Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Monday, 21 December 2009
A changing landscape...

One of the really rapid changes that can happen in a landscape is a fall of snow... In a few hours, the landscape can be changed utterly and made magical... This is what happened in West Norfolk over the weekend and the snow is still here...
Melting snow is also the unveiling of the old landscape, and sometimes with slush, it looks quite drab after the sparkle of snow...
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Very flat, Norfolk

Sunday, 13 December 2009
Guardian Country Diary
A great source of writing about the landscape and our relationship with it can be found daily in the Guardian's COUNTRY DIARY column, which has been going for over 100 years.
Tweeting the Urban Landscape

The idea is to record our perspective on our urban lives and habitat through an online stream of tweets that describe urban events and experiences as they happen.
By the end of the urban day we will have created a collaborative narrative - a descriptive portrait of urban life..
To take part all you need is:
1. The ability to Tweet (www.twitter.com)
2. To be in an urban area on Saturday 9th January 2010
3. To include #utday in each of your related tweets
We'll then be able to search the tweets to reveal our story.
Please do spread the word around, the more of us the better.. and leading up to the day, add the URBAN TWEET DAY Twibbon to your Twitter profile picture. If you don't already, you can follow us on Twitter here.
Any questions, thoughts or ideas?
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Writing about Landscapes...
Isle of Islay – Iain Banks' "Espedair Street", Ferguslie Park, Paisley
London – "Bone People" – Kerry Hulme
Bedfordshire – "Waterland" – Graham Swift - description of the Fens
Newcastle – Wainwright’s Guides to SW Lakes
Portsmouth – "Touching the Void" – Joe Simpson – mountain landscapes
Sheffield – "Jamaica Inn" – Daphne du Maurier – moorland in Cornwall
W. Midlands – "Sunset Song" – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Brighton – Sebastian Faulks – "Birdsong" and "Charlotte Gray"
Ipswich – "Around Ireland with a Fridge"
Ashford, Kent – Paul Theroux – "The Great Railway Bazaar"
Scotland - "The Lord of the Rings"
On the same morning, David Rogers was using John Davitt's Learning Event Generator to work with students on the Copenhagen Climage change conference, and challenged them to create some Army chats, which he then shared through Twitpic...

Sunday, 6 December 2009
Changing Landscapes

Saturday, 5 December 2009
Glaciers

Wednesday, 2 December 2009
On the bestsellers lists...
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Diversions...
Lesson 3 of my toolkit looks at the impact of a road closure on a settlement.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Careers in Geography
SEASIDE TOURS
Monday, 16 November 2009
Suns of the Tundra

Ghost Forest
This time to a GHOST FOREST.
Ghost Forest Art Installation. Trafalgar Square, London. U.K.
16-22 November 2009
Sunday, 15 November 2009
The Road

Not sure what to think about it being made into a film. The trailer is HERE: film opens tomorrow in the USA.
The descriptions of the post-apocalyptic landscape are bleak and unremitting, but also entirely convincing...
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Maps and the Language of Landscape...


Thursday, 22 October 2009
Travel Writing Task - ready for SAGT
the second is a list of possible travel writers who might produce inspiration for the extracts that might be used in this lesson...
Travel Books And Writers
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Tepui: amazing landscapes...

Here's another superb image from the Disney Pixar film: "UP", which I saw on Sunday and which is superb.
Monday, 19 October 2009
Primary Geographer

The latest issue of the GA's "Primary Geographer" magazine has a focus on LANDSCAPES.
Some excellent articles which would provide inspiration for secondary teachers as well as primary colleagues.
Landscape Photographer of the Year
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Journey Journal

Journey Journal is a rather wonderful book for upper secondary / lower secondary age pupils.
Saturday, 17 October 2009
All 10 toolkits together...


