November (that's tomorrow if you're reading this today) at 7pm.
It's on ways of customising Google Earth Placemarks...

Click THIS LINK just before 7 to join me. You'll need to allow the download of the plug-in to handle the Elluminate session, which will then allow you to see and hear me, and to take part.

Don't forget to check the KEYHOLE BULLETIN BOARD to get the full range of layers and files shared by Google Earth users. Use the SEARCH function to unearth the goodness....

This will be my little contribution to WORLD GIS DAY, which is taking place tomorrow, as part of GEOGRAPHY AWARENESS WEEK.

What are you doing for World GIS Day ?
Why not add a touch of GIS to your teaching tomorrow...

VITAL Geography Teachshare 1: Tonight

2011-10-12T11:10:00.001+01:00

I will be running my first VITAL Teachshare TONIGHT

It's on 'FREE GIS TOOLS for the Geography Classroom' and introduces the basics of GIS followed by 3 suggested websites which can be used to produce GIS-style work with students.

If you'd like to join me, you'll need to click this link just before 7pm

This will load up Elluminate on your machine which may take a few minutes....

For those who haven't been to an online session before, you'll be able to hear and see me going through a presentation and then have a chance to discuss things. You can ask question and I might ask you to click some icons to participate... You'll get the hang of it...

We should be finished by 7.45, but you can of course feel free to join later and leave earlier if you like: that's the 'benefit' of online sessions like this. Slides and links will be on Slideshare after the event.

If you haven't already done so, head over to VITAL and sign up for a free trial for the Geography portal too...

Check out the other subject portals too. For just five quid you can subscribe to 3 of them until March 2012 and access videos, forums, resources, Top Tips and other content.

First Class Landmarks

2011-10-10T21:03:00.002+01:00

I'm always up for new stamps, especially when they are geographical in nature.

Some new Royal Mail stamps are out later this week.

They are the first in a set of 26 stamps, which cover famous places from A - Z

Which A-Z would you choose ?

A = Angel of the North
B = Blackpool Tower
C = Carrick-a-Rede
D = Downing Street
E = Edinburgh Castle
F = Forth Railway Bridge
G = Glastonbury Tor
H = Harlech Castle
I = Ironbridge
J = Jodrell Bank
K = Kursaal (Southend)
L = Lindisfarne Priory

Fits very nicely with Lesson 6 of my GA toolkit book: "Look at it this Way"

Movember

2011-10-10T09:32:00.001+01:00

November is also Movember: when men who are men grow moustaches....Cue Spongebob Movie..

This year, Richard Allaway, who can grow a mean 'tache, has set up a special group.

The TASHTASTIC GEOGRAPHERS

I've joined the team.

If you'd like to donate to me or the team, visit my MO SPACE page

MissionExplore.net now LIVE !

2011-10-05T15:02:00.001+01:00

I've just completed my first mission on the relaunched Mission Explore.net which is now live in BETA
It's called the DEAD EASY MISSION
Come and login and find out what it involves...

It's worth it to go and see Tom Morgan Jones' latest wonderful illustrations...

Just going to do some missions at home...

Coincidentally my EARTH SANDWICH Mission Explore t-shirt arrived today - it's cool.

Why not order your own MISSION EXPLORE shirt to wear while completing the MISSION EXPLORE missions ?

Subject Knowledge Update: Globalisation

2011-10-04T16:11:00.001+01:00

The RGS-IBG hold regular subject updates for topics that are of relevance to 'A' level topics in particular.

I mentioned a previous one on water, and will actually be leading one in 2012 on the theme of the Polar regions (of which more to come later...)

There will be a subject update on the theme of Globalisation held in Manchester on the 5th of December 2011. This will be useful for those who would find it difficult travelling to London.

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 Globalisation.
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 Globalisation 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
globalisation.
 Help teachers who have not taught globalisation 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 globalisation and give ideas of how to link it with other topics and
themes.

About the session
Globalisation is now a core element for some of the new geography A-level Specifications and the
International Baccalaureate diploma course. It is increasingly a highly popular A2 option for those boards
where it is not a compulsory topic. But thanks to the fast-changing nature of global interactions, it is
difficult for students and teachers to always keep up to date with their facts and case studies. Some new
course text books published in 2008 do not mention the Credit Crunch for instance, yet this is a crucial new development that some experts have even called ‘de-globalisation.’ Effective globalisation teaching for higher grades also requires that students can make good use of important concepts – such as networks, flows, interconnectedness – and that they also have a good understanding of the politics, and not just the economics, of globalisation. This session will provide experienced and newer geography teachers with an opportunity to up-date their globalisation knowledge. Specific themes covered will include TNCs updates, cultural globalisation (glocalisation), global politics, ICT and global interactions (mobiles, Facebook, BlackBerry, etc.), diaspora, global production networks and Credit Crunch geography.
About the presenter
Dr Simon Oakes is an A-level Principal Examiner and Chief Examiner for IB Diploma Programme geography.He currently teaches at Bancroft’s School in Essex and is an experienced undergraduate lecture. He has been the lead writer of the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Geography in the News’ website since 2003, authoring more than 120 articles. Simon is an Associate Editor of Geography Review magazine and is the author of Phillip Allan’s new Globalisation text book and a co-author of several key A-level and GCSE course guides. His doctoral research examined the growth of information technology global networks viewed from a rural perspective. Post-doctoral research includes work on flood hazard management for the Environmental Agency / Defra and climate change curriculum development with DCSF.

Venue: Xaverian Sixth Form College, Lower Park Road, Victoria Park, Manchester, M14 5RB
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

Contact Claire Wheeler for more details

New Polish migration resource on GA website

2011-09-30T16:00:00.002+01:00

A new resource has gone up on the GA website.
It's a short unit with associated resources which explores the issue of Polish migration and the decisions that people make about where to live.

Download the FREE RESOURCE as a PDF

Coincidentally this resource has a link with Torun, where I shall be next week.
I'm going to see what the Polish delegates make of it :)

If we can get some additional Polish perspective I think that would make a useful resource for colleagues with Polish students in their geography class or form group...

Geography Collective in the USA

2011-09-17T20:01:00.002+01:00

As I may have mentioned before on the blog, I did some work a few months ago for the Geography Collective on the theme of 'the local area'. This was for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC education in the USA, and Dan from the collective went over to Portland to speak to educators from all over the USA.

Now there have been some videos released from the National Council for Geographic Education for the session that Dan Raven Ellison did for the conference, and they are on the GEOGRAPHY COLLECTIVE blog.

Here's the first one and the other two are on the blog...
This is very fine work, and explains the origins of the Geography Collective and our recent work, ideas of geography and showcases projects that Dan and the Collective have been involved with....

The new Geography Curriculum - the latest development...

2011-09-13T11:04:00.003+01:00

I received an e-mail today from David Lambert about developments towards the new curriculum...

The Department for Education, through Nick Gibb has asked Alex Standish (some of you will be familiar with the name) to write a national curriculum for geography. The final draft has been made available to the GA, and shared on the website.

Alex Standish is an assistant professor of geography at Western Connecticut State University and author of "Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum: Reviewing the moral case for geography", published by Routledge.

The draft curriculum has been added to the GA Website Curriculum Consultation page as a 17 page PDF download. (Click to download)
Before you read the document, you should first read Alex's 'position statement' which sets out his thinking as he approached the task:

"This geography curriculum was compiled at the request of the Department for Education as a contribution to the national curriculum review. It has been written with input from teachers, department heads, and geography faculty. At secondary level it in part reflects the content of IGCSEs. Nevertheless, it remains my personal interpretation of what children should learn in geography at different key stages so that they become capable students of geography.
There are of course other ways of organising the geography curriculum, but one of my aims is to raise expectations of what pupils are capable of learning. If private schools are able to teach geography in the depth and breadth demanded by the IGCSE then so should everybody else. I believe that all children are capable to being educated to a high standard and it is time we started raising our expectations of how much children in the state sector can learn.
I also recognise that writing a curriculum and implementing it are two different things. To offer this curriculum would mean adding more geography in primary schools where there are fewer specialists. Nevertheless, there is nothing here that could not be taught by a primary teacher supported by suitable materials. At key stage one and two pupils should be using their local environment as a primary resource. Teaching about the UK in years 5 and 6 would require more work and ideally the production of some new teaching resources. But by age eleven, children should have learnt about the geography of their country, the physical and human environment and be capable of making and using maps. If this is not possible today, it is something we should work towards.
Another aim of this curriculum is to re-introduce regional geography to the English curriculum. This should be taught not by cataloguing facts about different regions, but rather to enable children to understand and interpret the range of cultures and landscapes that exist across the surface of the globe. Regional geography went out of fashion in the UK with the decline of Empire. It is high-time it was re-introduced to the curriculum so that children leave school having been introduced to all the major regions of the world. Surely this should be a primary aim of the geography curriculum?
In writing this curriculum, my objective has been to make a contribution to the conversation about what knowledge and skills children need to learn in geography. How this is taught in the classroom is the prerogative of teachers, as it always should be."

I note the link with iGCSE. Having been involved with the development of a new iGCSE book which is due to be published at the start of 2012, I know that any content can become engaging with the right treatment.

Once you've read the document, it would be great if you could LOG IN to the GA website (this will ensure that you are logged as a member and your statement will have more impact), and HAVE YOUR SAY on the Curriculum Consultation Page.

