
Monday, 29 December 2008
Tilt-Shift Landscapes ?

Sunday, 28 December 2008
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Monday, 22 December 2008
Nearly there...
Saturday, 13 December 2008
Britglyph: Collaborative landscape art....
· Guerrilla art is old news and the Turner Prize means nothing to the man on the street
· A new project is creating a unique piece of ‘user generated art’ that anyone across Britain can contribute to
· Using the gizmo we all have, a phone, the ‘Britglyph’ project records pictures taken at locations across the UK, forming an image on the map
· A digital dot-to-dot in simple terms
· There are 63 locations around the country that will make up the Britglyph
The project website is live.
It's a modern take on the idea of geoglyphs, such as the Cerne Abbas giant.
Check out the website for more details...
Friday, 12 December 2008
Take the wrong way home....


Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Geo-Orienteering
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Landscape Imagery - which one's your favourite ?

Thursday, 4 December 2008
Final drafts being done...
3 of the Toolkit books have now been published, and are available for purchase from the GA.
Another 3 are due out before Christmas.
Below is a sneak preview of one of the resources from the Landscapes book:
Over the Christmas holidays, I will be adding new content to this blog with some further 'teasers' to build anticipation for the book's publication...
Also worth mentioning that the Teachers' Toolkit series is already an award winner...
It won the BOOK AWARD at the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers conference in October.
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Friday, 19 September 2008
Landscape Change...

Have you climbed every mountain in Wales ?
If so, you may have to go back there because you missed one...
Proof that everything changes...
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Miniature Urban Landscapes
The other day I was watching 'Smart' when they had a feature on someone who made tiny figures and placed them in city streets and took photos which were close-up and then actual size to show them in context.
Turns out the person is called Slinkachu.
His blog has quite a few examples of his artwork, which could potentially form the basis of a geography homework (although I'd need to think about that a little more...)
I like the idea of playing with scale...
A GOOGLE IMAGE search will lead you to more...
Book out in September.

For more on WILL SELF, check out an interview on his walk from La Guardia airport into Manhattan airport via SPEECHIFICATION.
Saturday, 12 July 2008
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Farming Landscapes
Over to Hall Farm, Wickmere (between Aylsham and Holt) today for a 6th Form Student Day organised by Holt and District Farmers Club.
Took minibus full of students - weather was fine - in fact I've got a sunburnt neck... - and had a farm tour which included 7 stops where we had talks from Bernard Matthews representatives, cattle managers, farmers, potato marketers, agronomists and people from British Sugar. Thanks to Bill, a potato farmer himself, who took us round.
There was a very nice glossy booklet full of very useful information on management and economics of the farm to take away with us, and at the end of the trip there was a free HOG ROAST, which was much appreciated by all (I had a cheese and cucumber sandwich...)
Below is a sample of pictures for a taster of the day...
If you teach in a school in Norfolk it is much to be recommended, especially as it is "my favourite price"...
Good to meet up with several colleagues from other schools, and thanks to Miss Muncaster for her excellent navigation on those windy country roads with the grass growing down the middle... Here is a sample of some of the pictures I took, with some more in my new FLICKR set. Feel free to use appropriately (Creative Commons licensed)
Saturday, 14 June 2008
Wordle produces "WORD LANDSCAPES"
The text is an opening section from an early draft of my forthcoming Landscapes book.
Thursday, 8 May 2008
Sunday, 4 May 2008
The Wild Landscapes of Britain...

