Field Studies Council video of an 'A' level fieldtrip at Blencathra...

Check it out...







UPDATE


Check out the other great videos on the FSC's YOUTUBE Channel

Excellent Danny Dorling article...

An excellent article in the Sheffield Star on Danny Dorling....
Some good quotes for Geographers wherever you are...

Domesday Project

Had to write this post again after Blogger lost it during its recent 'outage', and then got stuck into lots of other projects, hence the delay...


Prompted by today's announcement of some educational materials on the blog, and also John Sayer's adaptation of the project for use with his students I thought I'd shove it up anyway in a rough and ready form...


A few months ago, we heard at a meeting in Solly Street about plans to bring the BBC Domesday Project into the 21st Century by revisiting the project 25 years on from its 1986 launch....

I remember the old discs. We had a player and discs in our geography department and as the resident technology person I made the most use of it... remember the disc player, the user manuals and the tracker ball... In fact I chucked the player into a skip personally some years ago. I remember being videoed by someone at some point talking about how to use the discs in the classroom.

Here's a video that was played at the launch of the RELOADED project, courtesy of Rory Cellan Jones.


A few weeks ago now, there was the relaunch of the BBC's 1986 DOMESDAY PROJECT, 25 years on from the original...
There was a lot of information on the discs, although it was of variable quality, and you can now experience that variable quality for yourself !

The DOMESDAY RELOADED project has attracted a lot of attention from the press, but also from teachers interested in the national collection of images and impressions of PLACES. Thousands of them.....

What change has there been in particular places over that time ? 
What are people's memories of the project ?

(A related site of interest is DOMESDAY MAP which takes you back to the original inspiration for the project.)

Some blog posts with recollections from Theo and Danny here:
http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/2011/05/bbc-domesday-reloaded/

http://theok.typepad.com/digital_signposts/2011/05/domesday-reloaded-part-1.html

http://theok.typepad.com/digital_signposts/2011/05/domesday-reloaded-part-2.html

I went out, and saw what changes there had been in my local area and took some pictures to update the ones on the website. I stood in the same place as the original photos and took some images to compare - was interested that the images on the disc were incorrectly labelled with the wrong names...

I'll continue to update this as more geographical support material emerges.
If you're doing something related to the Domesday project get in touch

Finally, I'm in possession of a set of the two discs: all reasonable offers considered....

Photosynth....

An e-mail just reminded me of my first Microsoft Photosynth, which was produced in March 2009 I just noticed...

Map Making Videos with Simon King

I didn't know about these before a blog post on the ORDNANCE SURVEY blog this morning...

6 Figure Grid References



Understanding Map Symbols



Know your Compass



and finally, Contour lines....

What do you want to be when you grow up...

Got that "back to school" feeling, except I'm not going back to school. But after a long weekend with plenty of beach time and a day in Norwich and some National Trusting it's time to gear up for some important meetings and a CPD session with colleagues in Sheffield this week, which has had me looking through some older materials and bringing them back to the future.
One of the many documents up on my desktop at the moment that I'm flitting between is a document as part of a writing project I'm playing catch-up with.
Just been reminded of an oldie but a goldie, which would make a useful updating of the traditional economic activities scheme of work. Made by Jeff Brenman, who also produced excellent Shift Happens and Thirst presentations....

The Future Of Work

View more presentations from Jeff Brenman

Where did your eggs come from ?

Got some eggs today from Morrison's and noticed the sticker...
WHERE'S MY EGGS FROM works with Morrison's Nature's Nest eggs....

You can look at the code on the egg and find out where they were from...
Turns out mine are from a chicken's cloaca...

The 'Country Life' Curriculum

Country Life magazine has recently posted a list of 39 things that it thinks school leavers should be able to do if they are going to have a better life.
Many of these are skills that they feel the average school leaver should have... I've had a quick look through the list and here are my comments and an overall assessment on my skill levels (bearing in mind that it's a while now since I left school, so if I was going to need these skills one would imagine that I would have used them by now...)

