Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2016

New GCSE Textbook now out for OCR B

It's now just over two and a half years since I went to a meeting at the offices of Hodder down in London, to start the process of writing a set of textbooks and support materials for the then-as-yet-written OCR GCSE Geography specifications for first teaching from September 2016. The authoring team of Jo Payne, Jo Debens and myself were joined by Simon Ross, and we had the editing talents of David Rogers helping to steer the project, as well as Ruth Murphy from Hodder and numerous editors and other publishing professionals at various points during the project. Earlier today, the postman brought me a package, and I finally held the results of hundreds of hours of effort in my hand. I wrote quite a few chapters in the end, and also helped to create the digital support materials, and the answers to all the various activities that have been included in the book. These all form part of the support materials that are available. More details about the books are here, whe

Coming soon...

2nd edition of David Matless book on landscape... Looks like being an essential book on cultural geography....

The Yellowing again...

It's usual at this time of year for me to share pictures of the yellowing fields, which also feature in Chapter 5 or 6 of the toolkit book: "Look at it this Way". Here's some rapeseed taken the other morning near East Lexham in Norfolk, on the way to work

National Parks - a new Mission:Explore book to be available soon...

Out soon in English and Welsh, the latest of our Explorer HQ books under the Mission:Explore name. This is Mission:Explore National Parks , and involves the usual shenanigans of creative ideas for kids of all ages. The books will be available for £5 from all National Park shops in England, Scotland and Wales. Here's a pile fresh back from the printers. As always it's been wrangled by myself, Dan Raven Ellison and Mark Pearce, and shaped by Helen Steer , who skilfully blended all of our words with some inkings from the mighty  Tom Morgan Jones. Very proud to have been involved with this, and we also have two other projects which are freshly brewed and about to launch. Will tell all when I'm allowed to… Watch this space for plenty more exciting Explorer HQ news soon….

Desert landscapes and music...

Dune on the cover, and named after the Shamal wind , which blows through Iraq and neighbouring areas… 40 years old now, and my soundtrack for tonight's writing… Featuring the late Pierre Moerlen, one of the best musicians I ever saw playing live…

Ice Station Antarctica - and a StoryMap

A useful resource for the dramatic Antarctic landscape…. Ice Station Antarctica  You'll remember earlier in the year that I was blogging about the visit being made to the Halley Base in Antarctica by Peter Gibbs (who had spent time on the continent earlier in his career) The visit has now been made into a programme which would make good reading for anyone interested in Antarctica. An excellent  StoryMap was put together by Brendan Conway from Notre Dame Cobham. You can see it below, or click the link to see it full screen. This was produced during the journey, which lasted for several weeks, but has been updated, including new images from the Halley VI Winter team plus links to the associated programmes and articles. There was a previous Radio 4 about the journey (e.g. Costing the Earth ). The story map provides a useful companion resource. Take a look at the programme, and check out the StoryMap too.