"Look at it this way"

A cross posting from my Geography in/on Film blog. A new short film, featuring Mark Rylance   Written and Directed by Jack Cooper Stimpson  Produced by Lewis Brierly, Izzy Meikle-Small, Jack Cooper Stimpson  Executive produced by On the Edge and made in association with the wetland conservation charity WWT (Wildfowl and Wetland Trust). A brief summary of the plot: Athel and Edward enjoy visiting the wetlands. Edward likes watching the birds, whilst Athel seems to have a much deeper connection to the landscape. When Athel makes a discovery, she is forced to re-examine what the wetlands mean to her.  A meditation on identity, nature and wellington boots.  The story explores human identity, discovery, and the mystery of these under-represented eco-systems. A note from the director: “Our wetland habitats were not on my radar prior to this project and it has been fascinating researching them and learning more about their quirks and characteristics, alongside their sc...

Always good to have little map 'experiments' / projects like this appearing. Glastonbury's gates opened yesterday. Glastonbury is big. Fifteen years ago today, I was there... in the heat, working with the Geography Collective in the Greek Kids Zone. I've blogged about it before - search the blog for 'Glastonbury'. This map shows you how big, although from my experience it felt quite a lot larger than it is shown here. I think there are other areas still beyond what is shown here - whether car parking or additional camping and the security zone. It's made by Geoffrey Prytherch. Here's Ely compared to the site. And here's one of my images from up near the letters... at night, it looks pretty awesome too. This was sunset on the 24th of June. Image: Alan Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license

During the 125th anniversary year of the GA, I tried to collate a list of 125 inspirational places using a Google Form. I didn’t quite get enough places, so never did anything with the responses I got in the end.  Check out the Inspirational Places website that I created for a project I did with Professor Peter Knight as well. Perhaps it’s now time to try to get a good set of responses so that I can share them and use them next time I teach my Landscapes topic, which needs a little more  Please go to the form here and tell me about an inspiration place that is worth visiting in the UK.

Ken Worpole has been writing about Essex for decades. He wrote an influential essay called 'The New English Landscape' and has a blog of the same name. He also has a new book of essays on Essex newly published by Little Toller.

  I was sorry to hear this evening of the passing of Norman Ackroyd on Monday: one of our very greatest landscape artists. He was a remarkable printmaker and artist . He shared the laborious process of making his etchings in several documentaries. Listen to this programme with Robert MacFarlane. RIP the great artist Norman Ackroyd (1938-16.09.24): etcher-magician who conjured weather & light from metal & acid; his work constitutes one of the great visual records of this archipelago’s edges. We travelled together—& I made this programme with him: https://t.co/Y5licHxpcP pic.twitter.com/8bQDR95Fph — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) September 18, 2024 Here's the first part of a documentary on his method featuring some of his art...

A new(ish) resource which can be accessed and used by members of the Geographical Association. I am considering adding a section of this to my teaching this year. Sycamore Gap is a significant landmark in Northumberland where three distinct features combined: a natural and dramatic dip in the physical landscape about halfway along the 80-mile run of Hadrian’s Wall, itself an ancient monument and reminder of the power of the Roman Empire, and until recently, a lone, 300-year-old Sycamore tree. The site has UNESCO designation and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Arguably, it will still be known as Sycamore Gap because of its story. The tree has stood for hundreds of years, perfectly framed by the landscape, thrilling locals and visitors alike until it was deliberately cut down, under cover of darkness, sometime between the evening of 27 September 2023 and the following morning.  The loss of the tree has caused an outcry and reaction of public grief. These materials are designed to ...

Flat places seem hardly to count as places. They’re just the gaps between landmarks. If people think about flatlands at all, it’s usually to call them boring. Nothing to look at, nothing to focus on, no hidden places to discover. To be flat is to be dull: a cut-and-dried equation. I've got a copy of 'A Flat Place' by Noreen Massud. Check out the GeoLibrary for some more. She contributed a piece to The Guardian's feature on holidays to explain why she likes to visit flat places. There's some excellent descriptions of the value of flatness and why other places leave her cold and anxious. Excellent for units exploring the distinctive landscape of this area, and the value of flatness in areas such as the Somerset Levels and elsewhere. Can I also recommend that you subscribe to Drew's Fenland on Film YouTube channel. Drew does fantastic work collating, sharing and restoring films about the Fens and places such as Ely. Here's one of his latest projects: a restor...