1. YES - if you count beans on toast...
2. NO - although I can ask where the toilets are...
3. YES - you should see me on the Bodhran (and Garageband)
4. NO
5. YES
6. YES - would get a good mark on this one...
7. YES - though I need to update my certificate
8. YES
9. NO
10. NO
11. NO
12. NO
13. YES
14. PROBABLY...
15. NO...
16. NO
17. I'd have a go...
18. Does a Roast chicken count ?
19. NO
20. YES and NO...
21. NO
22. YES
23. YES
24. YES
25. DEFINITELY...
26. Does the "52 Card Pick Up" count...
27. YES
28. YES
29. Probably my strongest skill this one...
30. YES
31. YES to the first one, but NO to the other two...
32. STORYTELLING perhaps but not Magic
33. YES, although I'd have to ask Derek Robertson to help me with the tent...
34. YES
35. YES... so far...
36. PROBABLY...
37. NO
38. YES
39. NO... unless it's in parcel and I'm the postman...

Read through the list in the Telegraph article first, to see how many of them you think you can do.
I'm not convinced I would do very well overall...

What would be your essential life-skills for school leavers ?
Can you and your colleagues cover all the skills between you ?

Thanks to @NessieFuery on Twitter for the original tip-off to the list...

The Sea and Summer

Copy of book that I'd seen at the recent "Out of this World" exhibition at the British Library (see my earlier blog post) arrived today...

Some intriguing geography futures....

#TMBeyond - Review 3

It's just over a week since Teachmeet Beyond, at the Craig's Campsite near Torpichen in Scotland.

The evening started with an excellent campfire exchange of ideas - was just thinking about the difference in the weather since last weekend... although the wind is picking up... Plenty of short ideas (which was the 'traditional' Teachmeet element before the longer hour workshops the following day, which I offered....

Iain Hallahan and Jen Deyenberg introduce the campfire section of Teachmeet Beyond - image by fizzics (Mr. Mackenzie)

It was particularly good to meet some Twitter friends in person for the first time, and make quite a few new ones. I didn't get the best night's sleep ever, but at least I wasn't shivering in a tent like several folks...
Thanks to Cassie Law I also learnt how to make stovies, and my pan-full seemed to go down well...

Food and Farming

The village where I live is surrounded by various farm types, including these "pig villages" - since I took this picture just a few days ago, there are now millions of poppies in this field.

Image: Alan Parkinson

A special football team...

Image by Flickr user IndieRonin and made available under Creative Commons - many thanks

Last weekend, on my way back from the special event that was Teachmeet Beyond, I had the chance to watch the Champions League Final.
Barcelona are a special football team. They have some excellent players of course, and do things in their own particular way: not taking corners in the traditional way for example...
One of the other special things that they do is to have a link with the children's charity UNICEF, which is about five years old now. Rather than have a sponsorship deal where the club is paid to advertise a trans-national company or local firm, Barcelona donate around 1.5 million Euros a year to fund projects by UNICEF.

It's also, as a Leeds fan, always a pleasure to see Man Utd lose...
I'm grateful to my Twitter stream for the 'company' of several people during the match... Lots of funny comments. One of them was "as if things aren't bad enough for Man Utd., they're going to get their losers medals from Nick Clegg"... and then he was actually there !

I was just rounding off this post and doing the final research and image selection when I came across this news item which sort of changed the slant of the post slightly...

Seems that from the 1st of July this year (in a few weeks time) the shirts will say QATAR FOUNDATION on the front. However, there will still be the UNICEF connection...

The Great Tour - coming in 2012

Back in the summer of 2010, a group of cyclists set off from Seaton in Devon on a journey that would take them around the coast of England, Scotland and Wales over the next 64 days, eventually arriving back in Seaton after an amazing tour of over 6000km.

