Catlin Arctic Survey

Earlier this year, I followed the progress of the latest expedition of the Catlin Arctic Survey.
The team were exploring the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, and then drilling down through the ice to carry out a range of experiments aimed at exploring aspects of the ocean waters, which are at the heart of the Earth's oceanic circulation.

Digital Explorer's Jamie Buchanan Dunlop was involved in the expedition, which involved camping on the ice.

Now, I've been asked to get involved with the project by producing some teaching materials related to the work that the good folks were up to while camped out on the ice.

The explorer Pen Hadow was involved, as were a number of scientists and colleagues with a range of useful skills and experiences. They were also using some interesting equipment, including Niskin bottles and sensors called "peepers". While they were on the ice they also had a Twitter chat with my friend and colleague Kenny O' Donnell and his students.

Image: Catlin Arctic Survey

Watch out for some resources for KS3 and KS4 which will emerge on the website before too long...

Taxi to Marshgate Wharf please...

The BBC recently announced the names for the five neighbourhoods that will be produced after the 2012 Olympic Games when the athletes village becomes a new residential area in East London.

Interestingly, one of my Twitter network suggested one of the names that was chosen: East Wick, which was chosen by Oliver O'Brien - a place in posterity guaranteed...

Beautiful British Views

Waiting for me on my return home from holiday was the latest COUNTRYFILE magazine.

It turns out that there is a newly updated COUNTRYFILE website

Thanks to Angus Willson for the announcement of funding to protect VIEWS

Data Appeal

A new tool, currently FREE, which offers the chance to visualise data that is stored in an Excel spreadsheet, and produce a result that can be seen using Google Earth.
Not had a play with it yet, but it has potential.
Anyone had a go and want to share some of the results ?

Cars 2

Went to see the latest Pixar film today, and enjoyed it (and particularly the Toy Story short film that was on before it...)

Cars 2 is a sequel to the film that introduced us to Lightning McQueen and Mater.
This time they are drawn into a James Bond style plot involving biofuels.
They visit Japan, Italy and France to take part in three races, and Mater ends up being roped in to help British agent Finn McMissile (voiced by Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell and visits Paris too.

The poster has a satisfyingly "global" look to it, and there are various cultural references throughout the film relating to the places that are visited.
The rendering of the cities, particularly London was predictably excellent.

My son liked the Japanese toilet episode.

I imagine the Finn McMissile toy will be popular this Christmas.

Container Alley

There has been a slow recovery taking place in Christchurch, New Zealand following two devastating earthquakes in a relatively short space of time.

Container Alley is the informal name given to an area formerly known as "the causeway"....

The area is still undergoing reconstruction, and a line of shipping containers has been placed to prevent debris falling onto the road.
To try to overcome the negative visual impact, an artist called Dinesh Patel wants to paint the containers...

Google Earth and Google Maps

Part of the resources shared at NCGE conference, attended by Dan Ellison of the Geography Collective.
More to come...

New bespoke consultancy service from the Geographical Association

The Geographical Association has just launched a new offering for schools.

Here are the details, from the GA website:

Complementing our established programme of one-day CPD courses and popular Annual Conference, the GA's new consultancy and training service has been designed to give you the support you need at a time and place of your choosing.

Read on to find out more or contact John Lyon on 0114 296 0088 for an informal chat.

Expert advice whenever you need it

Arrange for a GA consultant to visit your school if you need help with a particular problem or if you're after some general geographical advice.

• Making judgements - our primary and secondary experts can support you in judging the quality and standard of your teaching and provide detailed feedback on how to improve
• You choose the theme - curriculum, resources, knowledge and skills progression... tell us what you need help with and we'll give you tailored advice
• Cost effective - our consultant will come to you so you don't need to worry about your travel expenses or supply cover costs

The whole process can take as long as you need it to, from a half day session targeting a specific issue to a series of regular consultant visits taking you through a structured improvement plan until you reach your goals.

You'll also receive a detailed report containing analysis and recommendations for you to work through at your own pace.

A focused CPD day on your choice of topic

If you and your colleagues need training on a specific area, why not organise an in-house CPD day through the GA?

• Flexible course content - fieldwork, physical processes, GIS... tell us what you're working to improve and our trainers will create a bespoke programme for you
• CPD in your area - join forces with other schools to create a local training day
• Save time and money - just like our consultancy service, our team will come to you so you don't need to pay travel expenses or supply cover costs

Our tailor-made CPD days are ideal for training a group of teachers in your own school. And better still, we'll arrange a session at a time and date that suits you.

