Teach in Cambridgeshire or the area nearby ?

You might be interested in this event in November which I'm having an input into...

“Compelling Learning Experiences - Ensuring Pupil Engagement and Progress in the Geography Classroom"

16th November 2009 Cambridge Professional Development Centre, Foster Road, Trumpington, Cambridge, CB2 9NL

Ofsted are increasingly focusing on the enjoyment, engagement and progress made by pupils in lessons there is an increasing need to make Geography a Compelling Learning Experience so they actively participate, enjoy and raise their achievement in Geography lessons.
The workshops will focus on Active Learning, Thinking Skills, Enquiry Skills and developing the use of Questioning for pupils and teachers. These approaches are all key to delivering PLTS (Personal Learning and Thinking Skills) such as enquiry, investigation, evaluating, looking at things from different perspectives, problem solving, team work, asking and answering questions in the Geography Curriculum.
This course is suitable for all, including NQTs, non subject specialists, experienced Geography teachers and Heads of Geography.

Cost is low, at only £81!

Provisional Outline of the Day

9.30am Arrival and Refreshments.

10.00am ‘Questioning Geography’ David Beresford Cambridgeshire County Associate Advisor
and Advanced Skills Teacher – looking at engaging pupils through images, developing questioning, active learning and thinking skills.

11.00am Refreshments.

11.20am ‘A different View’ Alan Parkinson from the Geographical Association - a look at the new free resources from the Geographical Association.
.
12.20pm ‘Geography on safari’ – use of fieldwork (in and out of school) for enquiries and
investigation into personal Geography and the ‘real world’.

1.20 pm Lunch.

2.20pm ‘Thinking inside the box’ Amanda Alderton SSAT Lead Practitioner– ‘learning from objects’ for enquiry and questioning. Why let the Historians have all the fun with museum object boxes? Struggling to get pupils out of school for fieldwork? Bring the museum to the classroom!

3.20pm Refreshments and Evaluation.

Sessions will include ‘hands on’ activities, ideas and resources to take away.

Booking Information
Cost is only £81 (including a £1 environmental levy)
Booking is online via the SSAT. To book a place go to www.schoolsnetwork.org.uk/lpseminars
For further information contact Amanda Alderton: aalderton@stbedes.cambs.sch.uk

Ordnance Survey Viral Ad

Just remembered this when thinking about something else...



Still makes me laugh after all these years...

09.09.09 or 10:10

I remember being in school for 07.07.07
Can't remember much about 08.08.08, but it would have been in the school holidays.

Later this week we have 09.09.09

The date is being seen as auspicious by a number of organisations, who are using this as the date when they are launching products. Quite a few films are opening on that date. The remastered Beatles catalogue will be available on that date too, and also in a Guitar Hero style game.

You might have thoughts on doing a "special" NINE NINE NINE theme in your geography lessons on that day (or this week if you don't have many timetabled that day)

NINE lends itself to the classic 'Question of Sport' pictureboard style activity with 9 options...

• Find some "geographical nines..."
• Latitude and longitude 9 degrees, minutes and seconds - where do you end up, N, S, E and W ?
• The ninth largest, richest, most populous etc. country...

And this has now gone one better with the 10:10 campaign, which is related to carbon reduction...

What's the story here ?

A superb art installation in Berlin

Weatherbonk Widget

Why not get one for your blog (via Twitter)

Atlantic Rising: the journey begins...

Have blogged about the Atlantic Rising journey before.
The expedition is the 2nd winner of the RGS-IBG's "Go Beyond" bursary.

The itinerary has now been posted on the RGS-IBG website, which would allow teachers to follow the route, and to research some of the local impacts in the locations that the Land Rover will pass through...