This is NOT the final curriculum (YET), but we need as many opinions as possible. If you don't express your opinion in the right place, it may not make a difference. You may be thinking YES, Regional Geography is back ! Please go to the GA's page and add a comment...
It's important that you also read the GA's suggested documents so that you can compare the approaches...

I haven't had chance to read the document, but will post some thoughts about it in a day or so....

I'm off to find my notes on Benelux and Denmark that I used to teach back in the late 80s.... my Head of Department at the time said that they would come in useful some time as education goes round in circles....

Image: Thingvellir, Iceland - Alan Parkinson (where the USA meets Europe...)

2011-09-12T19:57:00.001+01:00

A new update to the VITAL website has been launched recently...

It's the new website of VITAL: the Open University's CPD programme.
One of the main aspects of the website is access to a series of subject specific PORTALS.

The Geography Portal is yet to be launched, but it will be managed by me, and I am working on the content already. Expect there to be a range of useful content for geographers and geography teachers...
This will include:

short video guides to explain how to use key websites and web tools
suggested Top Tips
resource ideas
Twitter feed
details of events
fortnightly online meetings to discuss a particular topic

I'll let you know when the portal launches, so that you can pop along and see me...

Google Earth visualisations...

2011-09-06T10:25:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Matt Podbury via the SLN Geography Forum for the tip-off here...

The MERKADOR blog which I think is based in Belgium has shared some great work for geography of sport units.

There are 2 Google Earth related projects...
The first refers to the English Premiership.

This content overlay shows the origin of the first team players of the 4 biggest clubs: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.

You can see the geographical composition of the teams in 3 ways:

click on the team emblems to see a pie chart of the players nationalities
check out the lines connecting the team emblems to the players countries of origin. Broader lines mean more players come from that particular country. Enable and disable the clubs you want to visualize in the table of content
click on the flag icons of the countries to see what players originate from a particular country

The second one is more ambitious and targets all the clubs that were involved in the World Cup 2010

Every country is represented by the country border outline and an icon with the country flag. Clicking the country icon will open a balloon with the squad list of the country. For every player a link is provided to take you to the stadium of the club the player is affiliated with. Lines connecting the country to the clubs of the members of the countries national team are also provided.

The data comes from the GLOBAL FOOTBALL DATABASE which is a useful site for those teaching about global sport.

Also check out the one for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHY

There's also - rather nicely timed this find - of HIV / AIDS PREVALENCE rates.

There's also a GOOGLE EARTH FEATURES QUIZ so that you can get to know Google Earth....

This is all excellent work !!

JigsawGeo App - with free offer for US visitors...

2011-09-05T17:40:00.002+01:00

I was contacted recently by Steve VanderLeest to let me know about the JigsawGeo app for iPhone.

It's produced by SquishLogic and is available on the App Store.

Steve told me about the apps, which are for a range of different continents and areas.

They would be good to have on a class iPod Touch (or set if they were available)

The apps were developed with feedback from a Grade 5 class studying geography. The students took their review seriously and gave us many great comments, which we implemented in revisions to our app. The result is a great game that provides beautiful maps, teaches elementary kids (and adults) the geography of important areas of the world, and is fun too.

High scores get posted to our website so you can see how you stack up against the competition. We take privacy seriously, especially for kids, so we ask that they only post their first name and we only indicate the state or region that the player is from (nothing more specific).

You can find more info on the website: http://squishlogic.com/JigsawGeo.php

Your readers can find the whole line just by searching for JigsawGeo in the Apple iTunes app store. The apps work on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices. They cost 69p.

For readers of this blog who are in the United States only, Steve has made available a special offer to readers of the LIVING GEOGRAPHY / CULTCHA blogs.

There are three free PROMO CODES below, which are available on a first come-first served basis. They are for the Jigsaw GEO Europe game.

The first US reader to use a code gets it, then it expires at that point, so first-come, first-served.

These codes (only available in the US) expire on 3 Oct 2011.

YWRN6JHFMP6F

HXXWR9ME7AF4

4L3TA4KXXFA7

Who knows - when the new Curriculum review is published, this sort of knowledge might be the basis for a whole year's work !

Some VITAL work

2011-09-02T18:03:00.001+01:00

Later this month, the Open University and e-Skills UK's VITAL professional development programme is launching a range of subject specialist portals for a number of key subjects, including English and Literacy, History, Maths and Numeracy, Modern Foreign Languages, Music and eSafety.

I am delighted to announce that from later this month, I will be the manager of the Geography portal.

I shall provide more details of the URL and other aspects of the work later this month when they start to go live.
I'm delighted to be associated with VITAL, and will be serving up a rang of services for visitors to the portal.

For those who are unsure of Vital's role.

Delivered by the Open University and funded by DfE, Vital provides:

inspiring ideas to inspire your learners
materials you can use in your own classroom
opportunities to share expertise with your peers

What does Vital offer?

flexible, cost-effective courses that fit with your busy schedule
case studies of how other teachers are using ICT in their own lessons
collaborative spaces to share ideas, experiences and materials
guides to key technologies and ideas on how to use them in the classroom
interviews with leading practitioners
advice and support from ICT specialists
useful links
Information about opportunities using Vital learning activities as a basis for gaining academic awards and credit.

Discovering Britain - new from the RGS-IBG

2011-08-26T20:40:00.001+01:00

Thanks to Jenny from the RGS-IBG for letting me know about the imminent launch of a new site which offers a fresh look at the UK.

The site is called DISCOVERING BRITAIN.

"We are developing an exciting series of geographically-themed walks across the UK that aim to bring these stories alive and to inspire everyone to explore and learn about our different landscapes."

Look forward to seeing the full site when it appears in just over a month's time....

National Geographic : Geography Awareness resource

2011-08-17T21:33:00.001+01:00

Earlier this year, I was involved in an exciting project with National Geographic Education in the USA as part of the Geography Collective. This led to my friend and colleague Daniel Raven Ellison spending a week at the National Council for Geographic Education conference in Portland, Oregon, and working with educators from across the USA.

This project has been an exciting one to be involved with. It offers a range of activities which can be carried out in your neighbourhood, and earn points for completing them. Would be good for exploring local areas, local wildlife and ideas of community. These will be used across the USA for their Geography Awareness Week later in the year.

You will need to have registered with TES Connect, which is free and takes a few moments.

You can then DOWNLOAD THE BOOKLET as a 34 page, 13 Mb PDF and check it out.

Please take a look and let me know what you think...

Superb VIMEO films

2011-08-04T10:44:00.001+01:00

Via Al Humphreys and Victoria Ellis

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Superb...
Watch full screen...

First minute of the new school year SORTED....

Also follow the links to LEARN and EAT...

Dartmoor

2011-07-26T20:40:00.001+01:00

Spending a few days barn & dog-sitting in a rather fine barn in the Dartmoor National Park.
It's stocked with shelves full of books, WiFi for Spotify and a wine cellar... So it's got pretty much all I need.
One of the books is Ian Mercer's 'Dartmoor', which is published as part of the Collins New Naturalist Library with a lovely cover by Robert Gillmor.
I liked the description of Ian Mercer as "a geographer and naturalist at heart, never happier than when revealing the secrets of a landscape".

The author's foreword begins:
"This book is about my perception of a landscape, and what knowledge is needed as a foundation to that perception..." which is an interesting statement, as it links with some of the ideas in the GA's current CURRICULUM consultation.

He goes on to say "the attraction of true local geography is that it depends upon the wielding of a broad brush much of the time, but allows the display of intricate detail to illuminate corners of the canvas wherever necessary."

Dartmoor has a number of interesting landscape elements: the geology is complex and age-old, there are the tors crowding the skyline with their slopes of clitter below, the mires in the low-lying areas, scarps and plateaux, the 'passes' cut through the peat by early travellers, lines of reaves, the china clay and kaolinite, the leats that were used to drain water towards mills and as urban drains, the commons and forests and the reservoirs.

As soon as I drove up onto the high moor from Moretonhampstead earlier today, over the sheep track (cue the old joke about breaking wind as the car drives over it...) we were into ponies, sheep and shaggy faced cattle with Dutch and German tourists parked up nearby with long lenses.

Opening the OS map of the moor provides plenty of other factors that have changed the landscapes.
The National Park designation, the battle to preserve the commons that has been going on for hundreds of years, and even the military. Large areas of the moor are designated as "danger areas". The military have been using the moor for over a hundred years, often to practice firing weapons.

There were also the tin miners and the stannary towns including Chagford, which I popped into earlier (more shops should be like the Aladdin's cave of Webber and Sons)

There were also the turnpike roads, which converged at Two Bridges. A fine pub garden to sit in, and the track starts from there to Wistman's Wood, which I shall return to later.

There is a lot of useful detail in the book on the role of National Parks and the NPA.

There are mentions of some management of visitors and the landscape, including the DARTMOOR VISION (from 2008) and also the TAKE MOOR CARE campaign, which reduced the speed limit to 40 mph on the unfenced areas of moorland.

There are some useful FREE DOWNLOADS. These include some really useful resources - check them out...

There is also a link with past glacial activity, and periglaciation. This is an important period in the UK's history, and you'll find patterned ground, stone stripes and other evidence of frozen ground on the border of glaciated landscapes.

Dartmoor was also a case study that I used for Edexcel 'A' level as there was a section on a landscape that was the result of GRANITE.
Chapter 2 explores the importance of granite to the landscape, and the volcanic intrusions into the country rock that shaped the prominent features. Also introduced me to the metamorphic rocks such as hornfels.

