"Look at it this way"

I'm going to take a couple of weeks away for Christmas (although I probably won't be able to resist blogging if something important happens between now and the 1st of January 2012.) I'm going to be doing one or two things over Christmas as well as enjoying the festive cheer Writing a GCSE book Completing a major resource pack for the Ordnance Survey Planning out a Children's book I'm going to be writing Preparing for CPD events in the New Year Writing some Online Updates for Harper Collins Edits and proofreading for 2 books I'm editing that are published in early 2012 Adding new content to my Vital Geography Portal Preparing some thoughts for new Curriculum consultation Putting together some ideas for Mission:Explore Food On 1st of January I'll be back with various New Year thoughts... Please join me on the 5th of January for my Teachshare on New Year New Geography It'd be great to have your company at 7pm with your plans for the ye...

I worked on a range of projects for the Royal Geographical Society a few months back, and the final pieces of the project that I contributed have now gone live on the RGS website. They were part of the Goldsmith's funded FROM THE FIELD project. The latest module which I contributed was for the KS4 series, and is on the theme of MOORLAND ECOLOGY . It explores the process of moorland regeneration, and its link with the ecology that is needed to make the regrowth productive. It's worth remembering that all the resources from the Geography Teaching Today website have now been migrated to either the RGS or the GA websites, depending on which organisation was responsible for producing the original content. If you're after the excellent KS3 RESOURCES they are available here on the RGS website. If you're after the FIELDWORK resources they're here on the RGS website. Thanks to Rose Wilcox , PhD researcher from the University of Hull for her guidance an...

Thanks to Jack Marsh for sending me some examples of 'landscapes in a box '. Landscapes in a box is one of the ideas that seems to have gone down the best of the things that I've shared over the years. The basic idea is to create a landscape within a box, perhaps a burger box (but could also be a shoe box) This was featured in 'Teaching Geography' in 2009. Jack used the activity with his groups, and has sent me three excellent images of contrasting images from the students: an Antarctic scene, New York's Central Park, and Paris... Outstanding work !! If you've used Landscape in a Box, why not share your students' work too...

My next VITAL Teachshare will be on Wednesday the 16th of November (that's tomorrow if you're reading this today) at 7pm. It's on ways of customising Google Earth Placemarks... Click THIS LINK just before 7 to join me . You'll need to allow the download of the plug-in to handle the Elluminate session, which will then allow you to see and hear me, and to take part. Don't forget to check the KEYHOLE BULLETIN BOARD to get the full range of layers and files shared by  Google Earth users. Use the SEARCH function to unearth the goodness.... Plenty of LANDSCAPE related content... This will be my little contribution to WORLD GIS DAY , which is taking place tomorrow, as part of GEOGRAPHY AWARENESS WEEK. What are you doing for World GIS Day ?  Why not add a touch of GIS to your teaching tomorrow...

A quick blog post on a day spent racing to meet a writing deadline , which I fear may now slip into tomorrow.... Just came across an excellent site on the Pennine landscapes ... WATERSHED LANDSCAPE  has a focus on the Pennines near Bradford, just North of the area of the Peak District that I am working on. As the site makes clear, these regions are "rarer than rainforests" .. The site also has a very useful bank of materials for teaching about LANDSCAPES  which piqued my interest. Also the WILDLIFE guides and information. I liked the ideas for using GPS and other geographical tools. Also materials for Environmental and Land Based Diploma. There are also links to some useful videos, such as this one:

An interesting feature by Will Self. There are plenty of things here that Geographers would recognise of course. One recurring theme here is that there are few places that have escaped the hand of man... Landscape as palimpsest is a recurring theme in the work that I do with colleagues.

I'm always up for new stamps, especially when they are geographical in nature. Some new Royal Mail stamps are out later this week. They are the first in a set of 26 stamps, which cover famous places from A - Z Which A-Z would you choose ?  A = Angel of the North                       B = Blackpool Tower C = Carrick-a-Rede D = Downing Street E = Edinburgh Castle F = Forth Railway Bridge G = Glastonbury Tor H = Harlech Castle I = Ironbridge J = Jodrell Bank K = Kursaal (Southend) L = Lindisfarne Priory Fits very nicely with Lesson 6 of my GA toolkit book: "Look at it this Way"

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo .

