Jaime Lerner: the architect / mayor of Curitiba in Brazil: the sustainable city...
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GA Conference 2008 : University of Surrey, Guildford Just sorting out my luggage and various pickings from the conference, which was based in the AP building of the university. This was one of the dry moments, there were lots of wet ones... Will post more details later in the week once I have more time, but just wanted to make a link to the BLOG of the TEACHER's TOOLKIT workshop which I was particularly involved in. Alan Kinder opened the session, then 4 of the authors talked through some of the ideas... Thanks to those who came along to the session...
Just packing stuff ready to head over to Guildford tomorrow for GA Conference. Got a lot to cram in the car. Listening again to REM at Royal Albert Hall from last week, and was reminded of this rather fine concert from my "youth"... 31 May 1989 - National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, England support: Blue Aeroplanes set: Pop Song 89 / Exhuming Mccarthy / Welcome To The Occupation / Turn You Inside-Out / Wolves, Lower / Orange Crush / Fall On Me / Feeling Gravitys Pull / Swan Swan H / World Leader Pretend / Finest Worksong / Get Up / Pretty Persuasion / Auctioneer (Another Engine) / It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) encore 1: Stand / Sitting Still / King Of Birds / You Are The Everything encore 2: Harpers / Summertime / Begin The Begin / Perfect Circle / Dark Globe / After Hours Also doing a bit of planning for new projects. Made a difficult decision today, not to apply for a wonderful opportunity at the University of Exeter: Ted Wragg Research Fe...
Just been invited to speak at the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers (SAGT) Conference at the Edinburgh Academy in October. This will be my 4th consecutive year at the conference, having earlier presented sessions on digital learning resources, Google Earth, Blogs, Podcasting and Nings. Here is the draft title for the session: Perhaps see some of you there. I'll post the details of how to register when they come out later in the year. It's always a super conference !
Had some filtering issues in the last few days. A new filter blocked the NING Study Support network that I use with my 6th form students, and also VOKI , which is used in a lot of schools by Geography and MFL colleagues to bring students work to life in a way that will resonate with students familiar with computer games and Wii avatars etc. Apparently the people in charge of the filtering couldn't see why I would want to use it... Recently came across MAG MY PIC . This produces an even wider range of magazine covers than my favourite BIG HUGE LABS site. Also TABBLO : can make comics and photo cubes from here.
Delivered assembly on Mark Beaumont's round the world cycle adventure to 6th form students today, and they generously donated £58 towards Mark's charities. Mark also generously donated signed photos for the winners of a prize draw. If any colleagues want to use the presentation that I used to raise money for Mark's charities, get in touch, and I'll give you the 4Shared location.
Geography Film Festival Our World Festival STILL TIME TO BUY TICKETS !! Go to the GA website for details of the festival, which takes place on the day before the GA Conference 'proper' starts. It's worth starting your conference early to take in the conference. The GA site has details of the films that are going to be shown. Each session costs just £3 ! And of course, you need to CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS ! Support the FESTIVAL. See you there !
Life after People Several articles on this in the paper recently, on the same theme as WORLD WITHOUT US , which is on my bedside reading pile. What would happen if every human being disappeared ? This program looks at what would happen... Get a flavour at the MINISITE . You can see the programme on GOOGLE VIDEO It's on the HISTORY (go figure...) CHANNEL on EASTER SUNDAY (and other showings) Which famous building has crumbled to rust here.... Looks to be interesting viewing...
Following a very successful event in 2007, the Geography Department at the University of Leeds are running another day for teachers. For all the details, CHECK THE WEBSITE . This year's programme includes sessions on: 1) The fate of urban public space 2) What's happening to the rainforests ? 3) The UK energy debate 4) Who says computers and water don't mix ? 5) The geography of retail dynamics 6) Current challenges in the relationship between (physical) geography at school and at university: A need for a new perspective ? Hopefully see you there !
Also check out some great resources at the THINKINGEOGRAPHY blog of Dr Andrew Lee, which I have mentioned before. This includes the recent addition of a superb new resource using Google Earth in an exciting and original way, which I have missed out on using this year as I have just finished my China unit, but would be good to have some additional materials for next year. This is the LIFE TRIPS WITH GOOGLE EARTH section. Here's the description from the website: LifeTrips with GoogleEarth is a new website attached to a Wikispace which allows you to look at the lives of people in different cities. Using Google Earth it tracks the day paths of people who live throughout the world and helps people connect with people in their own city, or in a city across the world. The site can be visited by anyone, though school students, in association with their teachers may contribute to the site by registering, and then publishing material to the wikispace. ...