Later chapters explore the weather and the importance of water, flora and fauna and the various farming practices that have shaped the moors. The moor is an Environmentally Sensitive Area, and has a number of SSSIs.
There are also a few locations where climbing is possible. These include Hound Tor, below which is the famous snack van (popped in there last year): "The Hound of the Basket Meals".

Finally, there is mention of one of my favourite mysterious places: the fern covered ancient oaks of Wistman's Wood. The trees are contorted, and grow amongst a clitter of boulders to a height of around 4 metres. They have beards of ferns and other plants, and lichens. A place of real mysterious power....

All images: Alan Parkinson

Was also reminded of the album cover to the Yes album "Tormato", which features a map of part of Dartmoor, particularly the area around Yes Tor. Check out "Release, Release"...

A recommended read...

A-Z of Tourist Misinformation

2011-07-24T17:22:00.001+01:00

Thanks to Russel Tarr for tipoff to this resource - warning: some other sections might be a bit risque...

It's an A-Z of Tourist Misinformation...

Might make an interesting cultural geography task...
Would be useful to try to write them for other locations too...

Geography of Disease

2011-07-07T20:12:00.001+01:00

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

2011-07-07T16:26:00.001+01:00

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

Westward Moving House - updated post

2011-07-05T18:20:00.001+01:00

I was contacted by Josh from Places Online Journal today.

"Places" is an online journal of architecture, landscape, and urbanism.

"I'm pleased to share the news that we've just republished J.B. Jackson's classic essay "The Westward-Moving House," originally published in Landscape in 1953, which traces the evolution of the American house over three centuries and across the continent. It's a big text -- 10,000 words -- and a big moment, as we have the pleasure of introducing a new generation of readers to Jackson.

Geographer Paul F. Starrs and photographer Peter Goin at the University of Nevada, Reno, have purchased the archive of Landscape and plan to digitize the archive and make it fully accessible. Fewer than a dozen libraries have a full set of the magazine, so this is great news for scholars.

"The Westward-Moving House" was last anthologized 15 years ago and is now out of print, so we are very pleased to partner with Paul and Peter to make it available online.

Read the WESTWARD MOVING HOUSE here... on the Places / Design Observer website

A good read...

UPDATE
Thanks for the latest addition: a response to the above piece that is called the EASTWARD MOVING HOUSE.

GA CPD events in November 2011 - hope to see you there...

2011-06-28T11:58:00.000+01:00

Well, one perhaps as I doubt you'd come to both...
These are the first of the GA CPD events that I shall be doing in the new academic year that have so far been scheduled, and thanks to Lucy for sending me the flyer...
The events are NQT Conferences.

Look out for a mailing coming into schools shortly, and also inserts in GA journals....

If you'd like to secure your place, or find out more information about the events, there are several different prices depending on the status of your GA membership. Call Lucy Oxley at the GA on 01142960088 for more information.
I look forward to seeing some of you in November !
And I'll be mentioning this event once or twice between now and then....

Young Geographer of the Year - now with added teacher prize for NQT / PGCE

2011-06-16T21:36:00.001+01:00

The annual Young Geographer of the Year Award has been launched by the Royal Geographical Society in association with Geographical magazine.

This year there has been a slight change of format for the awards which I think makes it a stronger opportunity, and will result in more "useful" and insightful responses...

Geography surrounds us: on the world map on your classroom wall, in events on the news, or the changes taking place in your local area and further afield. Geographers strive to better understand the connections between the world’s people, places and environments and the interactions taking place between them.

To help us understand our world we ask questions such as; Where is this place? Why is it like this? How is it connected with other places? How is this place changing? and Why are these changes taking place? We like to zoom between the local and the global scales and are fascinated with maps, not just to find out where places are but to also show how places are connected, their human and physical characteristics, and the differences between them.

So if you’ve ever wondered where your ipod was made, where the plastic in your recycling bin ends up or why climate change is on the news you’ve already been developing your geographical understanding.

Without geography we’d be lost and this year’s Young Geographer of the Year gives you the chance to answer the question:

'What should every good geographer understand?'

Visit the website to download the application / entry forms and give it a go.
There are 4 age categories, which correspond to KS2, 3, 4 and 5...

This year there is also a new award for PGCE / NQT teachers too.....

The Rex Walford Award for PGCE students and NQTs

The Society is also delighted to announce a new element of the competition - The Rex Walford Award for PGCE students and newly qualified geography teachers. Reflecting Rex Walford’s passion for training new geography teachers, this award will be given to a PGCE student or NQT who creates the best set of teaching resources, scheme of work or lesson plans linked to this year's Young Geographer competition. The winner will receive a Society Fellowship for one year plus a cash prize of £150 and their materials will be hosted on the Society’s website.

Get your geographical thinking caps on - you have to be in it to win it....

Richard Long exhibition

2011-06-10T15:06:00.001+01:00

There's a new Richard Long exhibition at the Haunch of Venison in London.

I am in London next week and will make time to go and see it. Seen Richard Long's work in a range of locations over the years: from the Guggenheim in Bilbao to the foyer of DEFRA on Millbank, and various other places...

Special crabby ale...

2011-05-31T17:31:00.004+01:00

For Cromer festival...

I'll have a half please...

Very flat, Norfolk... allegedly

2011-05-31T17:28:00.001+01:00

Jennifer Watts posted on her blog about a nice collaborative effort which she has set up...
She had just finished a book "50 writers on 50 states", where the USA was described in a range of different 'voices'... and thought that this might usefully be adapted for the UK, and ask lots of people to

If anyone is reading this and would like to get involved in writing a short chapter, around 3-5 A4 pages on a county they know well in the UK, please get in touch. Chapters could typically include things you value about the county: places, highlights, traditions, changes, features found in the county that maybe overlooked, or just how you feel about the county, what does it mean to you, and why?

I've volunteered to write the chapter on Norfolk.
I'll base some of it on the session that I put together for the GA Norfolk branch when I was the president of the Norfolk branch in 2010 - this had lots of ideas for teaching about Norfolk and the way that the county was described...

Very flat, norfolk

View more presentations from GeoBlogs

I dreamed of David again...

2011-05-26T11:05:00.002+01:00

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....

Food Geographies

2011-05-19T11:31:00.001+01:00

GA subscribers to Teaching Geography have the chance to use a really well put together unit of work which has been written by Suzie Farmer.
It is called "Planning for Progression: making sense of famine and feast" and explores issues of food production.
There are downloadable documents on the GA website which accompany the article.

BBC report earlier this week looked at the contents of an FAO report also identified the shocking figure that a third of the world's food is wasted...

Image: Alan Parkinson

Click to download Tim Hess's excellent GA Conference presentation on the water that is involved in food production too.

http://geography.org.uk/download/GA_Conf11Hess.pdf (PDF download)

What I bought at the supermarket...

2011-05-18T14:18:00.002+01:00

For a food-related project I'm planning...
Everything I bought on my last trip to the supermarket.... (I went to Waitrose on this occasion, but normally go a lot more down-market...)

Could be used to explore issues like:

- sourcing: local or worldwide
- production methods: freedom foods, organic, Red Tractor, PGI
- packaging
- health: convenience or home cooking ingredients
- seasonality (they were bought in May... which of them are "out of season")

Other ideas, please add them below...

Oh, and I forgot the kitchen roll...

South Downs National Park

2011-05-14T09:44:00.001+01:00

All schools that lie within the newly designated South Downs National Park will soon receive an education pack which was put together by the Geographical Association.
It features a range of activities to explore the geography of the National Park, and the idea of landscape as a palimpsest...
It matches nicely with some of the ideas in my KS3 Toolkit: "Look at it this Way", which is available from the GA's online shop.

The pack will also be available to download from the South Downs website from Monday 16th of May....

Geography Media Blog

2011-05-11T19:29:00.000+01:00

The Geography Media blog is a new discovery for me via Tony Battista....

Some really interesting posts broadly in the area of geography and culture...

The blog is written by Ben Cotton an AST from St. Katherine's school in Bristol, and is involved in the new RGS-IBG Bristol network.
A quick browse has revealed a number of really interesting and stylishly presented ideas... also approve of the Jonsi and Alex clips :)

MyFarm - National Trust project...

2011-05-08T20:11:00.001+01:00

My Farm is an ambitious project that has been announced by the National Trust within the last week (this blog post was ready on the day but has been sitting in draft for a while), and has been getting quite a lot of press and media coverage.
It extends the idea of virtual farming with very popular online games like Farmville (which has tens of millions of players) to an actual farm, part of the Wimpole Hall estate near Cambridge. I have been to the farm myself some years ago when my kids were much smaller...

The website provides some background detail as to how the scheme is going to work. The National Trust are looking for 10 000 people to invest £30 in the scheme, which will allow them to take some decisions relating to the farm. They will vote on a range of issues relating to the management of the farm, although given its organic status and location, there are obviously going to be limits as to what those decisions might be...
I am tempted to go for it, and may well do so in the next few days if I can get £30 together from somewhere....

Here's a map of part of the estate where the farm is located.

All a long way from the old Herefordshire farm game of the late great Vincent Tidswell....

The virtual farmers come from a range of backgrounds judging by the messages that are already appearing on the forum site that goes with it...

The £30 to take part could perhaps be raised by a teaching group / year group, or even taken from a departmental budget as an investment in curriculum engagement.

There are already some farmers who are geography teachers such as this person here:

There is a YouTube video here, one of several from the MY FARM CHANNEL which sets the scene for the first few decisions which will be made once the virtual farmers have been recruited...

