Primary Geography research report published

A rather comprehensive research document focussing on Primary Geography has been published and is being hosted on the GA website.

What are the indicators for high quality #primaryGeography?
After nearly three years of work, our team from @EYPPC_GA are delighted that this ‘free to access’ piece of #research is now published on @The_GA site. https://t.co/RYeN0mrL8D

— Dr Paula Owens FRGS (@Primageographer) July 27, 2022

The research was based on the GA's Primary Geography Quality Mark, and looked at outcomes from this. I'm delighted to have been part of the moderation team for the Quality Mark for quite a few years now - at least eight I think. I've also been part of the Secondary Quality Mark moderation team since the beginning - going back to before the Action Plan for Geography.

Click the link to download the report as a PDF.

There's an excellent authoring team for the report:

Professor Simon Catling – Professor Emeritus of Primary Education, Oxford Brookes University, GA President 1992–93 

Kate Glanville – Senior lecturer in geography education, Birmingham City University 

Jeremy Krause – Education Consultant, GA President 2001–02 

Jen Lomas – Primary school teacher and geography subject leader, London 

Dr Paula Owens – Geography Education Consultant, previously GA primary lead 

Steve Rawlinson – Geography Education Consultant, GA Former President 2015–16, Primary Geography journal Board Chair 

Dr Sharon Witt – Geography Education Consultant

This will be of particular value to those schools which are applying for the PGQM in the future, as it provides a wealth of information about the feedback given by moderators and what we are looking for in top quality Primary Geography. Congratulations to all the author team.

Our Place in Space - coming to Cambridge

I've been following the latest installation by Oliver Jeffers. It allows people to find out their Place in Space: to put Earth into its context.

"The only place where... stories are told."

Astronauts have the 'overview effect' when they look down on the planet and Oliver wanted to show the scale of the Solar System.

Oliver has created a walk way which starts in Cambridge and ends in Waterbeach and will be installed from the end of July to the end of August.

See more details here. 

If you can’t get to Cambridge this summer, there is a free app which allows you to follow the walk virtually. Download it from this link.

One of the aims of the walk is to consider scale – an important idea in geography too. 

 There are also teaching resources to download exploring some of the ideas, which may be of interest even if you don’t follow the trail. Let us know if you take part with your class, or perhaps your family.

The trail is about humanity's place in the solar system.

The route will take it through Cambridge.

What's done is done, what's yet to be is clearly yet to be. In other words, sandwiched as we are between the "everything" that is behind us and the "zero" beyond us, ours is an ephemeral existence in which there is neither coincidence nor possibility.”

Haruki Murakami

There's a lovely free illustrated app by Oliver Jeffers as well, where you can take a virtual route if you can't get to the location where the walk is installed.

Listen to Oliver taking a walk with Clare Balding on her programme 'Ramblings'.

I shall be taking the walk.

Fun in the Sun?

I have been collecting imagery of the days when temperature records were broken and have started to put together a Pinterest board of imagery. This will be used in the Michaelmas term when we explore the geography that happened this summer.

One of the most interesting aspects of the media coverage has been the slight shift in narrative. 

This followed the fires in a number of locations during the worst of the heat at the start of last week. 

There has been plenty of information on this in the media.

Download a copy of the Saffron O' Neill paper that I have mentioned a number of times in previous blog posts here. It is an accessible read and will be referred to in my teaching in the new academic year.

Reading FC and Climate Stripes

Today @ReadingFC and @ReadingFCWomen unveiled their new home kit for the 2022/23 season, incorporating the climate stripes on the sleeves and shorts.

The stripes used on the kit represent changes in temperature in Reading since the club was founded in 1871.#HoopsForTheFuture pic.twitter.com/W8jFYmFHk5

— Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) July 25, 2022

 Looks like Reading FC are joining Mr. P in wearing the climate stripes.

An interesting development - the university teaming up with a local football team.

This tells the whole story and also has a close up of the kit.

