Why is it so cold...

It's been flipping freezing for ages - been a while since we have had such a prolonged cold snap, which has frozen the lakes in the Fens near why I live. There used to be Fen skating meets, but they haven't happened for some time.

The culprit, as geographers could tell you is HIGH PRESSURE.

There have been a whole range of impacts:

• Worries over the health of pensioners who might not heat their house sufficiently due to worries over high fuel bills - the National Pensioners Convention has warned that 12 pensioners could die every hour due to cold weather - it has triggered cold weather payments in some areas
  
• Fountains freezing over in Trafalgar Square, and the SEA freezing over in Dorset
• School closures
• Problems with transport of various kinds...
  

What impacts has it had on your living geography ?

Over the American Landscape

Went over to Meadowhall last night for a spot of retail therapy on one of my "Sheffield nights".
Hadn't been there for about 4 years, and it was a crisp and clear night, and the lights were sparkling over the "Land of Shoppertunity" (rebranded...)Image by Flickr user TGIGreeny: many thanks

Meadowhall has also been dubbed "Meadowhell" by some.I have some resources on the GEOGRAPHY PAGES website which are still among the most visited pages, and widely used sections of the website.

Nearly bought this book: "Over the American Landscape", which looks at the impact of human activity on the American landscape: some remarkable images.

Quote of the Day

Via Twitter..

 “If social media aren’t changing the way educational content is delivered at your institution, they probably should be.”

Christopher Dawson

Quality Geography

Picture the scene...
You have a group of students sat expectantly in front of you. They have just arrived in the classroom, and have settled down. Perhaps there was a piece of music or video playing as they arrived - maybe there were materials waiting on the desk for them.

The activities that you have provided will determine how the next hour of those students' geographical experience develops. It may be the turning point when they finally 'get' geography, or produce a piece of work they will be proud of and remember for some time, or perhaps it's the final straw for their relationship with geography...

How do you know that they are:

a) enjoying their geography

and

b) achieving in geography

What evidence could you gather for this ?

These are questions that need to be tackled in schools which are applying for the Primary and Secondary Geography Quality Marks.

We discussed this area recently, but what are your views ?

GA Magazine 90

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

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

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

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

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

The magazine also features some of the prize winning entries from the STORY COMPETITION that the GA held recently.

In the autumn term we announced our Geography and Story Competition, part of the GA's contribution to the National Year of Reading. The response was fantastic, and we were flooded with hundreds of entries from schools across the UK. The students' enthusiasm for their favourite places really shone through, and the range of locations written about was incredibly varied. We were also impressed with the levels of creativity, both in terms of the content and the appearance of the submissions. With such an array of entries choosing winners was no mean feat, and it took weeks to narrow it down to the final few. We got there in the end however, and are now delighted to announce the winning entry in each category:

5-7 Winner Gaurav Sunner, Age 6, Cawston Grange Primary School, Rugby 'My Birthday Treat to London' 8-11 Winner Matilda Smith, Age 10, Orton Wistow Primary School, Peterborough 'Another Place' 11-16 Winner Zoë Reed Sanderson, Age 11, Headington School, Oxford 'On the Banks of the Ogooué River' A PDF of the winning entries can be downloaded.

World Accessibility Map

The European Union has produced a 'heat map': Global Accessibility

This is based on travel time to major world cities.
Image copyright: European Communities, 2008

The map comes from a WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography

This has a series of documentary clips called "GEOGRAPHY IN MOTION".

95% of people live on 10% of the land

Leeds GA Branch event

Hidden gems: the Crichtons’ alternative Wonders of the World - Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 18:00, School of Geography, University of Leeds

Peter and Eileen Crichton, authors of “Circling Home” and “Chasing Rainbows,” will be speaking of the highlights of their two overland circumnavigations of the world and their transAfrica trip. Open to all but year 9 in particular are invited to attend. For more information and to register please e-mail: ga@leeds.ac.uk Entry £1.

The Age of Stupid

Thanks to Simon Renshaw for the tip off to this film, which looks to be very interesting.
The Age of Stupid stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man looking back from 2055 at the situation in 2008 and wondering why we didn't do something about climate change. A description from Amnesty blog:

It is a drama documentary, with some animation,  with Pete Postlethwaite playing a man living alone somewhere in the Arctic in 2055, in a futuristic tower, containing a number of the world's artefacts, which have been saved, following the devastating impact of climate change. Most of the major cities of the world, including London are under water, with only a few iconic buildings e.g the London Eye visible and the major ice floes of the world have melted.

He draws on archive footage to ponder why the world didn't take the chance to tackle climate change when they had the opportunity to do so.

A trailer on YouTube...

Primary Geography Presentation

A rather nice presentation produced by my Primary colleague Wendy North, from her PRIMARY GEOGRAPHY BLOG.

Thinking Geographically

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: pgqm concepts)

It was produced for a PGQM teachers workshop and was aimed at encouraging teachers to think much more creatively about the kind of geography that they teach.

"All we need to do is keep talking..." 2

Regular visitors will know that I am heavily into social and professional networking as a means of continuous CPD. I have written a range of articles on this issue, and also introduced the use of NINGS.

This TES ARTICLE outlines the value of discussing your work with colleagues, based on work by Dylan Wiliam, who was involved with AfL.