Friday, 9 October 2009
The Toolkits are (really) in the building...
CONTENT
Editors’ Preface
Chapter 1: Look at it this way: What are your views on landscape?
Chapter 2: Medium-term plan
Chapter 3: Lesson plans
- First Footsteps
- Are we nearly there yet?
- The Road to Nowhere..
- Gone with the Wind?
- Made in England
- First Class Landscapes
- Journeys through Landscapes
- Living on the Edge
- Mountains on my mind
Chapter 5: Links for further ideas and resources
Chapter 6: Assessment framework
The resource contains:
- CD-Rom with resources needed for each of the lesson plans.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Sketch to Photo
PhotoSketch: Internet Image Montage from tao chen on Vimeo.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Toolkit books are "in the building"
Saturday, 26 September 2009
Landscapes of sound

Friday, 25 September 2009
Countryside Quality Counts
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Travel Writing
Friday, 18 September 2009
The Big Picture
A nice idea taken from a FLICKR GALLERY by user Kristal
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Norfolk Coast Management Plan

Thursday, 10 September 2009
Language of Landscape

This year, in addition to the usual maps, stickers, map skills guide etc. there will be a 12 page booklet produced with Natural England.
Natural England website now has all the resources.
You can read about the scheme, and the booklet, which is called "The language of landscape" is available to download as a PDF.
The booklet is accompanied by a series of other PDF downloads to support the activities, which could contribute up to 4 lessons to a Year 7 Scheme of Work, such as these fab ACTIVITY CARDS (PDF download)

If you use this, please let me know what you thought of it, how it went, whether you invented some other activities etc.
Also send any pictures of work that grows out of the resource - that would be cool !
Friday, 4 September 2009
Thought for the Day
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/The-Long-Way-Home-USA.html#ixzz0QAiy0MgT
New GA website now live....

The GA web team: Anne Greaves and Ben Major, have been working away for months with designers Ledgard Jepson on a new website for the Geographical Association, and it is now live, after several weeks of beta testing and tweaking. Visit the GA URL http://www.geography.org.uk to see the new site.
The site looks a lot brighter, clearer and easier to navigate, and uses more of the screen’s width. Thanks to a major effort on tagging the resources, it is also easier to find things using the ‘Search’ function if they are not immediately obvious from the home page, and a new ‘Resource Finder’ should help you find something appropriate to the key stage and topic that you are interested in quickly, or items written by a particular author.
A one page user guide to the new site and how it’s laid out can be downloaded by following the link (PDF download): http://www.geography.org.uk/download/GA_NewWebsiteGuide.pdf
Members can also bookmark their most useful sections of the website on their own personal homepage. Logging in to the site will provide members with details about their account, and allow access to the journals which you subscribe to.
There are plenty of new items in the shop, which are displayed in a scrolling window, which will also suggest items that might be of relevance to you if you login.
News is easier to find, and has all been updated.
If you are not already a GA member, this is a good time to join and take advantage of the many membership benefits.
The website is also home to all the resources supporting the GA’s manifesto for school geography “a different view”.
Download the latest GA MAGAZINE from the site now
Friday, 28 August 2009
Free OS Maps for Schools....

Schools will receive letters in September relating to the scheme. As in previous years, schools can claim a free OS Explorer 1: 25 000 map for each 11 year old pupil.
This year, schools will also receive 2 copies of a booklet called "The Language of Landscapes" along with the maps, produced in assocation with Natural England and the Geographical Association.
Nick Hand's Slow Coast
Nick Hand is currently cycling around the coast of Britain. His website is SLOW COAST.
Along the way, he is creating some wonderful short films, called SOUNDSLIDES made up of interviews with artisans and images taken at various locations.
A recent addition was the famous Monday auction held on the green at Burnham Market.
This gives a real "sense of place" and it instantly got onto the planning sheet for a lecture next year on Norfolk and "sense of place"...
These would be relatively easy to make with students, as they need a sound recorder, and Audacity to do a spot of editing, plus a set of images.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
WDWTWA and a different view
WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE has a very useful section written by Professor David Lambert, which provides an excellent summary of the appropriate links between geography and identity.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Animoto now with added video...
Many teachers may also use it to link together images of landscape, or as an assessment piece....
Animoto now has the ability to have video clips embedded...
Here's a quick video I put together to try it out...
Nice...
Now when people ask me at CPD sessions "can you put videos into Animoto" I can say, "Yes, yes you can...."
Thursday, 20 August 2009
A visual representation of changing coastal landscapes...
Saturday, 15 August 2009
Devon Coastal Landscapes
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
New book....
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Additional Image
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Coming soon to the blog... and GA website...
- Additional sets of starter images (Creative Commons licensed)
- Further detail on New Zealand to support Lessons 9 and 10
- Snowdon Cafe mystery and resources (additional lesson and assessment task if required)
- Landscapes Bingo activity - bingo cards and image set
- Further mountain resources
- 6x6 Story writing activity (as featured in OS Mapping News article)
- Information sheets on using a range of software to develop the activities in the book
- 5 W presentation and images
- "Monopoly" activity resources
- Travel writing: text extracts to use
- Google Earth file of locations in the textbook
Monday, 3 August 2009
Tate Map: Then and Now