Here is the text from the official press release:

EXPEDITION SPREADS WORD OF CLIMATE CHANGE TO 10,000 ATLANTIC SCHOOL CHILDREN
A team of three graduates have received a Land Rover Defender 110 and cheque for £10,000, at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London, to embark on an expedition of approximately 32,000km , through 31 countries, to raise awareness of the potential impacts of climate change along the Atlantic coastline. ‘Atlantic Rising’, recipients of the 2009 ‘Go Beyond’ Bursary, which was awarded by the RGS-IBG and Land Rover earlier this year, will navigate land around the Atlantic Ocean by attempting to follow the 1 m contour line which scientists forecast could become the new coastline in 100 years.
Tim Bromfield, Lynn Morris, and Will Lorimer, will follow the 1m contour line around the Atlantic as closely as possible, visiting schools and creating an educational network with up to 10,000 students along the route. They will report from some of the remotest coastal regions of the Atlantic Ocean and establish a sea-level change education project that can be used in 1,200 schools throughout the world via the Rafi.ki online schools network.
Tim Bromfield from Atlantic Rising said: “Education is the most powerful weapon we have to combat climate change. By encouraging students around the Atlantic to work together, we want to highlight our shared responsibility in dealing with this critical issue. By encouraging international networks, we hope to make people care enough to act.”
Dr Rita Gardner, Director of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), said:
“This project, made possible through our partnership with Land Rover, focuses on one of the most challenging issues we face – the potential impacts of climate change in coastal regions. As recipients of the Bursary, Atlantic Rising have been granted the opportunity to 'go beyond' their normal limits and boundaries and at the same time support one of the Society’s objectives which is to promote the wider understanding and enjoyment of geography.”
This is the second ‘Go Beyond’ Bursary run by RGS-IBG on behalf of Land Rover, whose partnership with the Society has existed for more than 20 years.
Land Rover holds sustainability at the core of its business activity, including sponsoring conservation partners such as RGS-IBG. Together with sister company, Jaguar, Land Rover is investing £800m in sustainable technology which includes the development of hybrid technology and the use of lightweight material. As part of Land Rover’s commitment to sustainability, the manufacturing and mileage of the 110 Defender vehicle are being carbon offset through ClimateCare who run Land Rover's CO2 Offset Programme in the UK , France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Austria and other international markets.
To keep up to date with the Atlantic Rising team please visit their website http://atlanticrising.wordpress.com
For more information about the Go Beyond bursary please log on to www.rgs.org and for more details concerning Land Rover’s sustainability programme please visit www.landrover.com/ourplanet

QR CODES

This was made with SPLASH URL
Could someone who has a QR READER on their camera let me know what happens when you capture this code ?
Apologies if it shows something rude...

And so....

the end is near...

Back to School tomorrow for many English and Welsh teachers...
Had a good summer myself: some geographical highlights...

• sitting on the pebbly beaches of south Devon
• wandering the miniature village of Bekonscot
• walking up to Hound Tor with NJ and a burger at the "Hound of the Basket Meals"
• the emptiness of Holme Beach in the sun on Bank Holiday Monday
• cruising across Barton Broad in the sun
  
• walking up to Gun Hill, Southwold, with views to Walberswick and Sizewell
• cooking a barbecue for 26 people: keep those sausages spinning is the trick !
• cycling down to my local beach with my daughter
  
• 3 busy days in the office getting through a myriad of different projects
• re-reading Cormac McCarthy's classic "Blood Meridian"
• sleeping in my own bed for more than a week at a time...

Journey to the Sinking Lands

Now on iPLAYER

The journey of Dan Box through the Sinking Lands, as blogged here before...

Why not use this as a teaching resource ?

People abandoning the Carteret Islands.

Listen to the description of the places that Dan visits, and get the students to tell the story in some way.

Postcards of the Future

Thanks to Paul Cornish on SLN for the tip off to this great Flash movie of Postcards of the Future.
Click the image below to see the movie (SWF format)If you need a blank postcard template (they work well printed on card), you can borrow mine from here.

Postcard Template

View more presentations from GeoBlogs.

Great work by Patrick Blower at Live Draw - check it out here.

Two more relevant ones in the archive:
Geo Engineering saves the World, and Ecotown

Cup winners !