I read this piece in a recent Observer, and was reminded of it today with some tweets from Johny Pitts. It relates to a new book of photography and poetry that he produced with Roger Robinson There is an accompanying exhibition at the Graves Gallery ‘My photographic practice involves trying to celebrate the spaces, capture them while they're still here and give them a home. If not in a literal sense in a figurative sense, for me home is somewhere that you take with you.’ Johny Pitts A book is also available.

This programme was last broadcast in 2021 , but is being broadcast on Radio 3 again today. You will be able to hear it from tomorrow evening, or perhaps Monday morning. It is presented by Kevin Boniface , a postman based in Huddersfield who has written books on his psychogeographical adventures for uniformbooks. It connects perfectly with my conference theme of Everyday Geographies , and also the work of Georges Perec and his books which look at the infra-ordinary.

  I enjoyed this piece by Morgan Thomas . They have explored some changing ways of representing place during their development as a writer. Place in the 21st century is increasingly dynamic. Last year’s “unprecedented” Oregon fire season has been outpaced this year. New York City has seen fifty percent more rainfall during severe storms. Hurricane Ida strengthened from a tropical storm to a category four hurricane faster than hurricanes usually do. Now especially the ability of fiction to accurately render place depends on our understanding of it as a responsive ecosystem. A reflexive insistence that any place in a story that thinks and responds is a character perpetuates narratives of our environment as inanimate, unthinking, unchanging. These narratives have undergirded centuries of environmental degradation and have led to our current climate crisis.

**** Thanks to all who attended last night's GeogLive. **** The recording is below ***** Thanks to @Shackletonteach @SharonWitt17 @Attention2place for inspiring us ***** Watch now! Feedback welcome! ***** Thanks to the committee who made it happen ***** https://t.co/lgnyGpJ60I — Geography Primary / Early Years Committee @The_GA (@EYPPC_GA) January 20, 2022 The U.K has a seasonal, temperate climate, while globally we have extremes.  How can we teach pupils about cold landscapes from EY-KS2? About this event Join us for this two part session on cold landscapes.  Part 1: Emma Kerr, Headteacher, Teaching about Antarctica and the Shackleton Project Part 2: Sharon Witt, Consultant, Exploring local winter landscapes  Chaired by Julia Tanner @EYPPC_GA committee, @The_GA  This free webinar will support conversations about distant places from the U.K, the teaching of geography at cold latitudes and consideration of the people, locations and environments we might find there...

Regular readers of the blog will know how much I enjoyed Cal Flyn's book 'Islands of Abandonment' and it is coming out in paperback just ahead of Christmas. Cal is interviewed in the latest episode of the 'Sense of Place' podcast which references the places in the book. Also worth checking out Cal's latest journalism too for the Observer. It can be listened to in a number of ways. This is the link to the Spotify stream.

  " Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion." Barry Lopez I heard yesterday evening via  Robert MacFarlane  that the author  Barry Lopez had died on Christmas Day at his house in Oregon: somewhere he and his wife were renting after the house he had lived in for decades had been affected by wildfires earlier in the year, which had also tragically destroyed a building containing an archive of his writing and documents. Barry Lopez passed away yesterday evening, making his last great journey. His work –– graceful, meticulous, ethical, compassionate, from Arctic Dreams to Common Ground to Horizon & far beyond –– shaped & will go on to shape countless lives, hearts & landscapes... 1/9 pic.twitter.com/SgvTZS9v0N — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) December 26, 2020 I have blogged about Barry's writing numerous times here, and on my other blogs. I bought his 'Arctic Dreams ' book back in e...