A similar sounding project (by name) is FROM MY FARM which provides information about seasonal produce for consumers...

This links through in turn to the BRING BACK SUNDAYS website and campaign which is aimed at getting us eating a Sunday roast again.

Cultural Diversity Examination context...

2011-05-04T15:22:00.000+01:00

The pre-release material for the Edexcel 'A' level specification for the June exam has now been released. These are questions for an exam for UK students aged 16-18. One of the options is called "The World of Cultural Diversity" and I have blogged about it before...

Here is the question for this year: the second part will involve the students in doing some research.

Explore the concept of cultural diversity and varying views about globalisation‘s impact on cultures and their diversity.

Research the contrasting influences of globalisation on cultural diversity at a range of locations and scales.

Over at the Edexcel GCE Ning that I set up (moderated membership) there is plenty of opportunity for discussion on these themes, but if any readers have suggestions for appropriate places for those researching this question, you can add them below as comments....

Thanks in advance

GeoCurrents

2011-05-03T16:30:00.002+01:00

GeoCurrents is a newish blog (to me at least) which is run by Stanford University Senior Lecturer Martin W. Lewis. It's updated very frequently with new articles, and is starting to get some discussion going among its visitors. Professor. Lewis is also co-author of two of the leading geography textbooks used in the USA, and GeoCurrents is where he spends his writing time in between textbook revisions.

Worth a look..

#ukcside - the British seaside...

2011-04-28T17:11:00.001+01:00

Another great collaborative Twitter project response...

Yesterday, I asked colleagues who follow me to provide some descriptions of the British Seaside...
Words that appear larger were mentioned more frequently by the word cloud generator.

First of all a WORDLE - click the image below to be taken to the Wordle page...

Here is a Tagxedo version of the Wordle...
Click for biggery...

Thanks for all the contributors.
What words would you choose ?
How could you use this diagram as a resource in the classroom or for a homework task ?

GA News: your help needed please...

2011-04-25T20:05:00.002+01:00

I would like to ask for your help if that's OK...

I find myself in a rather strange position that I've never been in before..

The Action Plan for Geography 1 & 2 funding that the GA has had for the last 5 years comes to an end this month and the result of the myriad of current changes in education, school funding streams, closure of support organisations and general uncertainty means that project funding is not available to support the work of the subject associations in the way that it has been in the past.
In order to reduce costs in the short term, and ensure that the Geographical Association has a longer term future, staff time reductions have been made, and sadly I am affected by this. I was anticipating a reduction in time due to the financial situation facing schools, local authorities, and the majority of the country. I also know that there are many other colleagues in a similar situation...

However, the reduction in my time is rather more than I was hoping, or planning for. It is a reduction to zero, and from the end of May (or August as I have 3 months notice to work) I will be unemployed.

I would be very grateful if you could give some thought to any opportunities for me to work with you, or for other opportunities that you are aware of that you think might suit me.....

If you are reading this blog then I hope you are well aware of the substantial contribution to education (particularly of the geographical kind) that I have made over the last decade, which has included:

- Websites such as GeographyPages, which contains thousands of weblinks and freely shared resources and still attracts 50 000 visitors a month on average
- Weblogs such as Living Geography, GeoBlogs, Supporting Geography Teachers, Look at Landscapes etc.
- Innovative Geography teacher projects such as the Geography of Happiness Project, GeoBlogs project and the Google Earth Users Guide - thousands of blog posts with daily updates
- Creation of the GCSE and 'A' level NINGS for most of the new specifications - introduced the idea of Nings and sharing for new specification changes- thousands of members of these networks now benefit from the sharing of the core community
- Thousands of posts and moderation of the SLN Geography Forum since 2004
- Twitter stream with thousands of resources and other links at @GeoBlogs
- GA Magazine editorial, Webwatch columns, and other content and articles
- Articles for Teaching Geography, Geography, ApoGeo (Portugal), OS Mapping News, Education Guardian and other journals and newsletters
- The 'Language of Landscape' resource that accompanied the OS Free Maps for Schools in 2010
- Online CPD courses for the TLA and TDA
- The 'Functional Skills' National Strategy booklet and activities
- The KS3 Toolkit book "Look at it this Way"
- Secondary Geography Handbook extension project on EAL
- Developing GIS course which has been used around the country in association with Esri (UK), as well as plenty of free GIS stuff including Google Earth and other software such as Aegis, Many Eyes etc.
- Mission in Mission:Explore, Mission:Explore On the Road and Mission:Explore Camping, plus iPhone app
- Numerous short pieces, reviews and BETT reviews in 'Education Guardian'
- Authored numerous content for the GA website including a whole series of Online CPD units on the theme of Geographies of Food, Food Security, Geography and Careers
- Resources on events such as the Japanese Tsunami and the Eyjafjallajokull eruption which resulted in the highest daily visitor totals to GA website
- Forthcoming books to support KS3 and iGCSE teachers by a number of publishers
- Thousands of shared photos on Flickr account
- Over 170 events attended since September 2008 at numerous schools, Universities, Conference venues and GA branches with over 60 000 miles driven in my faithful black Citroen... and many late night train journeys and usage of my Travelodge "loyalty card"...
- CfBT Regional Subject Advisory role in the East of England for the last curriculum change
- Support for a large range of organisations in terms of consultation, ideas, support, publicity
- Numerous references and letters of support written for projects
- Plenty more that I could mention....

and of course thousands of phone calls, e-mails, blog comments, Twitter conversations and other professional support and development.
If there's an idea, resource, website or geographical thing out there, I've probably blogged it, tweeted it or came up with it in the first place. I am very grateful for the opportunity that I have had to work for the Geographical Association for the last three years.

I'd like to carry on doing that, or to return to the classroom (although I'm 'old' and expensive so that could be an issue for me too....) - have been checking the TES for the last few months and you might see me at an interview near you shortly...

I do have some events and projects already lined up, and some colleagues and contacts have already been in touch to offer me some work. I am VERY grateful to them for that, and will be telling you more about them over the next few months as I slowly adjust to the news. However, this will currently not bring in enough money on the regular monthly basis that I need...

As always, you can see where I am going to be by looking at the right hand column of the LivingGeography blog. If there's a date that I'm not already booked and you have something appropriate please get in touch. I do travel... :)
Have worked with teachers in Iceland and Austria (with Poland to come...)

I hope to carry on "living geography" for a good while yet....
Thanks for reading...

Image: Alan Parkinson

Mass (Geographical) Observation

2011-04-21T11:33:00.003+01:00

One of the things that I am quietly 'obsessed' (ish) with is the Mass Observation project, which dates back to the 1930s
I have a number of books which drew on the project: one by Simon Garfield, and several chunky ones by David Kynaston.

I keep checking on the recruitment criteria, but sadly they never seem to want people my age in my geographical area.

Elements of Mass Observation also creep into several other books that I own, and there are elements of cultural geography in the data patterns and other outcomes from the project.

Now everyone has the chance to be a Mass Observation person for the day, and the day is the 12th of May, which is coming up.

Details of how to participate are HERE

You'll need to keep a diary on the day in electronic form, and include a disclaimer that it can be used in the archive...

Write as much as you can about what you do, who you meet, what you talk about, what you eat and drink, what you buy or sell, what you are working on, the places you visit, the people you meet, the things you read, see and hear around you and of course what you yourself think.

I'll be taking part, and will be having a typically geographical day I'm sure...

GA Conference 2011 - University of Surrey, Guildford

2011-04-19T14:37:00.002+01:00

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

GA Conference 2011

2011-04-06T12:43:00.001+01:00

If you are reading this blog you may well be heading to the GA conference at the University of Surrey in Guildford.
It's next week, which is a bit scary as I still have a lot to organise, but cracking through it today.
Just been circling the sessions that I'm planning to attend in my conference booklet, and there are plenty of them... the variety of sessions means that there is definitely something for everyone...
One additional event that isn't on the programme is the chance to meet myself, Richard Allaway of "Geography all the Way" fame, and David Rogers: author, teacher and chair of the GA's Secondary Committee... We will be in a pub near the centre of Guildford at around 8.30pm...
The drinks won't be free... but they'll be reasonably priced...

Full details, including maps and everything, are on Richard Allaway's GEOGALOT blog...

What are you most looking forward to at the GA Conference this year ?

Don't forget the hashtag... #gaconf11

Geography Collective and Cultural Olympiad

2011-03-29T10:21:00.001+01:00

One of the things I'm proudest of in the last few years is my involvement with the Geography Collective, and our Mission:Explore books, iPhone app and other activities...
We can now announce our latest project, thanks to the project leadership of Daniel Raven Ellison.

We are very pleased to say that we will be delivering a major project for the Cultural Olympiad as part of the Discovering Places programme called Discover Explore. Discovering Places is funded by a grant from Olympic Lottery Distributor (OLD) through the London Organising Committee of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG). It is delivered by The Heritage Alliance with the support of key partners.. one of which is us.

We will be working closely with The Workshop to create something very beautiful and cool which will be launched this summer.

