"Look at it this way"

Lesson 8 in 'Look at it this Way' is called 'Living on the Edge' . It explores the pros and cons of living near the coast... This week there has been publicity of a report which confirmed something that a lot of us already knew - that being beside the seaside makes us cheerful... I was fortunate to live within a mile of the sea for 12 years. Even now, it's only 20 minutes away - in fact we popped over earlier today... Here's a picture of the Norfolk coast from my Flickr stream to cheer your day... Image: Alan Parkinson

We are coming into the period of the year when the countryside begins to turn yellow... This is the field next to my son's Primary school - the distinctive flowers are beginning to appear all around the village... Oilseed rape features in a mystery activity which can be found in Lesson 5 of 'Look at it this Way'.

Word of the Week is just one of the features of the VITAL Geography Portal which I manage. You can check it out and subscribe for just £10.... Here are the entries so far (A-G), some of which will shortly be archived... The locations are the locations of images of each feature which appear on the portal page. Gryke - the name for the gap between the blocks (clints) on a limestone pavement Malham Cove, Yorkshire Dales Fen - a tract of low-lying, marshy land, often drained by humans. Especially refers to the region around the Wash in Eastern England, with areas of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire The Cambridgeshire Fens Erg - In the Sahara, that part of the desert whose surface is covered in sand (as opposed to the Hammada or rocky uplands, which have been swept clear of sand by the wind Erg Chebbi, Morocco Dirt  cone - a conical accumulation of detritus on a glacier surface - may be up to 2m in height and is often ice cored Solheimajokull Glacier, Iceland - the black

Another book to add to the list... If this is anything like Robert's other books this will be superb.... Plenty on landscapes and human interactions...

Looking forward to the new Simon Armitage book on the Pennine Way... One for the lessons on the Peak District in 'Look at it this Way'.

Good to see the toolkits for sale on the GA stand at the GA Conference... Head over to LIVING GEOGRAPHY for all the latest from the GA Conference 12th-14th April 2012....

If you can get through the language that is characteristic of Will Self pieces, there are some important geographical messages coming out here in this piece in The Guardian. The recent URBAN EARTH : Degrees of London walk was another reminder of the power of walking as the participants walked into London from HeathrowAirport and other locations. Organised by Dan Raven Ellison of the Geography Collective, the people involved were asked to concentrate on particular things during the walk, as well as look at the city in unexpected ways. While you're walking round the city, you might also be interested in a nice guide called SIDE WALKS . It's one of two nice travel guides produced by Kate Pocrass: an artist living in San Francisco. Some of the ideas have a touch of our Mission:Explore about them. In fact one of the reviewers refers to some of the suggested activities as 'missions'. I liked the idea of eating food in a particular shape, or capturing snippets of con

On Wednesday 4th April, EDINA released Version 3 of Digimap for Schools , which included a number of new features and enhancements. The new tools and enhancements have been developed directly as a result of valuable user feedback we gained from the user survey we ran last Autumn and from talking to teachers at conferences such as BETT and at training events. New tools and enhancements: National Grid lines overlay  - This new tool allows users to display National Grid lines on screen, over any map at any scale.  Being able to display National Grid lines on the screen is incredibly useful for teaching and learning about grid references.  Grid letters and numbers are displayed clearly, spacing and numbering is scale appropriate and automatically change as a user zooms in or out through the map views.   To view the National Grid line, simply click the button on toolbar. View a bigger map  - Users can now have their map fill their screen!  We have added a full scre