Image by Flickr user thirtyfootscrew made available under Creative Commons

Last night was a glorious night at Searle's Resort, Hunstanton, as Old Hunstanton Bowls team beat Dersingham Institute to win the Countryside League Knock Out Cup for the third year out of the last four. We defied the strong winds, failing light and that dodgy raised bit in the middle of the green to win. I liked the comment made by the opposing skip at one point re. my bowling "your woods must have a sat nav in them"...

New GA website now live....

The GA web team: Anne Greaves and Ben Major, have been working away for months with designers Ledgard Jepson on a new website for the Geographical Association, and it is now live, after several weeks of beta testing and tweaking. Visit the GA URL http://www.geography.org.uk to see the new site.

The site looks a lot brighter, clearer and easier to navigate, and uses more of the screen’s width. Thanks to a major effort on tagging the resources, it is also easier to find things using the ‘Search’ function if they are not immediately obvious from the home page, and a new ‘Resource Finder’ should help you find something appropriate to the key stage and topic that you are interested in quickly, or items written by a particular author.

A one page user guide to the new site and how it’s laid out can be downloaded by following the link (PDF download): http://www.geography.org.uk/download/GA_NewWebsiteGuide.pdf

Members can also bookmark their most useful sections of the website on their own personal homepage. Logging in to the site will provide members with details about their account, and allow access to the journals which you subscribe to.

There are plenty of new items in the shop, which are displayed in a scrolling window, which will also suggest items that might be of relevance to you if you login.

News is easier to find, and has all been updated.

If you are not already a GA member, this is a good time to join and take advantage of the many membership benefits.

The website is also home to all the resources supporting the GA’s manifesto for school geography “a different view”.

Download the latest GA MAGAZINE from the site now

GA Website update...

Coming soon: the all new GA website...

The first 6 weeks

A new resource now added to the GA Ning, and various other locations.
Some ideas for helping the first 6 weeks go with a bang...

The first 6 weeks V2.0

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Let me know how it goes....

OS Free Maps for Schools

The OS Free Maps for Schools scheme is underway once again.
Schools will receive letters in September relating to the scheme. As in previous years, schools can claim a free OS Explorer 1: 25 000 map for each 11 year old pupil.

This year, schools will also receive 2 copies of a booklet called "The Language of Landscapes" along with the maps, produced in assocation with Natural England and the Geographical Association.

Social Networking / Identity genius from Tony Cassidy

Tony Cassidy's latest contribution to the geography resources pantheon is a resource which is based on the profile that people create when they join FACEBOOK.

Tony has created a blank FACEBOOK profile template in powerpoint, which could then be used to create a template for a huge variety of contexts within the geography classroom.

What if they had a Facebook profile?

View more presentations from TonyCassidy.

Tony himself suggests producing one for Old Harry: an extension of the classic - "Old Harry: This is your Life" idea....

On the SLN Forum, further ideas that were suggested by a number of colleagues included:

• The area / street the students live in
• A new migrant arriving in the UK
• Teenager in Kenya
• Resident of Dubai
• Young person on Baffin Island
• Mt. Vesuvius

Could also do it for a Country...

Could also use it as a context for teaching about e-safety

As many teachers in England and Wales prepare to return to school this week, this is just the sort of simple, creative resource that should strike a chord with pupils and ensure some thoughtful "writing" to start the new geographical year...

UPDATE: New TWITTER related template also now available...

Slow Coast

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. Ernest Hemingway

Nick Hand is currently cycling around the coast of Britain. His website is SLOW COAST.
Along the way, he is creating some wonderful short films, called SOUNDSLIDES made up of interviews with artisans and images taken at various locations.

A recent addition was the famous Monday auction held on the green at Burnham Market.
This gives a real "sense of place" and it instantly got onto the planning sheet for a lecture next year on Norfolk and "sense of place"...

These would be relatively easy to make with students, as they need a sound recorder, and Audacity to do a spot of editing, plus a set of images.

You can follow Nick on Twitter too: @nickhand

WDWTWA and a different view

It may be that you haven't yet visited the Who do we think we are website.

WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE has a very useful section written by Professor David Lambert, which provides an excellent summary of the appropriate links between geography and identity.

The site also has a NEW interactive area, which contains ideas for teaching about cultural diversity in various contexts...