Professor Wiliam says that if teachers hold monthly meetings where they report back on their progress, hold each other accountable and decide how to try to improve before the next meeting, they can introduce the AfL approach properly.

The “teacher learning communities” he envisages would focus on AfL techniques such as giving pupils feedback instead of grades, getting pupils to check and take responsibility for each other’s work, and increasing the time teachers wait for an answer after asking pupils a question.

“It is actually doing these things that is hard,” said Professor Wiliam. “Most teachers are aware of the ‘wait time’ theory, but they find it takes six months of trying for them to really slow down. It’s like trying to change your golf swing in the middle of a tournament.

“The idea is that every teacher makes a commitment to continually improving their practice. There are a lot of teachers who don’t think they need to improve.”

Also finally caught up with some earlier clippings which were put into the "to blog about" pile.

Liked Julee Holcombe's BABEL REVISITED image, and others that she has produced: some alternative geographies...

Global Warming - saving the world !

Back in May 2002, I started an online course on Climate Change which was run by the University of East Anglia. It was worth 10 credits, and involved me completing a series of assignments on Climate Change

Each assignment looked at a different aspect, such as the use of proxy data to track climate change, impacts in different parts of the world, and the possible solutions.

One of these was the use of iron filings to generate algael blooms.

Now today, the Daily Mail 'catches up', with an article on how algael blooms caused by iron filings could be a possible solution to climate change.

We'll see what happens... 

Recycle those cards...

Millions of Christmas Cards will be coming down in the next day or so as we get to 12th night....

Don't forget to recycle them, rather than chucking them in the bin...

As always the WOODLAND TRUST is coordinating a recycling campaign.

One tonne of recycled cards saves 17 trees...

Take cards to WH Smiths, Tesco, TK Maxx and other partners...

A Changing Landscape: Physical Geography

Just updated my materials for this conference, which will be held in London on the 5th of February. Go HERE for more details on how to register for the event.

“Planning for Change: The future of GCSE Geography - A National Conference in collaboration wth the Geographical Association”

The main features of this course include:

• The new specifications for GCSE Geography from AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC
• The changing nature of GCSE Geography and new expectations
• The new forms of assessment and their implications
• Independent enquiry based learning in relation to the new GCSE
• Using ICT to raise achievement and participation

Look forward to seeing some of you there perhaps ?

Also just finished some "international geography" work with some work for journals of Australian and Portuguese geography....

And now (if my wife lets me) I'm going to watch the football...

UPDATE: Conference cancelled again... oh well...

Change 4 Life

This campaign has just started. Lots of connections with how changing lifestyles impacts on social geography...

A few bits for today...

Over to see Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa - enjoyed it !

Developing your PLN in 2009

It's that day when people make their New Year's resolutions.

For many teachers, one achievable target is to extend their PLN, or PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORK.
That is easier than ever now thanks to the rise of the "social web", and websites such as TWITTER.

I have just been putting together a presentation for PGCE colleagues at Sheffield University (and later on UEA - and possibly some others...) and one section provides some suggestions for these new teachers to extend their PLN as they complete their course.

Here's a sneak preview (well, the title slide) - more to come later....

Here is a definition of PLNs, from 

http://arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/Portals/7/Language%20Arts/Smith/Personal%20Learning%20NetworksKarl%20rev%20(2).doc

Throughout history, humans have always created our own learning networks. When we needed to know how to do something, we sought out the expert in that field and they shared their knowledge. For example, hunters knew who to talk to about the latest in hunting techniques. Farmers knew who to talk to regarding the latest in agricultural technology practices. (And students could talk to their brilliant teachers!) Now we have the Internet to access more information about whatever we need to know. However, now there is not necessarily a need anymore to find “the” expert in a field of study. Instead, we need to create our own network of experts, our own Personal Learning Network.

What is a Personal Learning Network? 

It is a collection of resources that you can go to when you want to learn something. This includes family and friends, teachers, and people in the local community. It can also include non-human resources, such as books, journals and other forms of media. In the twenty first century, there’s also an extensive electronic network of resources that you can – and should – include in your network. 

What is in your PLN ?

Cape Farewell

Radio 4's "Material World" was on earlier today: the programme featured the CAPE FAREWELL voyages.
CAPE FAREWELL is the name for a series of voyages to the Arctic.

I used the GA's CAPE FAREWELL trip resources for my PILOT GCSE teaching from 2006-2008. They were rather good, and are still available from the GA Shop.

As I blogged a couple of years ago, I am available for the NEXT Cape Farewell expedition.....

Adobe Air

Just installed a few AIR apps:
TWHIRL: Twitter client
WEBKUT: Cut sections from web pages and save them as imagesSHRINK-O-MATIC: Image resizer

CGeog

Just finished putting together my CGeog Log for 2008, and discovered a quote of mine on the CGeog section of the RGS-IBG website.

Why become a CGeog (Teacher)?

"The CGeog is a qualification which spurs you on to improve your own professional development, and maintain the curiosity about the subject. Teachers should also be learners, and the CGeog provides a framework for that process, as well as recognition when it is achieved."
Alan Parkinson, CGeog (Teacher)

Why not apply to become a CGeog this year as a New Year's resolution ?

Got through a fairly hefty amount of CPD in 2008, but looks like there's even more to come in 2009.

Look forward to seeing as many of you as possible.

Happy New Year

Thanks to Eirikso on YouTube