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.
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