Open Morning

Taking place this Saturday....

Here's an image from last year... Hopefully this year will look just as welcoming... I may need to tidy my desk though...

eTwinning UK Award for King's Ely

Congratulations to Mrs. Oldham and all those who are involved in the eTwinning UK efforts for the school. This has been another busy year, but was rounded off by an award at this weekend's eTwinning conference.

The school won the following award.

Category: Collaboration in Secondary School
Trails Around Europe
King's Ely

Well done to everyone concerned from all in the Geography Department...

Ideas for what to do with your OS map

Written by Mr. Parkinson a few years ago now…

OS Activity Cards

Worth a watch...

Dan is coming in to meet us in the new academic year…

Let's make Greater London a National Park City from Daniel Raven-Ellison on Vimeo.
Help make Greater London the world's first National Park City by backing our crowdfunding campaign: http://bit.ly/GLNPc

Who is this?

Merits for correct answers...

Hotel Rwanda

Watched this with Year 12 as part of their transition work towards the Y13 unit on Contemporary Conflicts which they will be completing.

It's a stunning film, which was really capturing their attention, and told the story of the Rwandan genocide.
Students were then given a task which explored the role of ethnicity in the conflict, as well as the role of the UN.
It centres on Paul Rusesabagina, who has been compared to Oskar Schindler as he saved hundreds of people from the Rwandan genocide. He was the general manager of a hotel in Kigali, and a Hutu and sheltered large numbers of Tutsis.
Year 12 have a week or so left to complete their 2000 word essay on the film and the connection with the conflict.... Remember that the Porta library has a range of resources to help you put together your answer.

New OS Map

We have a special new map in the Geography Department, which was made using the Ordnance Survey's Custom Map service. This has been around for some time now, and allows users to create maps which are either flat or folded, with a title and image of their choice. I've got one centred on my village which I won in an OS competition.
We ordered one at the weekend and it arrived within a few days - very quick service. The map is centred on King's Ely, which is great because the school sits right at the edge of the actual map sheet, so it's not very easy to see the surrounding geography. We'll be using it for our new Fentastic Geography unit in the Michaelmas term too.
We'll have it on display at the Open Morning next Saturday, when Year 8s will be displaying their PEPs...

Hunstanton - visiting a Victorian resort

People have been heading to Hunstanton for their holidays since Victorian times.
Back then, they arrived by rail, and enjoyed the beach.
Some Victorian postcards show how the resort was back then. One of the things that has been missing most obviously is the pier, which used to be there, and which is shown on the image below that I took through the window of the heritage centre (which was unfortunately closed). You can also see the difference in the cliffs since the time the image was taken...

Many local people would like the pier to be replaced, but that seems unlikely.
There has been a campaign to have the railway replaced for years, but the track has steadily been built on and the route compromised... I used to live in a village that the railway line used to pass through. This old film shows John Betjeman taking that route...

Referendum Cartogram by Ben Hennig

It was good to spend time with Ben Hennig at the GIS Day that we hosted at King's Ely on Tuesday, and has been blogged about here (with more posts to come)
I was expecting Ben to produce a map of the referendum results and he has delivered as expected.
He describes the map as follows:

The following map is a cartogram that shows the electoral areas from this referendum resized according to their total number of people entitled to vote. In addition, the vote share for leaving and remaining is shown in differently shaded densities, using blue for the remain votes and red for the leave votes (which complement each other to 100% of the valid votes)

Image created by Ben Hennig and shared under CC license - click for a bigger version

GIS Day Resources - ArcGIS Online from Thierry Torres

GIS Day hosted by King's Ely

I'll write more at the weekend, but a public thanks to Darren Bailey from the Ordnance Survey, Paul Turner from Bedales School, Jason Sawle from ESRI UK and Ben Hennig and Tina Gotthardt from the University of Oxford for coming and presenting at the GIS Day that we hosted at King's Ely today. Thanks to colleagues from the school for catering, welcoming guests and sorting the ICT.

Here's a Storify of a few tweets that I posted on the @KingsElyGeog Twitter feed… feel free to follow us.

We started the day by watching some of the amazing Sigur Ros Route One film that was playing at the time…

And we also had a personalised video message from Joseph Kerski of ESRI, a truly legendary GIS professional….

Mission:Explore - a book which underpins a lot of what we do in the Geography department

Mission Explore slo mo from Alan Parkinson on Vimeo.

