Year 6 Taster Day

Today was Year 6 taster day. There were 4 groups of around 20 students who I had during the day - some internal students, and others who were visiting for the day for a taste of the school.
We were looking at the idea of exploration and wanted to get the students being creative. The original idea was for them to be outside, but persistent rain during the day put paid to that idea.
Here's the activity we used.
You will need the Lego Learn to Learn Education pack if you want to use that part of the activity, or a lego minifigure per person / group if not...

Year 6 Taster Activity from GeoBlogs

ESRi Global Migration Visualisation

A useful tool for Year 10 and 12.
See the migration to and from each city come to life.
The UK, for example has seen dramatic out-migration as well as immigration.

Shackleton Enduring Eye exhibition

A century ago today, Sir Ernest Shackleton and the crew of the 'Endurance' were camping on the ice after the sinking of his ship - crushed in the ice. They faced possibly the most incredible story ever told, as they proceeded to save the life of everyone involved, with a number of voyages including one in the James Caird to South Georgia.

Parts of the journey were documented by the expedition's photographer Frank Hurley, who managed to save just some of the images that he took.

An exhibition opens today at the Royal Geographical Society, which shows the images, which have been digitised directly from the original glass plates. It runs through to the end of February 2016. I shall be taking this in at some point when I next go to London.

See details about the exhibition, which is free to enter, and an online exhibition on the RGS website here.

You can see a few sample images on this BBC news article about the exhibition.

The RGS has also produced some resources linked to their collections.

And finally, check out William Grill's wonderful picture book of 'Shackleton's Journey' and the associated Activity Book which we have used to produce some interesting resources.

Image copyright: Royal Geographical Society

Back from Iceland and getting ready for the next half term...

Here's the places we visited in Iceland last week on the King's Ely Iceland trip.

More pictures and other materials to follow...