“The bold stripe design, which features on the sleeves of the new home shirt, was first created by the University of Reading’s Professor Ed Hawkins in 2018. Each stripe represents the average temperature for a single year, relative to the average temperature over the period as a whole; shades of blue indicate cooler-than-average years, while red shows years that were hotter than average. And the stripes on the home shirt specifically track climate change in Reading across the full 151-year existence of Reading Football Club.

“The shirt itself is made from Eco-Fabric – 100% of which comes from recycled plastic bottles. That innovation is part of a wider series of initiatives undertaken by our Official Technical Partner as part of their ‘Macron 4 The Planet’ campaign, which is committed to introducing new eco-sustainable products the the market.”

Stuff

"[Mother Earth] weeps and implores us to put an end to our [consumerist] abuses and to her destruction.”

Pope Francis 

"[Mother Earth] weeps and implores us to put an end to our [consumerist] abuses and to her destruction.”

Pope Francis urges world leaders to act on climate change and extreme weather https://t.co/UiQWRJ9eLO pic.twitter.com/EiKAYUiX9c

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) July 21, 2022

The hottest places to live #2

I've previously shared a link during the heat of earlier in the week, which may well return before summer is out.

This BBC article looks at people living in the hottest parts of the country.

This is defined by a data set which is called the Heat Hazard Score.

This could make a useful secondary data set for an NEA.

I will also refer to this when we start back for the new academic year.

Enter a postcode to get a score. I put in my school postcode first, and got a score of 2.

The website also tells you the heatwave threshold for each postcode.

For East Cambridgeshire, this is when temperatures in the postcode area hit 28°C or higher for three consecutive days.

Use Google Street View to explore locations which have a score of 4 or 5 to see what their characteristics are.

This article has an interview with Richard Flemmings, the CTO of 4 Earth Intelligence, who captured the data and created this layer.

Also explore the impacts of heat on transport with this ESRI StoryMap made by the UK team along with the Met Office.

Bill McGuire on our near futures

An important and powerful piece was published in yesterday's 'The Guardian' newspaper.

It was written by Bill McGuire, who is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and a climate activist.

It was written ahead of today's record temperature being reached, with over 40 degrees C at Heathrow Airport by midday.

There are many impacts outlined here which we have been teaching about in geography for many years.

Progressive climate breakdown will affect everyone and insinuate itself into every aspect of our lives. Transport and energy infrastructure will succumb repeatedly to the onslaught of extreme weather, making otherwise straightforward journeys increasingly problematical, and power outages a normal part of daily life.

I am all too aware of this particular impact, as travel issues meant that I was unable to get to Paris for IGU this week, with Eurostar sold out or too expensive. The train I was due to catch took 6 hours eventually to make a two hour journey...

The hottest places to live #1

This BBC article looks at people living in the hottest parts of the country.

This is defined by a data set which is called the Heat Hazard Score.

They are made for the OS by a company called 4 Earth Intelligence.

The potential heat hazard score for small geographical areas - known as a Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) - was calculated by 4 Earth Intelligence, who measured the average land surface temperature over a sample of days in the past three summers across Great Britain.

Deprivation data was taken from the latest English, Scottish and Welsh Indices of multiple deprivation (IMD). Each IMD is the nation's official measure of relative deprivation, or poverty, and is weighted heavily towards income, employment, education, and health.

The scores range from one to five, and provide an indicator of how likely it is that an area will experience high temperatures during hot weather, when compared with other areas in the surrounding neighbourhood.

As the BBC article explains, there are certain things factored into the calculation, such as the presence of water and vegetation.

A statistical method was used to standardise land surface temperatures, which involved combining satellite images for different dates over the past three years. The temperature data was then adjusted to consider the different average temperatures of each region, to highlight hotter areas across the country, while accounting for varying climates. Five is the highest score.

Normalising the temperatures of each region before calculating the score means the data highlights hotter areas in different parts of the country, despite having different climates.

