iEconomy Factories...

iECONOMY: Factory Upgrade from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.
This video is part of a series that won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting on April 15, 2013 http://bit.ly/11aWqlz. See the entire iECONOMY series here http://nyti.ms/ZDNRNA

For the New York Times | By Jonah M. Kessel

In the winter of 2011, I visited the Foxconn factory in Chengdu, China, where many popular Apple products are made. However, I was not greeted with open arms. Foxconn denied any interviews and did not allowed us access to their facility. Employees of Foxconn we found outside the factory gates complained of grimm working conditions. (That report here: https://vimeo.com/35674511)

Over the year, the New York Times and other media outlets reported on this and Apple responded saying they would improve conditions for workers.

One year later, I returned to Foxconn with New York Times' Hong Kong Bureau Chief Keith Bradsher as well as factories producing for Hewlett-Packard in Western China, to see what had changed since our initial investigations. This time around, Foxconn in Chengdu allowed us to interview employees as well as visit employee dormitories. Their reaction a year later showed a culture change. While at HP, manufactories there gave us full access to work areas, recreational areas, dormitories and eating facilities.

This video documents what we found.

See accompanying story: Signs of Changes Taking Hold in Electronics Factories in China by Keith Bradsher and Charles Duihigg http://nyti.ms/WIJmSA and slideshow of still images by photographer Gilles Sabrie http://nyti.ms/WIJv8D .

Australian Pizza

Saffron's Australian Pizza Homework - looks tasty !!

Tongue map prep...

Excellent tongue map prep from Arthur from the Year 7 Mission:Explore inspired prep booklet for this term... Feel the quality..

The Chocolate Story

For Year 7s...

Remember the Chocolate story: from Cocoa Bean to Chocolate Bar, and The Cocoa Chain

Dell on Earth

Links back to Val Vannet and the early days of sharing resources online...
For Year 8, here's another example of a GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN.

Dell on earth from Will Williams

Also check out the NUTELLA diagram from here

What are other examples of multinationals moving into other countries ?

e.g. McDonalds opening in Vietnam...

China - a 'near Arctic' state...

A really useful website for those who want to go deeper into the stories of the poles is the Globe and Mail site.
Last weekend, they published a fascinating article on the potential future influence of China in the region.
Although the northern-most part of China is well outside the Arctic Circle, the country is calling itself a 'near Arctic' state apparently.

Connects with the work that Year 8s did linked to the exam question on Canada's claim to the North Pole.
There are many nuanced arguments and issues here...

La Planeta

Via Geography Soup


De Planeta from Leonardo Cavaletti on Vimeo.
De Planeta (latin for “about a planet”) is a short and stylised procedural animation that revolves around birth, life and death of a little planet, showing all the colorful wonders it has to offer by following it through the ages with a fast-paced and engaging rhythm, culminating into the triumph of modernity over nature, with all the consequences that may follow upon it...

Geography Ambassadors

This lunchtime saw the first meeting of the year for the new cohort of Geography Ambassadors at King's Ely.
This group of students will represent the Geography department at events and also take part in a range of activities to develop their geographical skills.
We'll be having regular meetings, and getting involved in practical projects, Geocaching, Mission:Explore and a whole range of other things.
There'll be a chance for everyone to benefit from their work...

Hot chocolate...

The next area of our FOOD unit after our Pizza Garden is to explore CHOCOLATE.

When you buy a bar of chocolate... such as the one here, who gets the money ?

What is the story of Chocolate ?

Visit the DUBBLE site and follow the BEAN TO BAR story by reading each stage and who it involves...

Then ask me for a STORY OF CHOCOLATE card task...

My global home... prep survey sheet...

My Global Home

Pole to Pole - the frozen North

Over the Christmas holiday, the Pole of Cold team were making their way towards Oymyakon: the Pole of Cold (coldest inhabited place in the Northern Hemisphere)

I've blogged about the project before, which has its Twitter feed and Facebook page.

Meanwhile I was a little closer to home... in fact I was at home, working on a resource for the From the Field section of the Royal Geographical Society website.