It's available to RGS-IBG members, and I would recommend that you listen to it.
It's full of humour and powerful images, and introduces a new way of exploring the landscape: "border crossings" as Dr. MacFarlane calls them....
It was also good to hear mentions of some of my favourite authors: Barry Lopez (probably my favourite writer if pushed...), Colin Thubron, William Least-Heat Moon, Roger Deakin, Thoreau and Bruce Chatwin, and mentions of some of my favourite places, such as Camasunary and Coruisk on Skye, Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor, the Burren's limestone, Bleaklow in the Peak District and the wild expanse of Rannoch Moor and other 'emptied' landscapes of Scotland, and also the more local wildness of the Norfolk coast.
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
New KS3 QCA site
The new QCA SUPPORT WEBSITE is now open (thanks to Simon Renshaw for the tip-off on that)
You will have to register, which is a very quick process taking less than a minute. A confirmation e-mail is sent immediately and you can then log in.
This allows you to make use of a CURRICULUM PLANNING WIZARD, or viewing RESOURCES that are relevant to Geography (and the other subjects....)
The resources section includes some videos of 'COMPELLING LEARNING EXPERIENCES' and also RECOMMENDED WEBSITES, and it's good to see GeographyPages getting the QCA seal of approval again:
A vast array of good ideas, links and resources for KS3 work can be accessed from the GeographyPages website.
It includes all the details such as the IMPORTANCE STATEMENT. I have taken one sentence from this as our departmental 'statement of intent'...
Geography inspires pupils to become global citizens by exploring their own place in the world, their values and their responsibilities to other people, to the environment and to the sustainability of the planet.
... and of course knowing all about landscapes...
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Toolkit Workshop

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...


Friday, 21 March 2008
GA Conference Workshop 2008
Come along to our workshop at the University of Surrey next week and find out more.
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Protecting Landscapes
Saturday, 8 March 2008
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 !

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.
David Attenborough has obviously produced more footage on the theme of landscapes and natural history than most other people over the years...
Anyone else successful ?
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Jumper....
While it's showing, ask people to think "Where would I JUMP to...."
Congratulations to Mark !
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Mark nearing the end of his journey...

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 break, and the next few days, where I will track Mark's progress through France, before Val brings him into the capital...In her Geography department, Val has used a map which has a series of pins. These started out as yellow and have slowly been turning red...
There are now just 2 yellow pins remaining...

Log on to the blog for the final few days and you'll be able to see the last part of the journey...
Monday, 11 February 2008
Wind Farms

They have a very useful website which features a whole range of resources. There is a time lapse video showing the construction of one of their installations.
I particularly liked the interactive map of their installations, and also the PDF downloads of the plans, for example the wind turbines that they are putting into Manchester City's football ground. These include photomontages and maps showing how the turbines will look once they are in place.
Swaffham is also KINGDOM COUNTRY after the Sunday evening ITV series starring Stephen Fry. Two of the students I teach featured in a recent episode as they were in a local cricket team which hosted filming of an episode.

Here is a Kingdom map I found on the VISIT NORFOLK website.

Sunday, 3 February 2008
Thursday, 24 January 2008
Monday, 14 January 2008
Edible Landscapes !
This was in the Sunday Times at the weekend. Photographer Carl Warner has been making landscapes out of food. There is now a selection on the BBC WEBSITE.
I love them !


Tuesday, 8 January 2008
How we are Now
The winners have been announced, and it's worth checking out the ones in the Landscape category.
Also discovered the SUBURBANALITY pool... All very Martin Parr...
Maps of wherever you want...
Their faces need a key of each of the symbols they use (spot the shoehorned 'education' bit...) and can be made up of layered symbols. They are given a laminated key to use. I will post some of the suggestions later once they have been judged.
On the FLICKR Geography Teacher Resources Pool (which you should join and contribute to if you haven't already) some wonderful maps have been added by Flickr user mearse.
These are the result of a project where students were asked to draw a map of anywhere: the 2 I've included are of unconventional 'landscapes': a student's house (and their pathways through it) and a fridge's contents...
Click to make them larger. Some great ideas and so creative.


Some great ideas.
While we're at it, I recommend that you visit the gallery of Bryan Ledgard, who does a lot of design work for the Geographical Association and has a large collection of eminently geographical images with lots of great LANDSCAPES of course. Here's a sample image...
I love this one, as that's the same chippy I use when we go to Whitby (which we do every year at some point) - the picture is called Xmas Dinner