As I may have mentioned before on the blog, I did some work a few months ago for the Geography Collective on the theme of 'the local area'. This was for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC education in the USA, and Dan from the collective went over to Portland to speak to educators from all over the USA. Now there have been some videos released from the National Council for Geographic Education for the session that Dan Raven Ellison did for the conference, and they are on the GEOGRAPHY COLLECTIVE blog. Here's the first one and the other two are on the blog... This is very fine work, and explains the origins of the Geography Collective and our recent work, ideas of geography and showcases projects that Dan and the Collective have been involved with....

Pylons are a common feature of the British landscape. They are not well liked by people, but burying the power-lines that they carry would add substantially to the cost of the infrastructure, and we all use electricity (apart from those of us who life 'off-grid') Cumbria is the latest area of landscape to be 'threatened' by a new line of pylons. There is a competition currently to identify the best new pylon design. Which of the 6 is your favourite ? I like these ICELANDIC ones personally. Don't forget to visit the PYLON APPRECIATION SOCIETY.

Thanks to Jenny from the RGS-IBG for letting me know about the imminent launch of a new site which offers a fresh look at the UK. The site is called DISCOVERING BRITAIN. "We are developing an exciting series of geographically-themed walks across the UK that aim to bring these stories alive and to inspire everyone to explore and learn about our different landscapes." Look forward to seeing the full site when it appears in just over a month's time....

I love the quirky paper landscapes of Made by Joel. Now with added Paris and Sydney.

Nick Crane series just started. Some interesting content, if nothing new to a seasoned geographer... The supporting website , in association with the OU has links to a range of useful additional detail. Order your FREE BOOKLET Also check out the opportunity to RUN YOUR OWN TOWN.  This is a decision making interactive where you get to run a town and make important choices...

Spending a few days barn & dog-sitting in a rather fine barn in the Dartmoor National Park . It's stocked with shelves full of books, WiFi for Spotify and a wine cellar... So it's got pretty much all I need. One of the books is Ian Mercer's 'Dartmoor' , which is published as part of the Collins New Naturalist Library with a lovely cover by Robert Gillmor. I liked the description of Ian Mercer as "a geographer and naturalist at heart, never happier than when revealing the secrets of a landscape". The author's foreword begins: "This book is about my perception of a landscape, and what knowledge is needed as a foundation to that perception..." which is an interesting statement, as it links with some of the ideas in the GA's current  CURRICULUM consultation. He goes on to say "the attraction of true local geography is that it depends upon the wielding of a broad brush much of the time, but allows the display of intricate det...

"A landscape is the function of structure, process and time" W. M. Davis, 1884

On the GA Ning, there's a posting from Stephen Savage, who works at Shoreham Beach  Local Nature Reserve. Since the beach became a nature reserve in 2006, I have been developing an education programme focusing on natural history, coastal geography and maritime history. Shoreham Beach LNR is a shingle spit with rare vegetated shingle habitat. In fact it was designated a nature reserve to help protect this local and globally rare habitat. The eastern end of the shingle spit forms the harbour entrance, with the Downs to the north and the chalk cliffs and wave cut platform further east at Brighton. Longshore drift deflected the river to the west, in the process creating the shingle spit which is now Shoreham Beach. We have worked with a number of local primary and secondary schools, providing on-site and outreach sessions and worked to develop links with these schools to provide feedback and suggestions for future development. One area we are planning to develop further is a...

There's a new Richard Long exhibition at the Haunch of Venison in London. I am in London next week and will make time to go and see it. Seen Richard Long's work in a range of locations over the years: from the Guggenheim in Bilbao to the foyer of DEFRA on Millbank, and various other places... An artist who very much connects with the landscape. I used a set of Richard Long postcards as a resource for a literacy exercise, and the way that his works link with mapping is also wonderful. Last exhibition I saw was 'Heaven and Earth' at Tate Britain in 2009, so I am overdue some more Long work....