The consultants include:

Dr Paula Owens

Jeff Stanfield

David Weatherly

Dick Palfrey

Iain Palôt

Contact John Lyon on 0114 296 0088 to find out more.

Frozen Planet: BBC and the OU

Later this year, the BBC will broadcast a new series called FROZEN PLANET.

It's the latest in a long line of amazing BBC wildlife / natural science series which will find a place in geography classrooms.

The OU and the BBC are collaborating on producing some materials.

There are a few preview clips available to whet your appetite...

Gulp...

Filmed on a Welsh beach... the world's largest stop motion animation...
Made with a Nokia phone...

+loop app

Few days ago, I discovered the +loop app.

It costs £1.49 (as with many apps it was free originally)
It allows you to record short video loops which can be either full screen or, more fun, split into grids, where different sections of the grid can have different video loops in them.
I came across it via this website, which shows a useful Vimeo video.

I'm just trying to work out how I can export the loops in the same way...
Do they have to be imported into VIMEO  ? (they won't go into YouTube as I tried that earlier)


Anyone got the app and have any answer to this ?

Back in the nest

After a month as guest blogger on the Hodder Geography Nest in December, I'm back and will be blogging during August.

My first post went live today, and refers to the excellent WEATHERSPARK website which has featured previously on this blog. Interestingly there were some good images in the Daily Mail today: the same beach just 48 hours apart...

After 2 days roasting, it has rained continuously for almost 12 hours now here in Norfolk.

The BBC's move - North / South divide

The ongoing move of BBC production from London to Salford is creating quite a few good contexts for students exploring images of the 'north' and 'south'. The latest involves an old friend of the blog: Jeremy Clarkson. He has some comments on Salford, as you would expect, describing it as:

"a small suburb with little to offer beyond a Starbucks and a canal with ducks"


What other viewpoints on this move by the BBC can you find ?

Journey Missions

Just came across some suggestions for Missions for the Mission:Explore On the Road book which I don't think I ever sent in for possible inclusion...
Seems a shame to waste them, so here they are:

Populate a world with the contents of pub signs that you see and then imagine the consequences

Will the Red Lion chase the White Hart ?

Be the first person to see speed signs for 20 30 40 50 and 60 mph

Relive a travel classic but remix it e.g Around the garden in 80 seconds

Go out and get literally "soaked to the skin" - how does it feel ?

Create your own atlas by taking pictures of every map that you see during one day and collecting them in one place - perhaps on your phone

Designate your area as a new "National Park" and identify the top 10 tourist attractions that it has

Plan, then follow a Short Distance foot path

To find out what we're up to at the moment (it's awesome) check out the Geography Collective blog.

Linking Evernote and Twitter

Via a Tweet I just saw, I discovered that I can send things to my Evernote account (accessible via an app on my iOS devices) from Twitter by setting up a link and adding the tag @myen
This will make it very easy to make more use of Evernote, which now has competition from the OneNote app that I have installed (if only I could remember my Windows Live ID)

Centre of Excellence

I have just spent two hot and humid days in the company of colleagues at GA HQ in Sheffield. Our daunting task was to make important decisions based on the portfolios of evidence that hundreds of colleagues had spent hundreds of hours carefully compiling as part of the process of going through the Secondary Geography Quality Mark.

This is a process of departmental self evaluation, which is then endorsed by the awarding of the Quality Mark for three years if the criteria are met appropriately. There is also the opportunity to submit evidence for a Centre of Excellence award if the department thinks that they are doing appropriate additional outreach work.

Here are some examples of what schools that gained the Centre of Excellence in the past were doing. This might be useful for departments who are considering applying, and also for those who are not...

Remember that this was in addition to the 'usual' things that the departments were undertaking...

