Geography and all that Jazz

Picture: David Rayner CfBT Conference for Geography for new KS3 Curriculum Thanks to the 70+ Heads of Geography and other colleagues in various capacities who attended the CfBT Eastern Region Conference at the Holiday Inn in Norwich yesterday. It was hard work (especially as I followed it up with 2 hours plus at a parents evening...) but enjoyable, and good to talk to people and get their ideas for how they were going to be "creatively subversive...." Particular thanks to David Rayner and Ruth Totterdell, the National Subject Leads, my RSA colleagues John Harrison and Katharine Hutchinson, John Lyon from the GA, and Jon Wolton from the RGS, and of course all the delegates, particularly Lucy and Clare. A few images below, taken by me: What to ditch / add ? Katharine's 'significance' workshop Importance statement John Harrison getting "funky" Ruth in the morning... The venue... GA welcome banner... If you were present and want any other copies of the d...

Source: Market Rasen Today website Earthquake ! The strongest earthquake for almost 25 years hit the UK this morning. (BBC News article link) It apparently had its hypocentre about 9 miles beneath Market Rasen in Lincolnshire (used to go through there on the way to Skegness when I was a kid....) Some descriptions are here ... HERE is the USGS's description of the earthquake. Picture credit: USGS I was awake as my daughter had just woken up, and the shaking started. First few seconds thought someone had fallen out of bed, then the walls and windows and items on top of the chest of drawers started rattling. Got my daughter out of bed as her room is next to the chimney with a large chimney stack above, and then after about 10 - 15 seconds the shaking stopped. Went out into the street into my dressing gown - very clear night - no-one else had any lights on and up and down the street was silent... So went back to bed... If you felt it, fill in the FORM ON THE WEBSITE . My intensity es...

Do something different for a day. National Trust workers in Northern Ireland are being given a day off, and asked to spend the day doing something to save the planet. What would you do ?

Is it time to move house ? This BBC NEWS article is a bit worrying..

Won this ! Very excited...

Looking forward to this album, which is released just as we start the Summer Term. Colin Meloy's MySpace page has some more tracks to get a flavour... A super picture by Flickr user LuneValleySnapper This shows the Bawtry Road and is taken from the pedestrian bridge I used to cross each day when I was in Years 7-9 (ish) to get to Wickersley Comprehensive back in the 1980s... Don't remember the light being that very often...

It's official ! Image from Guinness World Records website: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/archive.aspx

500th Post. I was going to do something special, but I haven't got the time... Keep reading. Hope you're enjoying the blog...

Jumper is a new film which has the premise that the lead character can teleport himself to anywhere in the world. This is obviously an intoxicating idea, and instantly appealing to Geographers. Where would YOU go if you could go anywhere right now ? YouTube user JoeBeacher has produced a rather nice Geography response to this idea, which is well worth watching. Click the link below (sadly this will not be displayed in school as the site is blocked...)

Fantastic news. Well done Mark ! More later...

5 Hours of Culture per week for students announced today.... ...and some of it can be in their GEOGRAPHY LESSONS of course... Try the CULTURE QUIZ on the BBC website. And here's the story... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7241460.stm

This week is half term, and I'm being bombarded with cultural stuff ... Most of this is also directly relevant to the Pilot GCSE stuff. First of all, just been reading about Martin Parr 's new edition of his book: " Small World " Small World is about tourism, and shows the difference between the mythology of a place and the reality when you get there - about what you think a place will be like and then forgetting that there'll be hundreds of other people there too... Got a flavour of that on Holkham Beach earlier in the week... I love Martin Parr's approach to photography. His themes of leisure, consumption and communication are a perfect counterpoint to the geography that we have been developing. There are also plenty of homages to his work on Flickr. A good blog post here by James Lomax, who has also posted some rather nice pictures of his own as a counterpoint to Parr's. I particularly liked this one: Image copyright: James Lomax Next up was Philippe...

Mark Beaumont is just a few days away from finishing his epic solo cycle around the world. We have mentioned his trip in quite a few lessons this year. Also a good article in this week's Sunday Times The opening paragraph gives a good flavour for the effort that Mark has put in: Imagine getting up tomorrow, climbing bleary-eyed onto your bike and cycling from Bath to London; or Birmingham to Liverpool; or Belfast to Dublin. Then imagine doing it again the next day. And the next day and the day after that. For six months. Now picture doing the same thing, but in the mountains of the Indus Valley, the torrential rain of Thailand and the mind-melting heat of the Australian outback. Throw in a few nights in a police cell in Pakistan, a collision with a moped in India and a mugging in a Louisiana crack house, and you’ll have some idea of what it takes to cycle around the world in record-breaking time. Val Vannet has continued to blog the journey daily, apart from a short Christmas br...

Egypt won the African cup of Nations for the second time in a row. See the Slideshare toolbar opposite for a slideshow on this.

Pitt Report A useful summary of the lessons from the Summer floods of 2007 I am scheduled to do a lecture up in Manchester in September on this theme...

A new, and very welcome, entry in the Geography website field is Helen Young's GEOGRAPHYGEEK website.

E Day Looking forward to this on the 27th of February. Switch things off and save energy.

Geography Matters... c/o GeoDave... One for the Open Evenings perhaps...