All schools that lie within the newly designated South Downs National Park will soon receive an education pack which was put together by the Geographical Association . It features a range of activities to explore the geography of the National Park, and the idea of landscape as a palimpsest ... It matches nicely with some of the ideas in my KS3 Toolkit: "Look at it this Way" , which is available from the GA's online shop . The pack will also be available to download from the South Downs website from Monday 16th of May....

My KS3 toolkit book "Look at it this Way" has a lesson looking at the "yellowing" of the countryside through increased planting of oilseed rape. This year, the countryside is turning yellower than ever. There has been rising demand for oilseed compared with cereals, and a growing market for the oil. This means that a larger area has been planted, and the warm, dry weather in April has not damaged the crop as much as it has other crops... I was listening to Farming Today on the way up to Sheffield today and happened to be passing a large expanse of yellow at the time. You can LISTEN AGAIN to the programme... Another bonus of the warm weather in April is that English Strawberries will be ready earlier than usual, and be particularly sweet this year...

This could be a wonderful context for teaching lessons 3 and 4 of the toolkit book in particular... My Farm is an ambitious project that has been announced by the National Trust within the last week (this blog post was ready on the day but has been sitting in draft for a while), and has been getting quite a lot of press and media coverage. It extends the idea of virtual farming with very popular online games like Farmville (which has tens of millions of players)  to an actual farm , part of the Wimpole Hall estate near Cambridge. I have been to the farm myself some years ago when my kids were much smaller... The website provides some background detail as to how the scheme is going to work. The National Trust are looking for 10 000 people to invest £30 in the scheme, which will allow them to take some decisions relating to the farm. They will vote on a range of issues relating to the management of the farm, although given its organic status and location, there are obviously g...

The seaside is an essential part of the British "cultural landscape"... Another great collaborative Twitter project response... Yesterday, I asked colleagues who follow me to provide some descriptions of the British Seaside... Words that appear larger were mentioned more frequently by the word cloud generator. First of all a WORDLE - click the image below to be taken to the Wordle page... Here is a Tagxedo version of the Wordle... Click for biggery... Thanks for all the contributors. What words would you choose ?  How could you use this diagram as a resource in the classroom or for a homework task ?

Thanks to @JoeMoran for the tip-off to a Doreen Massey essay on landscape - part of a larger blog project: The Future of Landscapes... One to make you think... I don't pretend to understand all of it, but there are some nice sections and links to a film project.

A number of posts are appearing over at my LIVING GEOGRAPHY blog on the follow-up to the GA Conference 2011. There were some wonderful sessions.... but enough about me... Anne Greaves has started to post resources from the conference on the GA WEBSITE . Image by Bryan Ledgard Copyright Geographical Association Plenty of interest for teachers of physical geography and landscapes... Also a chance to see the GA TOOLKIT books on the GA stand...

Look at it this Way is very much about the concept of PLACE. We can now announce a new PLACE based project that I'm involved in... One of the things I'm proudest of in the last few years is my involvement with the Geography Collective , and our Mission:Explore books, iPhone app and other activities... We can now announce our latest project, thanks to the project leadership of Daniel Raven Ellison. We are very pleased to say that we will be delivering a major project for the Cultural Olympiad as part of the Discovering Places programme called  Discover Explore . Discovering Places is funded by a grant from Olympic Lottery Distributor (OLD) through the London Organising Committee of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG). It is delivered by The Heritage Alliance with the support of key partners.. one of which is us. We will be working closely with  The Workshop  to create something very beautiful and cool which will be launched this sum...

During my lunch-time at the Education Show I took the opportunity to do a quick trip up and down the aisles to make sure that I saw as many of the stands as possible and have a chat to anyone who had a geographical connection, or who caught my eye. One stand I particularly wanted to see was the CREATIVITY HUB stand, where RORY's STORY CUBES were available. I have these cubes as an iPhone app and also as the infinitely preferable 'real thing', and have used them with many teachers over the last few years to explore the ideas of geography as "writing the earth". I have used my cubes with hundreds of teachers as a way of exploring creative writing, including my sessions at various conferences. By using a net for creating a cube such as the one below, taken from MATHS ISFUN  with thanks, you can also add your own cubes... Cut out the shapes and add your own words or instructions on the six sides relevant to the subject that you are using them for. If yo...

