Ukraine

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As with the rest of the international community, I have been following the events in Ukraine with concern over the last day and a half in particular, since I heard on Radio 4 on my way into work that Russian troops had moved into the country, and a variety of weapons had been used against strategic targets.


As stories come through, I started collating maps and imagery for those inevitable future discussions about 'what happens next'. The books of Tim Marshall are useful resources here, and I have a few others which reference the history of this area.

Some of the stories have echoes to previous tragic events within Ukraine:

A few resources have started to be shared by teachers. I would probably wait a while before sharing anything myself as this is not an area of expertise, but it's interesting to see the different perspectives and it all provides ideas for possible approaches to use.

It's also worth explaining to students that they need to be critical of images and videos which are shared online. Often they are not from contemporary sources, and may also be put through what Hans Rosling called our 'dramatic attention filter'. We also have to consider the recent DfE guidance on political impartiality - how does that change things?

There are some useful materials: 

The BBC Newsround website has some useful materials, and several teachers have described finding them useful. 

From tonight in Ely, the Octagon tower of the Cathedral will also apparently be lit up in yellow and blue in support of Ukraine.

See James Billings Photography's images on Facebook of the tower lit up. 

I'll finish with a link to a prayer from our school chaplain which was shared earlier, along with valuable guidance for teachers, given the multi-national nature of our school community.

It's hard to know what to write or to do in such circumstances that would actually be of practical help and not be accused of virtue signalling, but sending prayers to those caught up in conflict and whose world changed yesterday morning... 

There is a UNICEF fund raiser up and running.

Happy to respond to comments, or add, any resource or link here which people feel would be of value to the geography community to support students understand the situation and possible future events.

The Government's response has been predictably shameful with barriers to Ukrainians fleeing the conflict. 

Someone mentioned the comparison with Ukraine's politicians and how they doubted they would see JRM and his ilk bearing arms to protect anyone...

Updates

A useful set of lesson materials here:


Update 4th March

The DEC has now launched an appeal. We are looking at what we can do within the school.

 

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