“The project aims to inspire young people and their families to discover hidden, extraordinary and important historical sites and stories in cutting-edge and engaging ways. The unique collaboration between Discovering Places, The Geography Collective and numerous small and medium scales historic and natural environment organisations will inspire active participation, animate spaces, raise awareness of environmental sustainability and enhance learning by linking up local heritage assets.” The Heritage Alliance

‘We are extremely excited to be working on this cutting edge and creative strand of Discovering Places. This project is going to open up opportunities for children and families to explore and experience places in new ways and have a great deal of fun while thare are at it. We will be uncovering heritage in ways that will demonstrate how inclusive the Cultural Olympiad is and break new ground on engaging young people with the people, places and stories of not only our pasts but our future’s past.’ Daniel Raven-Ellison, Project Director, The Geography Collective

To read more about the Cultural Olympiad, Discovering Places and our project take a look at the Heritage Alliance newsletter here.

Look forward to meeting the rest of the Geography Collective in May to kick-start the project...

FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER !!

Learning Score - get it while you can....

2011-03-23T11:42:00.001Z

John Davitt's genius lesson planning tool: LEARNING SCORE is now available for a limited time only as a FREE download with a lifetime license.
I paid actual cash money for this about 6 months ago to use with teachers, so this is great news for those on limited budgets...

To see how it might be used Doug Belshaw has made a video of him planning a history lesson.

Rory's Story Cubes

2011-03-21T19:48:00.001Z

During my lunch-time at the Education Show I took the opportunity to do a quick trip up and down the aisles to make sure that I saw as many of the stands as possible and have a chat to anyone who had a geographical connection, or who caught my eye.

One stand I particularly wanted to see was the CREATIVITY HUB stand, where RORY's STORY CUBES were available.

I have these cubes as an iPhone app and also as the infinitely preferable 'real thing', and have used them with many teachers over the last few years to explore the ideas of geography as "writing the earth".

I have used my cubes with hundreds of teachers as a way of exploring creative writing, including my sessions at various conferences. By using a net for creating a cube such as the one below, taken from MATHSISFUN with thanks, you can also add your own cubes...

Cut out the shapes and add your own words or instructions on the six sides relevant to the subject that you are using them for.

If you were making a set of geography cubes, they might contain instructions. These could be used to add a map symbol or place name, to turn a particular compass direction (to direct a route across an OS map sheet perhaps), or to describe a particular landscape.

I got a set of ACTIONS cubes to mix in with them, and had a chat with Rory - who looks just like his picture on the flyer.

I was also really impressed with the MAX cubes, and a bit disappointed that they were only prototypes and not available to buy - not yet anyway... Follow the link to add your thoughts on whether they should be made more widely available for the particular reasons that are suggested.

Follow Rory and the team on Twitter @storycubes, and read this story from the Belfast Telegraph for some information on what they are planning yet. Some interesting projects to come...

Thinking about disasters...

2011-03-18T17:20:00.002Z

..is something that a lot of us have been doing for the last week...

So have other colleagues... Simon Jones has posted the results of his thinking on the presentation below, which he has shared on Slideshare. Some really interesting and challenging questions...

Thinking about disasters

View more presentations from Simon Jones

There was also a response from the Guardian's DATA BLOG, which had a comparison between Japan and Haiti as part of its DECADE OF DISASTERS piece.

There is also a useful NUCLEAR POWER feature which shows the number of power plants that may now have an uncertain future, and face far more stringent safety checks and procedures. Useful mapping in both of these features...

Responses to the disaster have spread far and wide.
Fears over the nuclear radiation that is likely to spread from the Fukushima plant caused salt to sell out in China.

Thanks also to Fred Martin for sending through this intriguing link.

This is all 6 major channels at the precise time of the earthquake laid over each other.

The one in the top left is NHK (Japanese equivalent of the BBC) and the others are all commercial broadcasters. Which channels react the fastest - how long do some of them take to react ?

Warning: may give you a headache...

He also told me about the website which shows the live Geiger counter readings for Tokyo.

Thanks to those people who have left a comment on the Tsunami page on the GA website.

Subdivisions...

2011-03-18T16:25:00.001Z

Got my ticket for the Rush 'Time Machine' tour in May at the Sheffield Arena: over 30 years of hard rocking and a full play through of 'Moving Pictures': it's going to be loud...

One of my favourite Rush tracks is called 'Subdivisions'...

There are plenty of amazing aerial images of the various Subdivisions of cities in the USA on Chris Gielen's TWISTED SIFTER blog. Here's one from Florida...

And here, for your musical education (because this blog isn't just about geography you know...) are Rush performing the song live as part of the R30 tour...

Lyrics by Neil Peart - plenty of geography here...

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown...

The Education Show

2011-03-15T21:37:00.001Z

The GA will have a stand at this year's Education Show 2011 at the NEC.
We will be in Hall 6&7 on Stand P30A - the subject association area (as at BETT) - the show starts later this week...

Come along to pick up the latest catalogues, see some of our new publications, browse some GA resources and be told about the support for Primary and Secondary colleague that members can expect, as well as our CPD support and online networks.

We would be interested to hear your views on the curriculum review, English Baccalaureate, and other challenges facing geography in schools, as well as the opportunities presented by these 'interesting times'.

I will be setting up and manning the stand on the first day of the show: Thursday the 17th of March

Alternatively, come with a USB drive and I'll let you have some free resources from my hard drive...

I'll also be handing out various bits for those who get there early...

My colleagues Nicola Donkin and Paul Baker will be on the stand on the other 2 days of the show...

Look forward to seeing some of you there...

Another world-changing event...

2011-03-13T20:19:00.002Z

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

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.

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

Great review for the new Mission Explore books...

2011-03-07T12:42:00.001Z

From explorer Benedict Allen...

“This young explorers’ kit is endlessly adventurous – a journey in itself. An utter delight – full of surprises and things to make you look at the world afresh."

The books will be published on the 1st of April

Wonders of the World

2011-03-06T14:17:00.001Z

I asked my Twitter followers to suggest/nominate a natural and a man-made "Wonder of the World" that (importantly) they had seen themselves... and to add the hashtag #nqtgeog11

Here are the results:

Natural Wonders
Colca Canyon, Peru
Solheimajokull Glacier, Iceland
Here's a picture of me on that very glacier in 2010:

Jostedalsbreen, Norway
Cheddar Gorge
Tropical Rainforests
Yosemite Valley
The Cuillin Ridge, Skye
Here's one of my images of a section of the said ridge:

The Cenotes of the Chicxulub meteor impact in Mexico
Cwm Idwal
Landmannalaugar region of Iceland
Valle de Mai, Praslin, Seychelles - home of the Coco de Mer
Fingal's Cave
Bryce Canyon, Utah
The Alps
Grand Canyon

Man Made Wonders
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
Here are some pictures that I took when I visited....

Petra, Jordan (2 votes)
Great Wall of China
Serapeum, Temple of the Bulls near Cairo
The CERN Large Hadron Collider
Sydney Harbour Bridge (3 votes)
The London Sewers
The Emirates Stadium
Shah Mosque, Esfahan
St Pancras Station
Eden Project, Cornwall
Jamaa el Fna, Marrakech as the sun sets...
The Burj Khalifa - just been reading about the At the Top attraction and browsing pictures taken from the top - incredible...

My own choice is probably
Natural: Prekestolen or Pulpit Rock in Rogaland, Norway, which I visited in 1984 and have never forgotten...
I had a dodgy camera at the time, so didn't get any decent pictures. Here's one from TrekEarth, which is used with thanks to Kris Verhoeven

Man-made: The Blue Lagoon

Here's one of my images:

Which amazing places do you 'visit' with your students ?

Urban News for a Sunday morning...

2011-03-06T13:42:00.001Z

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...

ESRI Mapping Tool

2011-03-05T09:20:00.001Z

A nice mapping tool produced by / for the ESRI Education community , which offers a range of base maps, and tools to draw on top of the base map to create a personal map. I liked the text tool, which allows labels to be placed by clicking on the map.

The finished map can then be saved or printed.
Another option for map creation.

Try it out

Mission Explore Launch Drinks

2011-02-27T17:19:00.001Z

In just over a month's time, there are two new Mission:Explore books launched on the world by The Geography Collective and Can of Worms Press.
Here are the front covers for those who are interested. They are already available to pre-order on Amazon so make sure you buy at least one copy....

There will be launch events in London on the 1st and 2nd of April, but if you are around in London on the evening of the 31st of March, you can join us at the Old Explorer, just a short walk from Oxford Circus.

Sign up to join us....

Plenty more to come in a month's time...

Edgelands

2011-02-26T14:56:00.001Z

Holiday reading...

Took the plunge into KINDLE apps....
An interesting exploration of the urban-rural fringe...
References Marion Shoard's classic article... (click to download PDF)

For a taste of the book, see this INDEPENDENT article...

Olympics 2012 - the legacy...

2011-02-22T20:22:00.001Z

Thanks to John Widdowson for alerting me to the existence of this website from the LEGACY COMPANY, which acts as a tremendous additional resource for those teaching (or planning to teach) about the Olympics 2012. It includes an excellent interactive map with a number of 'layers' which shows the true scale of the Olympic park, and the various developments that are planned.

The GA will be producing a whole range of resources for the Olympics nearer the time, and we have already had a range of Olympics activities including a teacher conference, and of course Bob Digby's ongoing tours of the Olympic Park (there is a chance to take part in one of these on day one of the conference)

There is a large section on the Sustainability of the Olympic site in John Widdowson's GCSE toolkit book, which is now available from the GA shop.

There is also a Top Spec Geography title which is forthcoming, and a KS3 toolkit publication too.
With the opening of the velodrome today, this is a good time to take another look at what is planned for the park, plus there is the ongoing talks about the football future for the Olympics stadium itself.