These resources are now live on the KS4 From the Field section of the RGS website.

Check them out here: 3 lesson plans with all the materials, plus plenty of extension ideas and other materials, with more to come...
Thanks to Matt Podbury for some kind words already. Let me know if you use them or take a look.

8000 views on the blog...

Thanks all those who have visited so far. I hope most of the 8000 are students and parents at King's Ely, but you're very welcome if you're not.

Down under 2 - second batch of Tagxedo clouds

What would you do with these next ?
How could you continue the discussion on risk using these as a resource ?

Nice work by Calum, David and Emma

Sunday roast...

Roast chicken and all the trimmings cooked today at home.
But what geographical questions could you come up with ?

Remember to use the question grid to come up with some better questions.

Image: Alan Parkinson

Question Grid: John Sayers

Down Under...

Australia is a particularly risky place.

It's almost as if the place is set up to kill its inhabitants or at least to inconvenience them. The hazards are climatic, meteorological, biological and from other sources... Even the sun beats down through a thinning layer of Ozone and cutting the grass might lead to a spider bite...

Year 9 have been investigating the Risky Place that is Australia and visualising the risks in some Word Clouds, made with the Tagxedo website, which provides the option to turn the clouds into shapes.

Excellent work by Charles, Oliver and Natalia.

More to come in the next few days...

WordFoto

An app which I use to create an impression is WordFoto
Here's a risky skier....

See the Year 9 work on Risky Tagxedo clouds too in the next post...

Chain of Good

The new Innocent Smoothies ad was recommended to me by my former colleague Anne.
It certainly has connections with the 'Geography of my Stuff' work, as well as being a food related item too...



Watch it and see what the geographical connections are that you can identify...

Fancy a coffee ?

We are possibly going to make use of Simon Reeve's new programme on 'The Coffee Trail', which is going to be shown on the BBC at the weekend.

Adventurer and journalist Simon Reeve heads to Vietnam to uncover the stories behind the nation's morning pick-me-up. While we drink millions of cups of the stuff each week, how many of us know where our coffee actually comes from? The surprising answer is that it is not Brazil, Columbia or Jamaica, but Vietnam. Eighty per cent of the coffee we drink in Britain isn't posh cappuccinos or lattes but instant coffee and Vietnam is the biggest supplier.

From Hanoi in the north, Simon follows the coffee trail into the remote central highlands where he meets the people who grow, pick and pack our coffee. Millions of small scale famers, each working two or three acres, produce most of the coffee beans that go into well known instant coffee brands.

Thirty years ago Vietnam only produced a tiny proportion of the world's coffee, but after the end of the Vietnam war there was a widescale plan to become a coffee growing nation and Vietnam is now the second biggest in the world. It has provided employment for millions, making some very rich indeed, and Simon meets Vietnam's biggest coffee billionaire. But Simon learns that their rapid success has come at a cost to both the local people and the environment.

Some details on the filming HERE

Watch on Sunday 26th of January on BBC2 at 8pm

Also catch a repeat of the previous TEA TRAIL

International School Award

It's worth mentioning and reminding everyone perhaps that King's Ely holds a few other geographically relevant awards thanks to the efforts of Mrs. Oldham and colleagues lower down the school, and also across the school....
One of these is the International School Award.

Here's the details from the school's website.

The ISA is a badge of honour for schools that do outstanding work to foster an international dimension within many areas of the curriculum to provide young people with the cultural understanding and skills they need to live and work as global citizens.

Since September 2011, pupils from all sections of King’s Ely have been involved in international competitions, celebrations and online projects through links with overseas schools. Highlights include the celebration of Chinese New Year in Reception; International Day in Acremont, where parents were invited to share their culture and language with the children at school; and the Elympics, where Junior and Senior students took part in a variety of Olympic and Paralympic sports and international cultural activities.

Connecting with overseas schools has also been an integral part of the international programme. Children as young as seven have enjoyed a taster of Mandarin while exchanging information with a primary school in China, learning first-hand about daily life and comparing traditions and festivals, and in Year Five, pupils are able to choose two languages – from French, German and Spanish – and enjoy regular correspondence with peers in the relative country.

