Syria podcast

One of a useful set of Podcasts on Radio 4.

BBC: Syrian Conflict explainer video

Middle East Conflicts

This is certainly an important time to be teaching about the Middle East and the conflicts there.
We started to explore the origins of the conflict in Syria today, with a look at the Middle East in general and some of the drivers of conflict, including borders, the Arab Spring, the presence of oil, the idea of a proxy war, non-state actors etc. Challenging stuff.
Here's a VOX video giving one perspective...



We mentioned the incidents between Iran and the USA over the last few days and some of the tweets sent by Trump, and the response by Iran yesterday...

Superpowers and the Arctic - further planning

New Statesman article.
Makes good reading for our unit on Superpowers in the next half term.

Superpowers and Conflict - some planning

After half term, we are going to be exploring a new unit on Conflict connecting with the idea of Superpowers.

This is a development of our existing unit, but with a new focus and some new resources.
I've mined a few bits from Google Drive, TeachitGeography and some earlier work by Simon Oakes.

This weekend, the Guardian published a piece by Simon Tisdall on the possible new superpowers of the next part of the 21st Century.
This is a timely piece for us.

We also have a class set of the new illustrated version of 'Prisoners of Geography'.

We'll be exploring the Arctic and have Klaus Dodds' book, and will look at Russia's interests in this emerging resource frontier...


Will share the resources that I contribute and some outcomes in the next half term.

A few links from the 

Fair Observer - a new 'Cold War' in the Arctic?  




Is it time to draw borders on the Arctic Ocean? - an excellent Vox piece.
Russia has interests in the Arctic, and is building a fleet of icebreakers.



I've also started a new Pinterest board.

One real concern for many is that Russia is taking climate change seriously and preparing for the implications of it, spending many millions of pounds, whereas the USA has a climate denier in charge.... strategically a bad idea.

UK in 21st Century - Global Conflicts

Where is Conflict taking place now?

There are some useful GIS resources in this presentation

UK in 21st Century Conflict by GeoBlogs on Scribd

The sheet links to the GCSE book by Parkinson et al published by Hodder

Somalia Conflict by GeoBlogs on Scribd

Year 9 Conflict Assessment

Geographies of Conflict Assessment by GeoBlogs on Scribd

The Causes of War

A poem as part of the Royal Geographical Society's resources on Conflict.
Download your copy here. (PDF download)

And then produce your own poems, or conflict raps perhaps...

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.

Borders and conflicts - an interesting TED talk

Useful for Year 13 and Year 9's who want to challenge themselves..

If Surrey were Syria

These videos have been available for a while, but today was the first time I'd actually showed them, and they had a powerful impact.
We are thinking of making some of our own versions

Just because it isn't happening here doesn't mean it isn't happening...

Poppyfield

A visualisation of conflicts since the turn of the 20th Century, with the poppy symbolising the scale, length and severity of the conflict.

Poppyfield is an impressive visualisation, and we used it with Year 9 students to identify conflicts for further research.

Syrian Crisis.... in a nutshell

Essential viewing for Year 9, 10, 12 and 13 in particular...

The first few minutes is particularly useful in identifying the underlying causes of the current migrant crisis involving Syrian asylum seekers.

More barriers going up...

A very useful map from the Economist showing some of the current boundaries that have been put up between different parts of the world. Click a country to see where the border lies, and the reasons for its creation.

Thanks to Miss Kyndt for the tipoff for this.
Make sure you follow the @KingsElyGeog twitter feed for more like that...

Conflict...

As we approach Armistice Day, here's a map showing the location of British casualties since the end of WWII....

Walls - borders can mean conflict..

Year 8 students are currently underway with a unit on the theme of Walls, which explores conflict along the world's borders, particularly some of the disputed ones.

This connects with important geographical themes of inclusion and exclusion, and power.
There are many different types of boundary - some visible, some invisible. We cross some every day: postcode boundaries, school catchment areas, country and parish boundaries, mobile phone mast signal areas etc...

We'll be exploring life either side of the 38th parallel, walking the smoothed cobbles of the Great Wall of China, looking at Banksy cartoons in Palestine and considering the need for a patrolled barrier along the length of the US border with Mexico.
Some groups have started with the latter, and we've been exploring life as a pollo or coyote, with the aid of Michael Palin and a few other resources. We've played forensics with the belongings that are found in the desert and looked at the use of GIS to map the common routes so that help can be targeted in those areas.

Check out Miss Kyndt's blog for a starter activity for the unit that we used.

The first boundary we have looked at is the US-Mexico border (Miss Kyndt has shared materials about that too)

We started to tell stories of the migrants in visual form, with some really cool creativity shown - I'll share a few of those next week.

Check out global conflicts on this CrisisWatch interactive map resource here.
How many of them are related to borders and disputes over territories ?

Finally, two merits to anyone who finds me and identifies the location of this particular wall...

Conflict article in the New Internationalist

Year 8 will be exploring the idea of War and Conflict this year.
This was a popular unit last year, and will be repeated with a few small additions and tweaks based on feedback from students.
One issue related to the idea of conflict is the way that it is portrayed in the media. How many 'hidden' wars and conflicts are there going on in the world today ?


This New Internationalist article explores an important question, which is why some conflicts seem to get more media coverage than others.

The New Internationalist is also now available as an iPad app. I met one of the publishers from the journal at the EuroGeo conference in Bruges earlier this year. It's a journal I've been using as a teacher for many years. The first time I saw a Peters projection map was a special issue of the NI.

Consider this comment from the NI article as a 'provocation piece' to start your thinking...

Wars in Africa are of little interest to the West because they are happening to people too far away, who are too different, living in countries that are not ‘important’ enough 
Discuss...

Geography of Conflict

I've just 'dropped' the nuclear bomb that was used on the Japanese city of Nagasaki...
I dropped it close to the library of my new school...
Nuke Map 3D uses the Google Earth plugin to visualise the impact of different sizes of devices on a location of your choice...
A little macabre perhaps, but the site visualises the area that would have been destroyed by the fireball and air blast that accompanied the detonation of the bomb.

Year 8 will be exploring the Geography of Conflict in the Michaelmas Term, and this use of mapping helps to visualise the scale of some of the weapons that have been used in previous conflicts.
How else does conflict impact on the geography of places ?

That's what we'll be exploring, and I'll share some of the outcomes here...