This ONS report, one of several which were produced during COVID, explained that one in eight houses has no garden. This means no opportunity for shaded outside space...

It would be great to have a subset of data available for educational purposes, perhaps for a city such as Leeds which has a river and parks, and is also an OCR A/B Case Study city.

Geographies of Home

Geography starts at home, but what and where is home?

A key project to influence the thinking of this topic has been the Stay Home Stories project involving Alison Blunt from QMUL and part funded by the RGS-IBG.

We will refer to this in our work in the new academic year.

I have been loaned a copy of Alison's new book and it's excellent.

After HOME, we will also be looking at AWAY, with an entry for the Royal Geographical Society's Young Geographer of the Year competition.

They're hotter...

BBC News.

Heatwave 2022

We will start the year with a look at this event, so keep an eye out for impacts if you were still in the UK at the time...

⛔️ Do not travel on Great Northern routes tomorrow, there will be NO service between:

•Peterborough and London Kings Cross / St Pancras
•Kings Lynn, Cambridge and London Kings Cross / St Pancras
•Welwyn Garden City and Moorgate
•Stevenage and Moorgate

— Great Northern (@GNRailUK) July 18, 2022

Windrush Foundation Story Competition

Windrush Essay Writing Competition

Sam King Windrush Awards shall be given to two girls and two boys up to the age of 14 who can produce an outstanding fictional narrative about the West Indians who travelled on the MV Empire Windrush and arrived at Tilbury Docks on 22 June 1948. 

Sponsored by Windrush Foundation, the participant would be expected to submit an essay with no more than 300 hand-written words on A4 paper. 

Our objective is to promote literacy, expression, creativity, originality, and to celebrate imagination.

The Sam King Windrush Award is sponsored by Windrush Foundation

Terms and Conditions: 

The entry must be an imaginary short story.

It must be an original piece of work written independently by a child up to the age of 14.
Stories cannot be written by more than one person. One entry per child allowed.
The child must not include their personal details within their story.
Entries must not include unsuitable material.
It must be no more than 300 words.
Make sure to use your own words.
Do not submit an entry without proofreading.
Presentation is important, consider the visual appearance of the entry as well as the quality of the content. The story must be submitted by the child’s parent or guardian using the email address below.
The work must include a good standard of spelling, grammar and punctuation, neat presentation, and clear handwriting.
Topics could include: (1) MV Empire Windrush; (2) Before departing the West Indies; (3) The Journey to Britain; (4) Arriving at Arrival at Tilbury Docks; (5) Life in Britain
You should scan the handwritten story and email it to: info@windrushfoundation.com
The competition is open from TODAY and closes on 23 SEPTEMBER 2022
Winners will be announced during October 2022.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: info@windrushfoundation.com

www.windrushfoundation.com

Ely: Island City

A BFI film from 1956

Some places here haven't really changed in over 60 years...

PTI Education Residential

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of heading for Downing College, University of Cambridge for this year's Prince's Teaching Institute Enrichment Residential to present a session.

I had been asked to speak to a group of geographers about fieldwork and my Presidential theme of the Everyday. I drew in my colleague and mentor Claire Kyndt to join me as we had been asked to lead a fieldwork session and I knew that she had plenty of experience, and was also feeding in the work she presented at the GA Conference on the work of the Dear Data project.

Here's the presentation we were used.

We were fortunate that we had a free Mela event setting up on Parker's Piece for the weekend, which added additional interest to the space, as well as options for food purchases.

Some pictures of the event, many taken from the Ferris wheel that was set up on Parker's Piece for the summer

Happy to answer any questions regarding the suggestions here. Delegates had access to a wide range of materials.

Claire and I had some very positive feedback about our contribution to the weekend.

Down into the Volcano

A companion piece to the Human Planet story on Extreme Jobs - people undertaking the tourist trek. Not checked 100% for fruity language just yet.