There is a useful brochure on Scribd which is embedded below...

Future of the Park launch brochure

Masters in Space Residential Weekend

2011-02-14T19:26:00.002Z

You have a chance to book a place on a weekend with a difference... thanks to the Geography Collective.

Are you playful and creative, with a conceptual interest in space?

Develop new perspectives on the philosophy, production, exploration and representation of space by attending our Master In Space course and gaining a Master In Space qualification.

The Master in Space course is carefully (un)planned around a series of semi-structured units. All units are ‘unknown’ before the course begins, but are likely to include free, thinking, restricted, open, public, child-like, bound, exciting, eventful and other forms of space. While no specific skills are needed you can expect to immerse yourself ‘in space’ by working with paint, ink, typewriters, string, projection, sound and many other tools, mediums and approaches. You must successfully complete three units to become aMaster in Space.

Take this course to:

· immerse yourself in space and spatial thinking

· be awarded a unique qualification

· earn the right to wear (MiS) after your name

· meet like-minded people from different fields and backgrounds

· be playful, creative and explorative.

The course takes place over a Master in Residence all-inclusive residential weekend, from 6pm on Friday 18 November to midday on Sunday 20 November 2011.

The course costs £150 and includes:

· 2 nights in shared accommodation

· Fabulous meals

· Beer, wine and soft drinks

· All equipment and resources

· Official certificate of award

· Master in Residence Membership for one year.

Where is this course taking place?

Join us, at YHA Medway, a traditional Kentish Oast House in a country park setting, close to historic Rochester, Chatham Dockyard and the Kent Downs. Chatham railway station is two miles away. Trains from London take 40 minutes from St Pancras and one hour from Victoria.

www.geographycollective.co.uk

...

Terms & Conditions

The course fee is non-refundable.

You must be aged 18 or more to take part.

We reserve the right to change or cancel this course. If the course is cancelled we will provide a full refund.

All participants will be asked to sign a damage waiver on arrival

Tickets are available from EVENTBRITE.

I am #OneOfOneThousandGeographers - are you ?

2011-02-14T11:33:00.001Z

If you're a geographer, and are reading this, and also use Twitter, you need to send a tweet with the hashtag here: #OneOfOneThousandGeographers.
This will then be picked up by Dan from the Geography Collective, and we'll add you to the list... We're well over 100 now, and next stop, 1000 !

Human Planet

2011-02-09T16:53:00.001Z

Just ordered my DVD copy of this amazing series, which should perhaps be an essential part of every geography department's multimedia library... It should perhaps sit alongside Planet Earth, Coast, and various other DVDs which I bought...

There are so many clips and aspects of this series that should find their way into the curriculum in lower school, as well as supporting many GCSE contexts.
There are 8 episodes in the series.

There are chances to watch some of the previous episodes that haven't yet been broadcast on the iPlayer page

Check out the BBC HUMAN PLANET EXPLORER for more details.
Some fabulous images and other media on the HUMAN PLANET BLOG.

Check out the SURVIVAL SKILLS resource too... splendid..

Following on from last week's FORESTS episode, there's an excellent GUARDIAN INTERACTIVE on the world's endangered forests.

Finally, don't forget that you can get embeddable videos from each programme too, such as this one of the CEMETERY dwellers of MANILA

Silent Snow

2011-01-27T09:59:00.000Z

One of the findings of the recent trip to Salzburg (did I mention that ?) 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.

This would fit with another recent student project...

BEYOND THE BRINK

Salzburg

2011-01-24T17:04:00.000Z

As a preview to the forthcoming posts about my recent trip to Salzburg, please find below a Flickr slideshow of the first lot of images I have added to Flickr. More to come once I've had the chance to tidy a few of them up and choose my favourites.
One of the highlights was the amazing Alpine panorama as the plane took off for the return to Stansted....

The cultural connection that most people think of is Mozart, but there is also 'The Sound of Music'....

400 up...

2011-01-15T19:49:00.000Z

This is the 400th post on the Cultural Geography blog.
It's gone well so far, with some good contacts made through the blog, and various books that have come my way to take a look at, notably the wonderful MAPPING books that were sent at the end of the year.
I continue to be fascinated by the scope of Cultural Geography to develop students' understanding of places, and their relationship to them.

If anyone has any ideas for where the next 400 posts should go, let me know.
I'm going to be exploring the culture of Salzburg in Austria next week, so I'll let you know how that goes...

Mission:Explore at the Outdoors Show

2011-01-15T19:42:00.001Z

Here's Dan at the Outdoors Show at EXCEL on Thursday of this week..
He's talking about MISSION:EXPLORE.... Watch out for the TWO NEW Mission:Explore books coming out later in the year...

If you'd like to partner with us, or find out more about having missions written in your area, or getting us into your school, get in touch !!

The Dandy

2011-01-13T20:11:00.001Z

My son gets The Dandy every week. This week's issue of Mr. Meecher has him teaching a funny geography lesson...

Old travel posters

2011-01-12T19:11:00.002Z

Thanks to @hoddergeography for the tip-off to an evocative set of images...

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY has a Flickr set of beautiful old travel posters...
Here's a couple of examples, there are many more by following the link...

Mitre Peak, New Zealand...
I'll get here one day - as featured in my KS3 Toolkit book: "Look at it this Way"....

I also really like this Joseph Binder image of Austria. Made even better by the fact that next week I fly out to Salzburg for 4 days to work on a European-wide GIS project.

Images made available under Creative Commons license...

Commercial break...

2011-01-12T12:29:00.001Z

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 :)

Dr. Rex Walford - geographer...

2011-01-06T09:38:00.002Z

Earlier this week, one of the first e-mails to be received by GA staff after the Christmas break was the sad news that Dr Rex Walford, OBE & President of the GA in 1983-4 was missing after a boat accident in the Thames over the Christmas period.

Rex was one of the most influential post-war geographers and few teachers will have been unaware of his work, or gone through their career without encountering his huge contribution to geography education.

Image copyright Bryan Ledgard - Rex and Fred Martin at the official opening of Solly Street

My first introduction was in the form of the idea of Games in Geography, guided by my PGCE tutor, the late Vincent Tidswell. As a gamer myself, I enjoyed developing some of my own variations on Rex's ideas, and remember the contributions that Rex made to Teaching Geography.
I met Rex numerous times as he visited Cambridge University PGCE colleagues who had their placement in my school through the 1990s.
More recently, we met again at Madingley Hall for the 2010 Geography Teacher Educators' Conference, where I was privileged to hear him talk through his involvement in the famous lecture series in the 1960s, and showed documents from his remarkable archive. He was also present at the recent official opening of Solly Street, and can be seen on the front cover of the most recent issue of GA Magazine. He was also one of the many influential faces from Geography's past (and future) who attended a recent seminar at the Institute of Education.
Yesterday, I went down into the GA warehouse, and read through the issues of Teaching Geography from the time of Rex's GA presidency. One of the articles was by Rex himself on the issue of Marking in geography, and contained useful advice, written back in 1984, which still holds true today...

Article by Rex from Teaching Geography, 1984

A brief message by Professor David Lambert has been added to the GA website - there will be a fuller remembrance in future GA journals and events.

You can comment on the message on the GA website if you want to add your own messages to remember Rex. There are already plenty of messages on the website.

About.me

2011-01-01T20:45:00.001Z

A new place to direct people to: your own online profile page.
A useful online 'business card'...
Here's my ABOUT ME PAGE

The Domestic Soundscape

2011-01-01T20:00:00.000Z

Thanks to Joe Moran for the tip-off to this intriguing project by Felicity 'Felix' Ford.

First of all a blog called 'The Domestic Soundscape'

Secondly, a radio programme on a road that she uses each day, which you can catch on LISTEN AGAIN if you're quick.... The A4074...

Some intriguing stuff to start the new year...

Great 'psychogeography'...

Day 1 of 365

2011-01-01T19:39:00.001Z

I've followed quite a few of these projects. The idea is that you post something each day for a whole year.
I've never done one before, mostly because I forget to start one on the 1st of January, and then decide to wait until the next time round.

This year I remembered...

Different people post different things: images, videos, song lyrics, poems, quotations... you can basically add what you want.
I'm going to use POSTEROUS for my 365 as I can post to it from my iPhone using the POSTEROUS app, but also have the option to e-mail posts to the blog as well. Never used it for more than the odd blog post either...

Visit the 2011x365 BLOG HERE, and feel free to subscribe...

FrozenUK

2010-12-22T15:51:00.001Z

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...

Thought for the Day

2010-12-20T14:54:00.000Z

They've got Pepsi in the Andes
McDonalds in Tibet
Yosemite's been turned into
A golf course for the Japs
The Dead Sea is alive with rap
Between the Tigris and Euphrates
There's a leisure centre now
They've got all kinds of sports
They've got Bermuda shorts

Roger Water: "It's a Miracle" from "Amused to Death"

Time to eat the dogs...

2010-12-19T15:17:00.002Z

I'm always on the lookout for map -related items, as I'm preparing for a few map-related things early in the New Year.
There was a really interesting post on the intriguingly named "Time to eat the dogs" blog earlier this week, that I found via Twitter and something else (as is often the way...)

The post is about the idea of 'terra incognita': this is a phrase that was once used on maps, but these days there are no unknown places... or are there ?
Gerald Zhang Schmidt suggests that the blank spaces are cultural rather than physical.