• Gained Fairtrade School status
• Set up a departmental website with parent liaison and student work celebrated, such as the Fitzwimarc School's Geoggers website which we saw yesterday

• Led Transition events which go beyond brief visits and sample lessons, but involve extended enquiries and involve the students in addition to the teachers, and possibly involve one of the GA's PRIMARY GEOGRAPHY CHAMPIONS
• Attending Royal Geographical Society and Geographical Association events, and involvement in projects such as Young People's Geographies.
• Publication of Newsletters which are sent to feeder schools regularly 
• Press releases for significant events prepared and sent out to local newspapers to publicise the work of the department
• Involvement in other funded projects and opportunities, such as BBC News School Report
• Invite inspirational speakers into school
• Involvement in cross-curricular projects, particularly where there are public performances of art, drama, dance, music etc that have grown out of geographical events and processes
• International School Award application
• Extra curriculur activities: Duke of Edinburgh's Award, Geography Club, Eco Club etc.
• Eco-school Award application
• Use of Mission Explore books for a full school day, which involved feeder primaries, or as part of departmental resource
• A major transition project which closely linked schools with feeder primaries
• Involvement in Earth Hour and other global events
• Organising network meetings for schools - see the RGS-IBG networks led by CGeogs for ideas
• Invite a Geography Ambassador from the RGS-IBG scheme
• Involvement with Initial Teacher Education, or as a Teaching School
• Involvement in SSAT events and networks
• Comprehensive resources available on the VLE and made available on open access, or guest access to colleagues and students from other schools - a great example of this is the Wycombe High School scheme for Year 7 which is superb
• Involvement in Teachmeets or hosting a Teachmeet in school
• Support for, and involvement in the local Geographical Association branch
• 'A' level visits to Universities and cultivation of further links here
• Involvement with AST, whether as part of the departmental staff, or as part of county support
• Involvement in / hosting of GA Worldwise Quiz (leading to involvement in Worldwise Challenge)
• Development of CSI Geography day - crime focus for whole school
• Fund-raising for a significant project which leads to staff / student exchanges
• Geography 'Colours' awarded (why should it just be the PE department who does this) or a tie for geography achievement...

There were plenty more ideas, but some of those might get you thinking...

Those schools that applied will hear in the next few months about whether they have been successful...

And it's not too early to get your application started for 2012...

Emily

Tropical storm Emily is on her way towards Haiti, which is still recovering from the Earthquake of 18 months ago.

Meanwhile, this live webcam in Okinawa shows boats tied up to see out the arrival of Typhoon Muifa

Remember that there's a whole world of weather out there: you don't have to stick to Hurricane Katrina...

EAT

Had to put this video here too as it's so good...


EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Kick off your Geography of FOOD unit with this one...

Hats off to Rick Mereki !

MOVE

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...

Early results in Scotland...

Via my Scottish Twitter colleagues... oops...

Happy Yorkshire Day

...to all the Yorkshire Geographers out there...

Dartmoor

Spent the last 9 days in the Dartmoor National Park.

Had a great time, and have spent the day catching up on what has been happening while I've been away, and plotting out the next month, which looks like being an 'interesting' one...

Image: Alan Parkinson

KS3 Geography and the teaching of place(s)

I know it's the summer holidays, but as many geography teachers will still be working (geography never stops after all) you can hopefully spare a few minutes to help a colleague.
Head over to this GOOGLE SPREADSHEET and you can help Graeme Eyre: one of the GA's Primary Champions with an assignment for his MA in Geography Education.


PLEASE NOTE
The rest of this blog post shows you what the Spreadsheet looks like.
Don't enter your answers in this blog post, CLICK THE LINK ABOVE and do it there :)


Thanks for your help...

Locational Knowledge

Thank you for clicking on the link to attempt my survey. This is for my dissertation for my MA in Geographical Education. All results are anonymous and all questions are optional. Please only answer this questionnaire if you are a KS3 Geography Teacher. If you teach multiple key stages please only answer this based on your experiences of teaching Key Stage 3. Thank you, Graeme Eyre gceyre@gmail.com

Do you think the National Curriculum should include a list of prescribed places that students should be able to locate?In the first edition of the National Curriculum there was a prescribed list of places. In the most recent revision of the national curriculum there is no set list of prescribed places.

•  Yes
•  No

Do you think that as a Geography teacher locational knowledge should be taught at Key Stage 3?In this context locational knowledge is being able to identify places on a map.

•  Yes
•  No

Explain your reasons for your choices above.Although you don't need to write anything I would be grateful if you could justify your answers.

How can teachers teach locational knowledge?If you teach locational knowledge what type of activities do you use to teach it.

Do you discretely teach locational knowledge in your classroom?This could be as a starter or plenary activity, or as a main activity.

	1	2	3	4	5
Never						Frequently