The event was called THE GREAT TOUR, and was the concept of the director of the TOUR OF BRITAIN cycle race: Hugh Roberts.
The tour will be back in 2012, and I had a meeting two weeks ago in London to discuss some of the possible geography crossovers that the tour offers. It's a chance to explore the coast of the British Isles, perhaps focussing on one of the 64 little windows into the coast which each day represents....

For example, Leg no. 11 takes the cyclists along the Norfolk coast, and through Wells next the Sea. I spent some time on the beach there earlier this week, and it's a glorious spot....

For a flavour of the tour, and the range of landscapes that the cyclists passed through, visit the YOUTUBE CHANNEL page which has lots of short videos of the daily stages.

More to come on this later in the year...


Image: Alan Parkinson

World Class...

Twin your school for 2012
Get involved in the countdown for the London Olympics.... well, most of you probably won't have got a ticket...

DK - your starter for ten...

Spent a lot of time over the last few evenings working on some quizzes for Dorling Kindersley.They are part of a project which will appear later in the year. Will let you know when it appears in print...
I provided the geography questions of course...

European Fish Week starts tomorrow...

Earlier in the week I had a beautiful piece of smoked haddock, with Jersey royals and salad and some barbecued vegetables, all washed down with a cold Peroni while sat in the evening sun... that was nice...
Tomorrow is the start of EUROPEAN FISH WEEK.
There are fears about the state of fish stocks of some of our most popular fish, and also the practice of discard.
Choose fish from a sustainable source... 

Image by Alan Parkinson

Thought for the Day

"The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer..."
Fridtjof Nansen

Megacities

The fact that it is presented by Andrew Marr aside - why not a geographer ? - there seems to have been a lot of positive comments about the first episode of the new BBC series: "Megacities", which was broadcast tonight... (link to a mixed 'Telegraph' review...)

I missed it, so will catch it on iPlayer over the weekend...

For the first time in history, more people live in cities than the countryside. Across the globe, we have 21 cities with more than 10 million people, and these numbers are set to increase - busy, noisy, crowded megacities are the future. In a fascinating three-part series, Andrew Marr finds out how these heaving mega-metropolises feed, protect and move their citizens.

In the first episode, Andrew looks at how people live in five of the world's biggest megacities: London, one of the world's oldest megacities; Dhaka, the world's fastest-growing megacity; Tokyo, the largest megacity on Earth; Mexico City, one of the most dangerous cities in the world; and Shanghai, arguably the financial capital of the world.

Andrew compares the sleek skyscrapers and rapid modernisation of Shanghai to the colourful street culture and geographic sprawl of Mexico City. He spends a night living in a one-room shack in Dhaka's toughest slum, taking his turn to fetch water, cook and clean; and he rents a friend in the efficient and high-tech, but alienating, city of Tokyo.

As he gets under the skin of each unique metropolis, Andrew discovers how the structure of each megacity defines every aspect of its inhabitants' daily lives. And he considers what the megacities of the future can learn from the metropolises of today.

Heima

I bought Heima when it came out - it was a great resource for teaching about extreme landscapes, and the music was from one of my favourite bands. Had the pleasure of seeing the band, and singer Jonsi solo. Now, several years on, Sigur Ros have released another set of music from the tour, but unlike many bands who would assume that you had to buy the music all over again, Sigur Ros had a plan, as tweeted on their Twitter stream, and also on the website.

The REDEEM code to download the additional music was available to existing purchasers: you needed to send a picture of you holding the DVD.
I sent off a picture of me holding my DVD and back came the redeem code to allow me to download the extra music...
Excellent customer relations practice !

Norfolk by the sea...

The weather has been glorious the last few days, and I took a lieu day off work to head for the coast with friends who came to visit...
Below are some of the sample images that I took...
Wells next the Sea is only just over 20 minutes drive from home, and back via Walsingham Farm Shops to get the ingredients for a barbecue - happy half term everyone !