Last year, pupils linked up with schools in Kuwait and Japan as well as meeting a group of Japanese students who visited the school while studying English in Cambridge.

Teacher Lorraine Oldham said: “During this visit, it was wonderful to see the children conversing, practising their newly found language skills and finding other ways to communicate through smiles and gestures. This year we are embarking on a new project, collaborating with nine schools from as far north as Norway and as far south as Turkey. The school has really embraced the opportunity to incorporate an international dimension into the curriculum. By forging friendships between pupils of different countries, we can help build international understanding, which in turn will help motivate global citizens to act for peace and justice in the world.”

Ross Kemp's 'Extreme World'

We have been exploring Risky Places in Year 9, and so has Ross Kemp.
The third series of his 'Extreme World' series, shown on Sky is about to start.
I don't have Sky, so won't be watching, but there are a few clips from the show on the website, and previous issues can be found online in various formats and locations...

What is it about these places that makes them 'extreme' - presumably risk is part of the decision.
What risks does Ross face when he visits these places ? (bearing in mind that the residents face these risks on a daily basis)
What preparations do you think the film company has made to mitigate the risks ?

One for the early years at King's Ely

Really useful post and resource for those teaching Primary Geography.
A new set of characters called the Go Jetters who teach young people about key geographical ideas.

Geography helps children to make sense of their world. Very young children are naturally curious, and they love to actively explore the world around them, noticing all kinds of detail. That’s why they need to develop geographical vocabulary like the names of places, people and things, and the words needed to describe and locate them.

It helps to think of children as little geographers – they each have their own world of private geographies  - the places they name for themselves with meanings that only they understand: the dens where they hide out with their friends, special meeting places in the school playground. Whether they’re playing in the back garden, or splashing through a muddy puddle on the way to school, children are intrepid explorers making new (to them) discoveries about the world every single day. 

Check them out...

Meet Kyan, Xuli, Foz and Lars; four adventure-seeking superhero Go Jetters who live high above the clouds, and love to explore new places all around planet Earth.

Mentored by a disco-loving unicorn named Ubercorn, the Go Jetters accept any mission and tackle challenges head on through problem-solving, teamwork and amazing inventions. 

How globalised are you ?

Here's one way that I'm connected with the world.
These are the countries where people were when they visited my LivingGeography blog over the last hour or so...

How are you connected with the world - how globalised are you?

Junkyard Planet

This book by Adam Minter looks like it might be a useful addition to the unit on the GEOGRAPHY OF MY STUFF we're starting with Year 8.

You can read a bit of the book using the LOOK INSIDE feature on Amazon.

I liked this line from the opening as a possible discussion focus for students to consider, and provide some explanatory statements for.

"Here's something true in all places and times: the richer you are, and the more educated you are, the more stuff you will throw away".

The Geography of your 'stuff''....

Year 8s will be spending this term exploring the Geography of their 'stuff' - and what a lot of it most of us have...
We have drawers full of clothes, rooms full of gadgets, kitchens full of food and boxes in our form rooms full of equipment and books.

• Where does all this stuff come from?
• Who makes it?
• What raw materials are provided?

We'll be uncovering the stories behind your clothes.
For example, what about the garment makers of Cambodia.
We'll also be making use of some resources written by Mr Parkinson for a website created by a team at Exeter University.
The FOLLOW the THINGS website.

And you'll also find it useful to explore those produced by Geography teacher Matt Podbury too.
We're going to use one of Matt's resources in the first lesson.

Check out the GEOGRAPHY PODS website.

Thanks to Matt for the reminder of UNFAIR FACTORY which we had a go at playing at the end of last week.

200 up...

Just passed the 200 post milestone on this new blog. I hope you're finding it useful and interesting to see what we get up to in the King's Ely Geography department.
Still plenty of opportunities for King's Ely students to get involved in producing content for it....
Here's to the next 200 posts...