The TATE Google Map has a selection of landscape paintings.
This would go very nicely with the lesson in the Toolkit book which looks at the representation of landscapes in art.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Happisburgh
Happisburgh is mentioned in the Starter activity for Lesson 8 of "Look at it this way"
Monday, 27 July 2009
Off to the printers....
- further weblinks on the theme of landscapes
- further images of landscapes for use in the classroom
- some 'out-takes' that didn't make the final textbook
- further ideas for developing the lesson ideas in the book
Monday, 13 July 2009
Landscape Photography Competition
Take "a different view" of the British landscape, and get involved in the TAKE A VIEW landscape photography competition.
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Latest progress report...
A few final issues were the sourcing of some TRAVEL WRITING and some images. This is for one of the activities which casts the students as travel writers.
Writing has become an important element of a lot of the work that I do: the creation of narrative. This adds the extra layer to mapping, which relates to the idea of Living Geography...
Friday, 26 June 2009
Poppyland

Poppies are a glorious temporary part of our landcape...
What other examples of these temporary landscape aspects can you identify, or your students record ?
North Norfolk (particularly the area around Cromer and Overstrand) is known as 'poppyland' and there are many fields full of these flowers at the moment.
Glacial Landscapes

Now up on the Geography Teaching Today website is a new unit on Glacial Environments.
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
GIS: maps and aerial imagery

Sunday, 21 June 2009
Richard Long: Landscape as art...

Loved the Norfolk flint circle in particular...
Also had a quick TWITTER SEARCH: generally positive reaction to it...
Landscapes in Sound
I have recently been exploring the work of CHRIS WATSON, via my favourite site SPOTIFY.
This allows streaming of the music, or in this case sound stories into the classroom.
Check out WEATHER REPORT.
This has 3, 18 minute tracks
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Urban Earth Day
The idea is to gather together a subjective view of our urban habitat through a series of simultaneous global walks. What we sense, feel and think will posted as twitters as we go, creating a spontaneous urban portrait of where we all are.
The first walk will take place on a Sunday at 12:00(GMT)... but we will work around the clock. Two weeks later the walk will take place at 13:00(GMT).. until after 24 hours and 24 walks we have 24 chapters of a book... made up of our 140 character twittered thoughts.
So you'll need an hour, a city and a mobile phone for this one.
How to take part...
1. Set up a twitter account. Have a play.
2. Find a city or urban area.
3. At 12:00AM GMT on 24.05.09 go for a walk... If you are in the Solomon Islands, yes - walk at night!
4. Twitter as you go.. feelings, smells, thoughts, prices, ideas, colours, shop names, (ab)normal and (un)usual stuff... making sure you include #ueday in each and every twitter.
5. Go home and visit http://twitter.com/#search?q=%
6. Spread the word and watch out for hour 2... 13:00-14:00GMT
Visit URBAN EARTH at: http://urbanearth.ning.com
Monday, 11 May 2009
Exploring the URBAN landscape
The idea is to gather together a subjective view of our urban habitat through a series of simultaneous global walks. What we sense, feel and think will posted as twitters as we go, creating a spontaneous urban portrait of where we all are.
The first walk will take place on a Sunday at 12:00(GMT)... but we will work around the clock. Two weeks later the walk will take place at 13:00(GMT).. until after 24 hours and 24 walks we have 24 chapters of a book... made up of our 140 character twittered thoughts.
So you'll need an hour, a city and a mobile phone for this one. Who's game?
Friday, 8 May 2009
A few new images of Norfolk landscape...
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Geography Collective

New on Twitter are the Geography Collective at Mission Explore....
Saturday, 4 April 2009
New Zealand
The images were taken by my friend Simon Hathaway.

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Natural England Consultation
Plenty of geography here, and a good excuse to explore how our landscapes are changing...
One change for the future was made today, when the SOUTH DOWNS was finally granted NATIONAL PARK status after decades of waiting.
Those lesson plans and worksheets which ask how many National Parks there are will all have to be changed now ;)
OS Mapping News - Spring 2009

Friday, 20 March 2009
Latest book news...
Photosynth: a '3D' landscape