"...one can no longer go out to many places where no tourist has tread before. In fact, because of globalization, the traveler feels as if she has seen the world already, and while many places are still fun to visit (if exotic enough), there is nothing truly new."

Fits with the Taras Grescoe book "The End of Elsewhere", which I have blogged about before...

He goes on to explore the sort of thinking that led us at the Geography Collective to create Mission:Explore:

"How well do you know the people and paths in your community or the species that dwell in your own backyard?"

A final link from Gerald is his interest in the cultural significance of chilli peppers... geography and food combined...

Maps as cultural objects

2010-12-19T12:38:00.000Z

This looks very cool - thanks to Kenny for the tipoff...

The Ning's the thing...

2010-12-17T16:16:00.001Z

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...

Points of View...

2010-12-16T16:37:00.001Z

A new feature was added to the GA website yesterday, following discussions by the Website Editorial Board earlier in the year, and some great work by the web team.

You can now JOIN THE CONVERSATION..
As a GA member, when you log in you will be able to add a comment to any page of the website and, if you have purchased an item from the GA shop, you can also add a STAR RATING and a comment. This will let us develop more of a community feel to the website (non GA members will have to wait for their comment to be moderated) and if you are logged in you can add an image to your profile.
I have added a comment to the page which contains my WINTER TEACHING IDEAS, so feel free to take a look at that and add your own thoughts...

The snow is falling again outside the window as I press PUBLISH POST...

Please help me with the answers to these questions...

2010-12-09T11:11:00.000Z

A little experiment to crowd-source some answers for the Edexcel GCE Geography specification.
This examination, taken by students in the UK when they are doing their 'A' levels - age 16-18, has an optional unit called "The World of Cultural Diversity".

The unit has a focus on cultural geography, and is based on 4 key areas.
1.Defining culture and identifying its value
2.How and why does culture vary spatially?
3.The impact of globalisation on cultural diversity
4.Cultural attitudes to the environment
There is a very useful guide by the Chief examiner that can be downloaded from HERE.

The title for this year's exam has just been released, and is below - there are 2 parts to the question, one of which involves research.

Explore how external threats and internal vulnerability vary in their impacts on cultures and landscapes.

Research contrasting locations and examples to show why the impacts of these pressures vary in their severity and type

So if any of you lovely blog visitors have thoughts on resources, websites or other approaches to answering this question, please feel free to add them as a comment below, and we'll see what happens....

Infinite City

2010-12-07T20:35:00.003Z

Another tip off via Twitter...

The INFINITE CITY is an article about a new book by Rebecca Solnit, who we like a lot at the Geography Collective.

It's an 'atlas of San Francisco', but not the usual type...

They are designed to make the reader think anew about the city of San Francisco—its history, natural habitat, economic function, political values—and, by extension, about the way we all imagine the places we live in. "A city," Solnit writes in her introduction, "is a particular kind of place, perhaps best described as many worlds in one place; it compounds many versions without reconciling them."

Ordinary maps show only the physical infrastructure that these "many worlds" share—streets, rivers, monuments.

The maps in Infinite City, on the other hand, treat the physical city as a blank slate, on which many different experiences can be overwritten, like texts on a palimpsest.

Exciting urban geography...
Sounds like a fascinating book !!

New IB Geography course from the GA...

2010-12-05T12:25:00.001Z

The International Baccalaureate is being considered by a growing number of teachers as an alternative to more traditional courses.

IB Geography - Reflecting on the 'new' syllabus
This CPD course will help Post-16 teachers, both new and experienced, reflect upon the demands of the IB geography diploma programme.

The 'new' 2009–2017 syllabus will have completed its first cycle in the summer of 2011 and this one-day course will provide an excellent opportunity for teachers to reflect upon the first cycle and make plans for the next.

London - Friday 24 June 2011

Further details and online booking are available on the GA website

The course tutor is Richard Allaway, creator of the rather wonderful GEOGRAPHY ALL THE WAY website.

Google Earth 6

2010-12-05T12:15:00.001Z

A new version of Google Earth was released recently: GOOGLE EARTH 6...
It includes millions of 3D trees, and other improvements, including better integration with Google Street View

Go to the AMAZON for example, and you can wander the jungle and explore some of the tree species in the rainforest... I'm sure we can come up with some ideas for using this in the geography classroom :)

And don't forget my Innovative Geography Teaching funded project from back in 2005...

Russia 2018

2010-12-03T14:06:00.001Z

Anyone want to buy some second-hand England 2018 geography resources ? Hardly used ?

An interesting resource is this movie below: the short movie used as part of the England bid.
Would be good to look at it for cultural / global references... - the power of the brand of some Premiership teams... What are the messages coming across ?

Or how about this one for showing the scale of football in terms of its economic importance to the country, and our culture ?

You can also see the bid movies from the other countries on YouTube... Could be good for comparative work.

David Lambert at the SSAT Conference #nc10

2010-12-02T09:41:00.001Z

David Lambert gave a keynote lecture to the 2010 SSAT annual conference on Friday 26 November.

He addressed round 1500 school leaders on the question: are subjects in crisis?

Obviously he focussed on geography and made some positive remarks about the recent White Paper The Importance of Teaching and its intention to recentre the school curriculum on 'knowledge'.

You can see a video of David's lecture on the SSAT website (take a look at Dylan Wiliam's session while you're there....)

The slides that David used (you might want to listen to the presentation while watching the slides, or put them side by side on the screen...) are available via SLIDESHARE... and have been embedded below...
November 2010 SSAT Presentation

View more presentations from GeoBlogs.

If you're snowbound today & your school is closed take a look...
Think of it as a little impromptu CPD

Derbyshire Poetry Walk

2010-11-29T10:43:00.000Z

If you live within reasonable travelling distance of the Peak District, you might be interested in a poetry / geography / history event being organised by my friend Rob Hindle.

Blitz
A descent in the traces of the first bombing raid on Sheffield, 12 December 1940

Longbarrow Press invites you to join Rob Hindle on a walk in the traces of the Blitz:

Sunday 12 December

Meet at 1.30pm prompt on Platform A, Sheffield Bus Interchange

The walk will start on Hathersage Road near the village of Dore at 2.30pm

Total distance approximately 6 miles. There is an opportunity to join the walk at Cafe #9 in Nether Edge (see below) at 4pm. The walk from this point is a little under 3 miles.

For the 70th anniversary of the Sheffield Blitz, Rob Hindle has devised a poetry walk that will illuminate the attack on the city by German bombers on 12 December 1940. The journey will begin at Dore Moor and end in Fitzalan Square (Sheffield City Centre), with Rob reading and discussing poems that emerged from his original plotting of the walk last winter, descending from the edge of the city to the site in the centre where the most devastating blast destroyed the Marples Hotel. The walk is timed to start in daylight and finish in darkness.

Everywhere the smoke

like ink in water

everywhere fires like marsh gas.

Admission £5 (includes unique CD package designed and produced by Longbarrow Press).
Bus fare from Sheffield central bus station to Dore Moor is approximately £2.50.
Places are very limited and must be booked in advance through Rob Hindle (email: robhindle361@gmail.com, phone 0114 232 2714); early booking is advised. The walk is moderately paced over mostly level terrain and will take 3½ hours or less. Please wear warm, weatherproof clothing. There will be opportunities to rest during the walk, including a stop at Cafe #9 on Nether Edge Road at around 4pm.

GA Conference Programme 2011

2010-11-19T09:10:00.002Z

Geographical Association Conference & Exhibition 2011 Programme

Coming in 2011... Decemberists album and UK tour :)

2010-11-16T09:07:00.000Z

Vaughan Cornish : geographer

2010-11-07T20:28:00.001Z

Vaughan Cornish was one of the most influential geographers of his time. He was born in the 1860s in Suffolk, and had a career spanning 60 years. He was President of the Geographical Association during that time.

Last Friday, while putting some boxes down in the warehouse at Solly Street in preparation for the official opening (of which more later), I found a brown cardboard box, which was labelled "Vaughan Cornish Original Prints" and excitedly opened it to find about 50 large prints on thick card, several of them stamped as being entered for the 1904 St. Louis photographic exposition. Took a few images of some of them...

Some of them featured pictures of wave forms, an area which Cornish was particularly interested in.
I loved the silvered blue finish on some of the prints, which had faded in the century since they had been made, and then hand labelled by Cornish himself. There was also a print taken after an earthquake in the Caribbean, which I had read about him experiencing (he was injured in the event), and a snowdrift in Manitoba (another area that he was interested in)
Made me re-visit a plan that I had about 5 years ago to write a short book(let) on Cornish, when I did a bit of research about him.
Might be worth rethinking... would be a good excuse to delve into the GA and RGS archives, and also apparently those of the University of Oxford.

There's a good article on Vaughan by Andrew Goudie (another influential geographer) on JSTOR, and the abstract provides a few clues to follow up on his various interests.

I also have a copy of the book "The Beauties of Scenery", which was an attempt of his to objectively evaluate the landscape, and is worth hunting out in a second hand book-shop.

Google Books has a few links such as HERE

Pakistan Flood Relief music, featuring Peter Gabriel

2010-11-02T22:30:00.001Z

SAGT Conference 2010

2010-10-25T11:43:00.001+01:00

Up to Glasgow for the last few days for the 6th consecutive SAGT conference, this year held in the city for the first of its 3 year residency.

The weather was mixed, and the journey up was not without its delays either, but the actual day of the event was bright and cold, and managed to get some nice pictures taken in the evening, as above - looking along the Clyde from the Crowne Plaza hotel and SECC.