Micromort Animation for Year 9

Micromort Animation that I've come across while preparing some material for next week on the risks facing people in Australia....
Several tabs to click on, and then click on the left hand image and you'll be able to see the risk in micromorts (one in a million chance)

For 'getting out of bed' you also need to look at the drop down menu to see the changes for different sexes and also comparisons with the past.

Which are the most surprising 'risks' that the infographic shows up.....

Risky business...

Year 9 risk moved into new territory today as we delved into the Risk equation...

We explored how it worked with a range of risky situations, starting with the lady leaning over a cliff with the waves splashing against the base...

Risk = Hazard x Vulnerability / Coping Capacity and Resilience

Thanks to Noel Jenkins for permission to use this picture of him, taken by Laura Jenkins, which we used to explore the equation and how the risk would vary as each factor changed with time, location and context.

Image: Laura Jenkins

Finally, a reminder to King's Ely pupils that Professor David Spiegelhalter is coming in this term to do a talk....
He is involved in our earlier MICROMORT work, which Andrew remembered and used very nicely today.
Well worth going to see...

Food display in the library

Thanks to Mrs. Inskip for creating a special display of books about FOOD in the King's Ely Junior library.
If you're passing, why not pop in and take a look. Some of them will also be useful for your preps this term.

A disastrous homework...

Challenge students to identify a top 10 of films which feature disasters or other risks to the planet. For example, one of the risks that we face (a very real one) is asteroid impact.
This has the potential to wipe out the human race, but fortunately the probability is quite low...

This film is based on this risk... It's one of several in the King's Geography Department DVD library, which is quite extensive...

What other disaster movies can you think of based on other natural phenomena or human activity that pose a risk ?
Who can create the most creative movie list??

Take a risk

For use with the Risk Equation... see next post....

Put factors which would increase the risk or vulnerability above the words on the card (print them off and distribute several per person) and those which would reduce the risk by increasing the coping capacity or resilience below the words on the card...)

Feel free to come up with your own risks...

Plenty of risky stories today...

TAKE A RISK

How's this for a job...

Relevant to our Year 8 work on the production of items that we consume, and also our Year 9 work on Risk (it's also a fairly Adventurous Landscape Year 7s....)
A documentary on the sulphur miners, whose place of work is an active volcano (also featured in the 'Human Planet' series..)


Where Heaven Meets Hell Official Trailer from Sasha Friedlander on Vimeo.

Deep in the rain forests of Eastern Java, Indonesia, lies the active volcano, Kawah Ijen, where 500 sulfur miners carrying backbreaking loads, traverse treacherous terrain amidst spectacular vistas and toxic gases. Where Heaven Meets Hell relays the stories of four of these miners, who risk their lives and health daily in an industry we rely on for sugar, matches and cosmetics. This visually stunning and intimate film chronicles their attempts to escape the endemic poverty and lack of education that haunts their community. Drawing strength from their families and Muslim faith, these miners inspire us as they search for meaning in their daily struggles and triumphs.

Official Website: www.whereheavenmeetshell.com

Thanks to Ian Cook for the tipoff...

Interesting image for the Risky World topic for Year 9

Which is the most dangerous ?

Reminder for Year 8

January 13, 2014 at 09:30AM KEJ Y8 Examinations begin, MH
— King's Ely (@Kings_Ely) January 13, 2014

Good luck for Wednesday's Geography exam :)

Risky Places

Earlier today, I asked my Twitter followers to tell me of the most risky place / situation they had been in. The intention was to produce a document to help frame discussions about the nature of risk, how it connects with places, and how it can be mitigated or reduced through particular actions. There's also the element of the perception of risk - sometimes we put ourselves at risk because we're not aware of how dangerous our actions are.

The stories came pouring in, and here's version 1 of the resource that I created with a starter for two of questions - there are plenty more.

Risky Places – real stories

I'll update to version 2 in a few days time to add in any extra entries. Already had 3 more awesome stories to add to the ones here, which span the globe and span time too...
Thanks so much to those who took the time to tell me a risky story. 

You can be a growing boy... or girl...

As we are studying food this term in Year 7, there have been some discussions about possibly growing some food during this term, as the weather starts to improve.
I'm going to have a go at some indoor gardening with this kit that I bought at the weekend.

