Thoughtful Thursdays #6: Football, climate change and food

Welcome to the 6th of my Thoughtful Thursdays. 

What was I thinking about today?

I've had a number of ZOOM calls over the last few days relating to several projects. We are getting close to finishing quite a few of them, which means I shall have some more time for other things, which is just as well...

I started out by thinking about climate change and the impact it has on young people. Some of them have anxiety about their future. How can they be helped through this to understand what can be done in a hopeful way?

How can we best mitigate the impacts of climate change with the help of Geographical Information (which would include appropriate use of AI)? 

This will be the focus for an ERASMUS project I talked about in a previous blog post, and I had a first meeting of many to come over the next three years today. Good to catch up with fellow ERASMUS colleagues I've worked with for many years.

I moved onto thinking about football. This was because of a GA Birmingham branch lunchtime webinar which had been organised by Bob Lang. He teaches at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls in Birmingham.

Prior to that he was at King Edward IV Five Ways School - I visited several times to run CPD while working for the GA back in the day.

The book has been longlisted for the 2025 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. Congratulations to Joey. it was a good talk. Thanks also to Bob for organising it.

Here's a review of the book from someone who works in the same area:

"Joey D'Urso is a fresh voice and a tireless reporter, who takes the reader from China to Colombia via Nottingham. He's the first person to use football shirts to explain the world, and does it convincingly. Kudos and respect."

Simon Kuper, Award-Winning Author of Soccernomics and Football Against The Enemy

This led on to some thinking about how to develop some ideas from the book.

I also did some work which involved thinking about geographies of food.

And finished by thinking about the Traitors, which is a very good piece of television...