Finally launched today. It's a bit of ANOTHER TB remake: main Harbinger theme is TB opening, and final track is the final part of Part 1 of TB in disguise. Some good sweeping sections though, and I like 'Aurora' in particular. Would be good to see live, followed by some other tracks with improvised electric guitar freak-outs... It's been too long... Coming soon to a Powerpoint presentation near you... Just downloaded some live sections too from the premiere which was held in the Guggenheim in Bilbao. What an event that would have been. Visited the Guggenheim in 2006, and it's fantastic. Some images coming when I can find them...
Holt , who goes there ? Well, I did yesterday.... (the Georgian town in Norfolk that is...) Saw great Peter Blake exhibition at Bircham Gallery, and also snapped up a bottle of Arran malt from Larners . We used to go to Bircham Gallery when it was in... Bircham... Some great Howard Phipps etchings too (as seen at the top of the post). Very landscape oriented, which fits my recent preoccupation with all things landscape... Holt is one of those places which is experiencing a lot of gentrification. Featured in the new textbook for Edexcel AS from Oxford as part of the Unequal Spaces unit: Inequalities in East Anglia. There are certainly some major differences in HOUSE PRICES in different areas, such as Burnham "Mark-Up" Market. Good in a way, as my house is worth a lot more than it would be in some other parts of the county and country. Tea and cake at Byfords , which has changed a lot since we started going there over 10 years ago.
Just got my copy of Panicology by Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey Williams. This explores some of the areas where we are apparently beginning to worry. It's a variation on the theme in James Martin's book Check out the WEBSITE for some tasters and links. A particularly useful section of the book looks at the number of deaths per 10 000 people in 2005 from various reasons. This follows a very useful SCEPTIC's TOOLKIT , which would be a particularly useful format for GENERAL STUDIES students (as well as Geographers) to adopt when using sources of information.
The Summer Floods 2007 Have been asked to present a session for the GA's Manchester Branch in September. There have been several recent additional articles which would be useful for those exploring this. The first is the announcement that the floods were not due to global warming but in a sense to "the wrong type of rain", which led to huge amounts of saturation excess overland flow. This comes out from a report by the CEH (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) Read the BBC article first. Then head over to the CEH to read the articles there, and the Hydrological appraisal of the flooding. This page also has a link where the full report can be downloaded (an 11.5 Mb PDF) Also check out the NERCs explanation of this flooding type, which is called PLUVIAL flooding (as opposed to fluvial...) (Thanks to Simon Oakes for the tipoff here...) Pluvial' flooding is defined as flooding that results from rainfall generated overland flow before the runoff enters any watercourse o...
Reading and filleting James Martin's "The Meaning of the 21st Century". It's a challenging and useful read, although some content is repeated several times. There are some excellent details on the BLOG here. An interesting post on ageing populations. Keep an eye out for a film related to the book too.
Well done to Tom Biebrach for winning a national award for his connections with a school in Kabundi in Zambia. He has BLOGGED about this - some very useful IMAGES and VIDEOS. Read the article HERE. Judges were struck by students’ comments that following the project they could now see the relevance and importance of studying geography. “You have to be able to experience things,” said Mr Biebrach. “You can’t study the weather only by looking at a book. Our students have been able to study issues about Africa by speaking to children there.” Well done to Tom and all involved in the project.
"Down London" To London today on early train for course on delivering the new Edexcel AS course. Thanks to Simon Oakes for his calm and erudite delivery of the material, and plenty of ideas. If you're visiting the blog for the first time after this course, welcome ! All my progress is being flagged up on the GEOGRAPHYPAGES website.
Geography Film Festival Our World Festival Go to the GA website for details of the festival, which takes place on the day before the GA Conference 'proper' starts. It's worth starting your conference early to take in the conference. The GA site has details of the films that are going to be shown. Each session costs just £3 ! And of course, you need to CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS ! Support the FESTIVAL. See you there !