What else could you grow in a classroom ?

Risky Business

Which of these are the most risky activities ?
Cards used for card sort activity and to prompt other discussions. Further materials to come later, once the lesson has been taught for the first time and tweaked...

Risky Business by GeoBlogs

Food Bank items

These are the items we used in the lesson on Wednesday and Friday this week...

Antarctica Activity

Need a break from your Year 8 Geography revision ?
Try this fun Bitesize KS3 activity on how cold Antarctica gets...

King's Ely Geography Twitter account now open...

King's Ely students (or potentially their parents) are now welcome to follow the new Twitter account which has been set up by the department.

This is a protected account.

Only those associated with King's Ely will be able to follow and see the tweets, which will be news items and resources of interest to the curriculum and exam specifications which the department teaches. All requests to follow the account will be moderated by departmental staff. The account will not be used to share any information that might identify any individual student, and follows the school protocols for the use of social media.

This will be another way of sharing useful information relevant to particular Year groups (identified by hashtags such as #year7) or projects the school takes part in.

Geography Ambassadors will also be helping to suggest tweets.

Food discussion cards

For discussions on food-related themes....
Check out my Flickr set with almost 500 pictures of food in various contexts...
A few of these by Richard Allaway.

I've extracted 9, which can be printed 9 to a page with the handouts option and used for discussions and/or card sort style activities... Use your imagination with them :)

Food Discussion Cards

The desolation of SMOG....

A lovely headline on the BBC website for a not-so-lovely situation for many people in cities in China.

The air quality in many Chinese cities is not just bad, it claims thousands of lives a year. For Year 9s designing their sustainable cities, this is one of the key areas to tackle when planning a place that people will want to live in.

Reminds me too of a conversation with 8Gg1 yesterday about Benedict Cumberbatch... 

Food, glorious food....

Starting a new Year 7 unit today on the Geography of Food, called 'You are what you eat'.

Coincidentally, Sky News has just published a report from Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, which explores the way that we eat food that is imported that could actually be produced within the UK.

"As British farmers and food producers you know that we grow some of the best food in the world here - so why is 24% of the food eaten in the UK imported when it could be produced here ?"

What are the benefits of continuing to import this food rather than produce it in the UK - are there very good reasons why we don't actually do that?

Could also discuss the role of supermarkets in promoting (or reducing) food waste.

And also the fact that Prince William is doing a course in agricultural management at the University of Cambridge

Finally, we will be connecting the work that we do with the Year 7 effort on FOOD BANKs.
This is a reminder of the foods that we are asking students at King's to bring in during this term, and in particular during the week that each house has been allocated...

Happy New Term

Wandering down to the cathedral this morning for a service to start the Lent Term on the theme of Epiphany. Organ soaring, choristers singing, sun through the stained glass and prayers and readings from students and the Principal. Along with the Junior school assembly where we welcomed back colleagues from absence, and new colleagues too, it was a good way to start 2014...
There's a lot of work ahead of us, so let's get started...

Make it one of your New Year's resolutions to follow this blog, particularly if you're a student at KEJ or KES...

 

Image: Alan Parkinson

Authentic biomes work...

It's always best to look to add some authenticity to work that you ask students to do. We're not just occupying time, we're developing Geographers. Geographers present ideas in particular ways as they explore the world in all its complexity.

An audience and a purpose always helps for writing and presentation tasks, and that goes right back to work when teaching ICT as well as Geography, and particularly when I was teaching the OCR Pilot Geography back in the day. I also like the idea of a 'narrative' or 'story' to the work.

One area that I have done some work on in the last year or so is the Great Barrier Reef. I worked with Jamie Buchanan Dunlop to create some materials relating to the Catlin Seaview Survey, in association with Google. We're hoping to welcome Jamie to our school in February for our 'The Big Outdoors Day'.
More on that event to come in some future blogposts...