My earlier blog post about the Christchurch memorial service was a reminder of the many connections that exist between the UK and New Zealand. My friend Simon Hathaway , who now lives in Wellington (which is a major improvement on Rotherham) sent me a pack of newspaper and magazine articles this week to add to the other resources that I have gathered to help teach about the resilience of a major city following an earthquake. I was interested to read the 'North and South New Zealander of the Year' piece, which awarded the Supreme Winner to the people of Christchurch... and that was following the earlier September 2010 quake... There was also a really useful piece from the Dominion Post by Chris Kalderimis on the most useful items to have in a home emergency survival kit, and lots of personal stories. The  #blog4nz campaign  is encouraging bloggers the world over to focus on New Zealand for a while, and this post is part of the effort. Although my work involves me in tran...

There were 3 or 4 "urban-related" tweets in my overnight feed that I caught up with earlier 'today' while having my breakfast... Part of my daily routine now is to look at what has happened while I slept, and e-mail any interesting tweets to my e-mail account, so that I have a record of the links, and can follow them up when I have a moment... This weekend, there has been an urban theme to many of the updates. Several of them were from the excellent @urbanphoto_blog stream... You need to follow them if you don't already. One led me to the Twisted Sifter blog, from which I got this remarkable image , which apparently shows the suburbs of Mexico City marching into the distance, irrespective of topography. The images were from Pablo Lopez Luz I haven't explored the site further, but it seems to have a range of interesting images and other content. The second site, which was equally arresting is a description of the development of a new (or perhaps not...

As featured in Lesson 3 in the book... There are plans for more pylons in East Anglia to connect proposed power stations to the National Grid to improve infrastructure. The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has been opposing these developments in some areas of Norfolk. My local paper has some more on this issue... It costs 10 times as much to place cables underground as it does to put it over ground. Check the plans and have your say here . And don't forget you can also join the Pylon Appreciation Society

Fancy a new way of exploring your local landscapes ?? In just over a month's time, there are two new Mission:Explore books launched on the world by The Geography Collective and Can of Worms Press. Here are the front covers for those who are interested. They are already available to pre-order on Amazon so make sure you buy at least one copy.... There will be launch events in London on the 1st and 2nd of April, but if you are around in London on the evening of the 31st of March, you can join us at the Old Explorer, just a short walk from Oxford Circus. Sign up to join us .... Plenty more to come in a month's time...

Holiday reading... Took the plunge into KINDLE apps .... An interesting exploration of the urban-rural fringe... References Marion Shoard' s classic article... (click to download PDF) For a taste of the book, see this INDEPENDENT article...

The urban landscape of East London has changed for ever... Thanks to John Widdowson for alerting me to the existence of this website from the LEGACY COMPANY , which acts as a tremendous additional resource for those teaching (or planning to teach) about the Olympics 2012. It includes an excellent interactive map with a number of 'layers' which shows the true scale of the Olympic park, and the various developments that are planned. The GA will be producing a whole range of resources for the Olympics nearer the time , and we have already had a range of Olympics activities including a teacher conference, and of course Bob Digby's ongoing tours of the Olympic Park (there is a chance to take part in one of these on day one of the conference) There is a large section on the Sustainability of the Olympic site in John Widdowson's GCSE toolkit book, which is now available from the GA shop. There is also a Top Spec Geography title which is forthcoming, and a KS3 toolki...

Just ordered my DVD copy of this amazing series, which should perhaps be an essential part of every geography department's multimedia library... It should perhaps sit alongside Planet Earth, Coast, and various other DVDs which I bought... There are so many clips and aspects of this series that should find their way into the curriculum in lower school, as well as supporting many GCSE contexts. There are 8 episodes in the series. There are chances to watch some of the previous episodes that haven't yet been broadcast on the iPlayer page Check out the BBC HUMAN PLANET EXPLORER for more details. Some fabulous images and other media on the HUMAN PLANET BLOG. Check out the SURVIVAL SKILLS resource too... splendid.. Following on from last week's FORESTS episode, there's an excellent GUARDIAN INTERACTIVE on the world's endangered forests. Finally, don't forget that you can get embeddable videos from each programme too, such as this one of the CEMETERY d...