BBC3 Upstaged Well done to the team of Geographers who took part in Upstaged today. Good to see some familiar faces, particularly Dan trying to change Britain, and make us all a bit happier ! Going to catch the results show later... Good to see Noel cheer-leading. Won't mention that again in the future...
Image by Flickr user Maggie Jones Banksy is an artist who specialises in adding public artworks to the sides of houses and other buildings in urban settings. He is very secretive, and his artworks are sometimes painted over by people who don't realise they are art. His latest work is of 2 children saluting as a flag of Tesco (in the form of a carrier bag) is raised. What is this trying to say about the impact of Tesco on our lives ?
David Attenborough Got a nice surprise yesterday: entered a ballot for RGS-IBG members earlier in the year, and a ticket arrived in the post ! Image by Flickr User Bryan Ledgard (made available under Creative Commons) Monday 31 March at 18.30 RGS-IBG Balloted lecture Members only Wallace and the birds of paradise Sir David Attenborough David shows film footage and describes the various species that so obsessed Alfred Russel Wallace, who was the first European to see the display of the spectacular birds of paradise. Please note that this lecture is balloted. One ticket entry per member. Anyone else successful ?
Fred Pearce: Confessions of an Eco-Sinner Read this article in the Telegraph last week the night before the CfBT conference, and instantly ordered the book it came from: which arrived this morning. The article tells how Fred traced his son's mobile phone's component parts back to source, and in doing so, explored the world of consumption and the damage that our desires creates. His son Joe, who he describes as a "lanky geography student" died suddenly in 2005, and the book traces some of Joe's possessions. The chapter on China features some incredible descriptions of the growth of factories to satisfy the western (and growing eastern) demand for consumer products. This would be very useful for lower school as well as new AS / A2 spec planning. Also a super chapter on Kenyan beans, and why you might want to carry on buying them. Read the article, and then you'll probably want to order the book. Amazon have it at £7.79 instead of £12.99 (please click through f...
Just ordered, thanks to Ollie Bray's 'heads up', an Elonex One Laptop . These are available in 2 versions: one for just £99, and can be reserved by paying £10 now. The slightly more expensive version clocks in at £119, and has Bluetooth and a little more memory. Wireless access, mp3 player etc. Small and compact and look forward to trialling it as my 'teacher planner'. Ollie is also going to post an evaluation.
FOOD MILES ASSESSMENT (can be adapted to other topics) Instructions for task. Click to enlarge, or download and paste into a document... Just coming to the end of a unit with Year 8 on Food Miles , and we have an assessed task. This comes from the work of my Buckinghamshire colleague Christine Lloyd-Staples. She has produced the original levelled description for this task which we use, which offers a range of formats for a display piece on the issue of FOOD MILES . The students have previously prepared and delivered a 3 minute news bulletin on the issue, considering the various economic, social and environmental aspects (which together form the 3 legs of the sustainability stool). Thanks also to JD's FLICKR TOYS, which as I have mentioned in other blogs is one of my favourite sites for a spot of 'creative subversion', or as David Lambert has termed it, the teachers who are 'pedagogically adventurous'. The task is to create one of two ICT related ideas: a) a Movie p...
Who do we think we are ? Alerted to this via an RGS-IBG newsletter. A new website which explores issues of identity, diversity and citizenship. Familiar themes to Pilot GCSE Geographers !! Who do we think we are? (WDWTWA) Is a new, DCSF-funded education project designed to engage primary and secondary school teachers in the exploration of identity, diversity and citizenship with their pupils - in their schools, local communities and nationally. The project is a direct response to the recent Curriculum Review on Diversity and Citizenship, undertaken by Sir Keith Ajegbo, which recommended that all schools participate in a high profile, national event - titled Who do we think we are? Week - where the main activities would be "…investigations and celebrations by schools of pupils’ histories and their community’s roots and of the national and global links that they can make.” A new consortium of partners has been set up to help support the delivery of Who do we think w...
Literacy Outcomes in Scotland Thanks to Ollie Bray and Ewan McIntosh for some fascinating discussions on the new Scottish Curriculum for Excellence guidance on literacy which extends the reading matter to that of blogs, social networks, games, comics and other online / 21st Century 'text's which young people would relate to (although not all of them will be Beboing away necessarily) All sounds like Scotland is yet again ahead of England in this matter... Would love to explore some of the geographical implications of this, and how it could be translated into an ICT-rich curriculum.