The Reef Beat resource was designed to support students as they explore this threatened wilderness environment.
Students will be invited to use this as a model for exploring other ecosystems. This will also connect with work done on the Great Barrier Reef
With regard to Oceans, it's good to get some recognition for what you do, and these resources have had their fair share of nominations for various awards, including BETT and BERA, as well as within Exeter University.

There's also a counter argument that the idea of authenticity is essentially just good learning... These resources are certainly relevant to that too.

Coming soon... Geography tweets

The King's Ely Geographers are setting up a home on Twitter...

We'll be sharing our Twitter name and address and inviting people to follow us shortly. The account will be protected, so that only people who follow can see out Tweets as they are posted, and each request to follow will need to be approved. The account will be used to share information and ideas, as well as examples of student work. It is intended to act as a quick way of posting information, and to support (and not replace) the other existing channels for communication between the school and parents. Any content will fit in with the school's policies on the use of social media and other online forums.

Don't forget the official King's Ely Twitter account too: @Kings_Ely

Year 8 exam - extended question...

There is a question on the Year 8 exam next week which requires a longer answer than the others. The question will be marked on a level of response basis: instead of each valid point scoring one mark, the overall answer will be placed into one of three bands, with marks available varying as the answer improves.
A basic answer will stay at Level 1, whereas a more carefully worded answer, with supporting evidence and a valid conclusion will score Level 3.
The question will be related to a theme from the work we did on the Arctic and Antarctica.
This area has featured in the news over the last few days, and some of you mentioned the
Russian ship which got stuck in the ice, so a Chinese icebreaker was sent to save it, and that got stuck too... so now the Americans are sending a ship to hopefully rescue them both. The ship was stuck in the sea ice off the coast of Antarctica, which is still around even during the 'summer' months.

We also had this story in THE DAY, which the school subscribes to, which explores Canada's recent claim on the North Pole. I took the quote in the powerpoint below from this article...

Use the Powerpoint to help structure a long answer to the original statement in the first slide. Do you agree or disagree ? Why ?

Long Question for Year 8

Risky World...

Look at this image from the news in the last few days...
(Can't blog as taken from newspaper...) - also check the Daily Mail coverage of the story along with over 600 comments from readers...

The lifeboat at Aberystwyth had to rescue this student from an area near the seafront. Was he right to ignore the warnings? How risky was his behaviour? Did he need to be rescued?
Other people who went out 'to take some photos' are missing, despite being given warnings...

There are some interesting questions here about the nature of risk.
We discussed the accident of Michael Schumacher and the risk of certain sports, using an article from the Guardian datablog.

Here's a picture I took three weeks ago on the Norfolk coast at Happisburgh.




It's the final house on Beach Road in Happisburgh - the cliff was in danger of collapsing, and potentially could have collapsed while I was there. Was I taking a risk?

At a time when we have our attention on risks generally, it's worth thinking about this theme.
Is the world a riskier place than it used to be ?

Here's a sheet to construct an A-Z of risk

A Risky A-Z by GeoBlogs

Back to school...

Those three little words...
Back from a good holiday which had plenty of Geographical elements to it...
I travelled around the coast of Norfolk after a storm surge, went up to Yorkshire for a week in the woods, completed (almost) a new teaching resource for the Royal Geographical Society, had our Mission:Explore Water resource signed off, read 'Four Fields' by Tim Dee and planned out my plan of action for 2014 so far, which includes working with a good few hundred teachers and also a spot of foreign travel... excellent...

Thanks to all those who continued to visit this blog over the Christmas period. I'm under way for the new term with some initial posts and will try to post regularly between now and Easter as time permits...

What I bought at the supermarket...

I'm currently getting prepared for the Lent Term, when we have 3 good units at Key Stage 3
The Year 7 unit is going to explore ideas related to the Geography of Food.

Here's a resource that I will make some use of. A year or so ago I took a picture of everything I got from one 'weekly supermarket shop'.... as you can see, it was a visit to Waitrose, which isn't my 'regular' supermarket... or does it matter which supermarket I went to ? How does that impact on the Geography of Food revealed by the products ??

What can you deduce about me ? my family ? my lifestyle ? 
Which geographical connections can you make from this trolley load of shopping ?