Hunstanton Fieldtrip photos - from yesterday...

Year 12 Summer Task work

Thanks to Miss Kyndt for creating this activity for Year 12s to develop their critical writing prior to the summer break.

Y12 Summer Term Task

Ben Hennig lecture

We are very fortunate to have Ben Hennig coming to speak to the 6th form on June 21st. This will be a special occasion as Ben is world renowned for his cartograms which help people see the world differently. He has won numerous awards, and is currently working at the University of Oxford, which is ranked as the number one university geography department in the world.
He has also completed a project with Mr. Parkinson, as he produced the maps for LondonMapper in association with Professor Danny Dorling, and Mr. P wrote the educational materials.

Ben Hennig Poster for Lecture

Dress appropriately...

Forecast has improved on earlier in the week, but could still be a bit damp....

 

30 000 page views

Not quite the 2 million ish of LivingGeography, but a good start.
Thanks for stopping by and reading...

In or out?

This looks like being an entertaining event...
Which way would you vote?

Year 9 Revision Cards

Year 9s can use these cards to make their own, there are some blank ones, or answer the questions that are provided below to make yourself some revision cards /flash cards. You could also produce some mind maps or other visual forms of revision material to refer to as the week progresses.

Y9 Revision Cards

Changes in Ely

We will be exploring this, and other changes, which will take place in the city of Ely over the next year or so.
This is a proposal for changes to the cathedral...

What other proposed changes are there in Ely?

Year 9 - we talked about this idea yesterday… whether eco-tourism existed or not...

“‘It’s not sustainable tourism…just tourism!’” by @WTTC https://t.co/mXFWlae3iy

— Dr David Jarratt (@DavidJarratt1) June 11, 2016

Hunstanton Preview...

For Year 7s
Look at this embedded gallery - click the pictures and captions to find out more about what we are going to do on Thursday next week.

Mallory and Irvine

We will be exploring this story with Year 7 next year once again...

I missed this anniversary posting from the 8th of June on the Royal Scottish Geographical Society website.

On this day in history (1924) - George Mallory, who was on his 3rd attempt on Everest and who raised money by speaking for RSGS in order to take the expedition, was last seen by fellow climber Noel Odell, on the summit ridge below the ‘Hillary’ step, as it is now known. 
Odell is quoted below:

"At 12.50, just after I had emerged from a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more."

Did he reach the summit?
If you're in Year 6, why don't you read up on the story...

Image: memorial stone for Sandy Irvine at Shrewsbury School

Steve Backshall prize received....

We've received our prize for sending images during the Digimap for Schools competition. It's a splendid Predators book by Steve Backshall which the great man himself has signed.
This is going to be available for Year 7s to win following our trip to Hunstanton next week.

Details about how to enter will be included in the pack you will get on the fieldtrip.

Learning and getting things done in the future...

How many of these technologies might we see at King's Ely in the future?

Thanks to Richard Bustin for the link below

6th Form lecture by Ben Hennig

We are very fortunate to have Ben Hennig coming to speak to the 6th form on June 21st. This will be a special occasion as Ben is world renowned for his cartograms which help people see the world differently. He has won numerous awards, and is currently working at the University of Oxford, which is ranked as the number one university geography department in the world.
He has also completed a project with Mr. Parkinson, as he produced the maps for LondonMapper in association with Professor Danny Dorling, and Mr. P wrote the educational materials.

Ben Hennig Poster for Lecture

Fairtrade Footballs

A new film looking at the production of Fairtrade Footballs - in time for Euro 2016….



How are footballs made? And why do we need Fairtrade footballs?
To find out, we go to Sialkot in northern Pakistan to see the production process first-hand. We speak to stitchers and workers in two factories who talk about the difference that Fairtrade has made to their lives.

RGS Teachmeet

RGS Teachmeet confirmed now for Wednesday the 9th of November
Sadly, I can't make it to London on a school night, so will follow from afar.
Sign up wiki page here.

World Oceans Day - 8th June

We have been exploring the issue of ocean plastics. This, along with acidification (which is killing the corals of the great barrier reef) and warming oceans are some of the major threats to our oceans, which we rely on for so much.
Here is the trailer for a forthcoming film on Ocean plastics and the threat to the oceans, and therefore to us. What can we do about this? Will a King's Ely geographer have the answer?

We have a flag on order...