My presentation was part of the overall conference programme, which included a number of familiar names from previous events, and from English geography circles...

I arrived the night before the conference, and over to Hutcheson's Grammar school via a jammed M8 to set up the GA stand. The school was a nice mix of ancient and modern, with a wonderful church for the keynotes. Our hotel was next to the SECC, and the Finnieston Crane and made my way back there eventually after various diversions to meet with Dan and Noel, and out for a meal with Val Vannet at the City Cafe, overlooking the Clyde and the Clyde Arc (or Squinty bridge as it is called - one for LOCATION LINGO there....)

The following day, over to the venue early and set up. Met lots of delegates for chat, Ken and Darren from the Ordnance Survey, who gave me lots of jute bags, and Paul from Mapseeker. John Hopkin: GA president for 2010-11 came up to do the fraternal greetings after the first inspiring keynote from Al Humphreys.

David Rogers, Noel Jenkins and Dan Raven Ellison were among the other seminar presenters, along with Ollie Bray, whose Hodder Gibson book also won an award. Good to see a few of my Twitter followers popping up as well, and gained a few more over the weekend.
Writing the earth

View more presentations from GeoBlogs.

My seminar presentation (or a version of it at least) is above.
Handouts included a copy of "Chop one red onion" from the PGCE Survival Guide, and a range of other resources and maps.
I also read one of Rob Hindle's poems from "Neurosurgery in Iraq".

SAGT Delegate Notes

After the 2 full seminars, it was a final keynote from Alun Morgan.

Earlier, I had collected two awards for the GA's publications: COMMENDED awards to GCSE toolkit and TOP SPEC series...

Out into the sun for the evening, and over to the Granary with Kenny and Akiko for a pint and chat with Ollie.
Another good SAGT experience.
In the evening, did some photography with Noel along the river, and then food, after a 'mystery tour' of Govan....
The following morning it was a simple matter of scraping ice off the car, and a 350 mile drive south...

David Rogers has posted his seminar presentation on his blog already, along with a write--up... Will be blogging about his present later...

All pics by Alan Parkinson, and available on Flickr.

Michael Palin's love of Geography

2010-10-16T21:47:00.001+01:00

taken from the ATL Magazine

"...it is renewing itself 24 hours a day... [and] remains for me the freshest and most exciting of subjects. Geography is about understanding our world. It illuminates the past, explains the present and prepares us for the future. What could be more important than that?"

Institute of Education Seminar

2010-10-10T21:59:00.001+01:00

The latest in the Engaging Geography series, which was originated by the late Duncan Fuller, and now organised by his great friend and colleague (and fellow Geography Collective member) Kye Askins is being held on Wednesday of this week at the Institute of Education.

Here are the details.
I shall be 'recording' as much of the events as I can to help with my nascent MA studies, and own professional development....
If there is phone reception, I shall be tweeting from the event too... some amazing speakers...

Date: 13th October 2010
Venue: Room 836, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1 H 0AL
Convenors: David Lambert (Geographical Association / Institute of Education) and John Morgan (Institute of Education)

Programme:

10.30: tea/coffee

11.00: Introduction to the day.

Introductions [10 mins]
David Lambert: Do we have to say what geography is? To whom? [10 mins]

11.20: Session one. ‘Setting the scene and whetting the appetite.’

Professor Alastair Bonnett: Geography in public. Geography as one of humanity’s big projects? [20 mins]
Dr Jessica Pykett: The public in geography. Can the public(s) be identified? (20 mins]
Discussion: [10 mins]

12.15: Lunch & informal discussion [Room 802: 30-40 mins]

1.00: Session two. ‘Particular settings and perspectives’.

Key elements and participants (10-15 minutes each, including questions) are as follows. Contributors are encouraged to provide specific instances, examples or case studies to illustrate or exemplify the points they wish to make.

Geography and young people – does geography matter to me? With school students from Charters School, with teacher Dan Cowling;
School geography – stuff to be delivered or a resource to be used? With the Geographical Association’s ‘community geographer’ Bob Digby;
Communicating geography in policy environments – what works? Royal Geographical Society (with IBG);
Communicating geography within education. With Jenny Hill (University of the West of England), newly appointed to the Editorial Collective of Geography.
Communicating geographical perspectives in the public media? With Joe Smith (Open University),Interdependence Day and co-author of Do Good Lives have to Cost the Earth?
Imagining a post-progress – a ‘real post-modern’ – geography. With John Morgan, author of Teaching secondary geography as if the planet matters, and member of the Geography Editorial Collective

2.30 pm Discussion: Michael Young: what is a Powerful Knowledge?

Michael Young is a distinguished Professor of Education at the Institute of Education. The disciplinary basis for his research is the sociology of knowledge, represented by two career spanning and important books:

Young, M. (1971) Knowledge and Control. London: Collier Macmillan.

Young, M. (2007) Bringing Knowledge Back In: From social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education. London: Routledge.

Michael will provide a 20 minute input, possibly picking up on matters arising from the above, plus further time for questions.

3.15: Tea break

3.30: Session 3. ‘In what ways is geography a powerful knowledge to communicate, and to whom?’

1. Pairs or threes [40 mins]

Write down (in a form that can be left with the seminar organisers):

specific ways in which geography is a ‘powerful knowledge’
particular ‘publics’ who need access to geography as a powerful knowledge (and why)

2. Feedback-discussion, based on a ‘one-minute headlines’ from each group [30 mins]

4.40: Brief round-up and short break

5.00: Session 4. School Textbook Archive (with wine and nibbles)

Launch of the Geography School Textbook archive: a fully catalogued collection at the Institute of Education, assembled by donation and financial assistance from the Frederick Soddy Trust.

Opening up opportunities to study the ‘knowledge of the powerful’ and ‘powerful school curriculum knowledge’ in the context of school geography. With Ashley Kent, Emeritus Professor of geography Education and leader of the archive project.

6.00: Depart

New Teaching Geography now available for download...

2010-10-04T13:09:00.001+01:00

The latest issue of Teaching Geography is now available to download by those who subscribe to it....

It features a range of inspirational articles on the theme of place by Mark Jones, Eleanor Rawling, Becky Kitchen, Margaret Roberts and others...
Articles range from a teacher visit to Greenland, to the urban re-branding and renaissance of Scarborough...

To add a subscription to your GA membership, or to join (and gain access to the last five years of journals in electronic format) click the JOIN THE GA link.

Commonwealth Games: geographical curriculum making...

2010-10-03T16:11:00.002+01:00

The Geography of Sport has found its way onto many KS3 schemes of work.
It made its way onto mine as I used to teach in a Sports college. The PE department had a lot of money, and we didn't so it made sense to start to make a few connections. Remember that at this time of austerity, any additional source of funding for geography departments needs to be explored.

The World Cup has been and gone, the Olympics aren't until 2012 (although that is getting closer every day... literally a day closer)...
Just been watching the first part of the opening ceremony for the COMMONWEALTH GAMES.

The weblink above includes details on getting the bid document, for activities which involve planning a bid for the games in your local area...

The idea of designing the cultural element of the opening ceremony of a similar event in your home area has already been explored elsewhere.... perhaps the giant helium balloon used in Delhi could become a giant Yorkshire pudding on which images of the county were projected, if they were held in Sheffield ?

With many official languages, a huge variety of landscapes and diversity. the ceremony included a lot of music, costumes etc.
I liked the henna hand painting from beneath...

Good for exploring cultural diversity in India, but also how an event like this will raise awareness of the country. A nice REUTERS SLIDESHOW has some good pictures contrasting ancient and modern India.

Don't forget the Geographical Association shop has a range of resources for teachers considering teaching about INDIA.

A TOP-SPEC book written by Gill Miller & Sue Warn on the new Superpowers of India and China (some sample materials are available)
An INDIA map
A series of DVDs made for the GA in association with Pumpkin.
There are 4 DVDs in the series, and there are discounts for ordering more than one disc.

A sample of the DVDs can be seen on the YouTube ChannelPumpkin which has clips from lots of DVDs to whet your appetite.

A Primary Super-schemes book on a village in India.
Plus the classic Ladakh and Chembakolli photopacks....

Don't forget that GA members get big discounts in the shop, so JOIN NOW.

Coverage of the Commonwealth Games on the BBC

Suresh Kalmadi at the Opening Ceremony:
"India is ready to host the Commonwealth Games. We have the second fastest-growing economy in the world. There have been delays and challenges but we have risen to the challenges and we can do it. Despite the adverse publicity, all the Commonwealth nations have stood by India. This Games will be the largest in history."

Edexcel Cultural Geography resources...

2010-09-30T09:31:00.000+01:00

One of the good aspects of the new Edexcel AS/A2 Geography course is the support in the form of additional materials (and of course the seminal NING)

It's great to hear from Jon Wolton that there are some new guides for each of the units which include ideas, and suggestions for related news items and articles.

Click HERE to go the download page for the World of Cultural Diversity resource

Hurray for Nollywood....

2010-09-29T11:22:00.000+01:00

You've heard of Hollywood, and Bollywood, and now a third country takes the stage (or screen) in the shape of Nigeria's 'Nollywood'.
This has been featured in a few current newspaper articles, such as The Guardian one here.

Many of the films are made in local languages, and are therefore important culturally.

Cinema is an essential part of global culture, and there is a long tradition of geography teachers using films in their teaching, sometimes to teach about particular concepts, or natural hazards.