Helen Macdonald, author of 'H is for Hawk' has completed a journey around the M25 exploring the wildlife that lies along its margins. Catch it on iPlayer. Is there a wild side to Britain’s busiest road? Author and naturalist Helen Macdonald embarks on a clockwise loop around London’s orbital motorway - searching for hidden wildness and natural beauty within the sight and sound of the M25. Along her journey, Helen encounters the remarkable people, plants and animals living above, beside and beneath the motorway, and delves into the controversial history of the UK’s longest and least-loved bypass. The M25 has been part of Britain’s landscape for nearly 35 years, so how has the natural world adapted to the motorway carving a path through its environment? Starting just south of the Thames at Kent’s Junction 1, Helen explores the woodland that lines the first 40 miles of the M25. In a first sign of how animals’ lives are shaped by the man-made world, great tits are changing the p...

Place 2020 is a new project which has been launched as part of the Centre for Place Writing. The work here explores, via a dynamic mix of new writing (poetry, essay, commentary, reflection and story), films, photography and podcasts, how ideas of ‘place’ shifted radically across the globe in 2020, as billions of people went into lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter Movement changed how we think about everything. New work will feature on this site throughout 2020. An excellent piece by Amy Liptrot is part of the first few pieces, exploring young people's relationship with nature. I often think about how the geographies of our childhoods define our psyches. I grew up next to cliffs, in big skies with the open ocean and wide horizons. I’m coming to see that my son’s ‘local acre’, his native mile, will be different. Where we now live, in West Yorkshire, is about as landlocked as you can be in the UK. His is a world of woods and rivers, of ter...

"It was a land of lush meadows, dark woods and dazzling rivers, flanked on one side by “the Lonely Mountains” and on the other by cave-studded coves where “every wave that dies on the beach sings a little song to a shell.” A lovely piece on Finland and the search for Moominland by Dan Roberts. In the Economist's 1843 magazine section. “I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes and dream,” Moomintroll

During this term of lock down, Richard Allaway and Matt Podbury have been doing a double act to support the global IB DP community. Think 'Reeves and Mortimer' rather than "Laurel and Hardy'.... Richard's site: Geography all the Way has a fantastic range of materials for teaching a whole range of age groups. Most areas of the site, which has built up over many years, remains free, and the IB area is one of the few areas that is subscription based, but well worth the small amount to gain access - think how much money you're saving by not using glue sticks, photocopier etc. Similarly Matt Podbury has a wonderful site: GeographyPods which is largely free, but has a relatively new IB area which is behind a paywall to help support the development of further new materials for the wider teaching community. Both sites are well worth paying the small subscription fee from departmental budgets. You can watch a repeat of each webinar on this link here.   Yo...

A film which connects with Robert MacFarlane's book of the same title...

This is the 125th Anniversary year of the Geographical Association , and the conference in Sheffield in April will be very special. One of the projects I'm doing (and have been doing for some time) is to tweet out a 'top tip' a day for 125 days on the GA Secondary Phase committee twitter feed . This is coming to a climax on the first day of the conference. As part of the plans for the GA's celebrations, and connecting with my OS GetOutside Champions Role for 2018, I'm going to start collating a list of 125 inspirational places to visit in the UK. We all have places from which we draw inspiration... This could be a beach, a particular walk, a historic building, a bench overlooking a viewpoint, a landscape feature or something more esoteric.  The reasons behind the inspiration may relate to family members, an emotional reunion, or sad passing; they may be places that are visited often, or which left a lasting impression from a single visit. They may be places...

A series of programmes which are being played in a series on Island life . This is available to listen to again for a month or so, so if you're reading this after Summer 2017 you may not be able to hear some or all of them. Thanks to the wonderful artist Ellis O' Connor for the tipoff to this on Twitter. If you're interested in the idea of islands, then these will be well worth following. A list of some of the programmes is here. I'm particularly interested in the sharing of some stories by George Mackay Brown, who is forever connected with the town of Stromness on Orkney. Some will also be interested in a repeat of Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a Small Island' , which is available in five episodes. This connects with the work I am going to be doing over the summer with Peter Knight , funded by an Innovative Geography Teaching Grant. You will see our work on this developing on this website. Image: Copyright BBC - used to publicise the Islands seaso...