Changing the subject

In 2025, I am going to be working on some curriculum projects.
I think it's time for a change - a step in a new direction.

Let's assume that you are going to be redesigning a KS3 curriculum.
You don't need to keep anything that you already do.
You don't need to do topics because they are in the GCSE specification and you want students to study them before they start their GCSE course.
You have the chance to do something new, and get rid of something else to make space for it.

I'd be really interested to see what sorts of geographical topics you would add in if you had the choice (which you probably do by the way) and what you'd drop to leave time for them (you've got plenty of curriculum time to play with after all...)
Go wild.... or play it safe.


I'll share a summary of the responses of course, and who know it might influence my curriculum making in 2025.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

Townscaper - browser option

I missed this exciting additional option for creating visually beautiful towns as a mindfulness or creative exercise...

Townscaper is a game created by Oskar Stålberg. I have the original STEAM game which was launched in October 2021.

The game can also be played in a browser.

The only restriction is a smaller grid and no save function – other than that you can let your imagination go wild. As the browser option has a smaller grid, your cities will not be as impressive as the ones you can make with the full version on Steam, which is still available for just a few pounds.

Have a go, and thank me later :)

Stuff...

 

Barbara Iweins is a photographer who spent years working on a project called Katalog.

This is a visual catalogue of all of her possessions.

She didn't just take a photo of them all - every lego brick, every item of clothing, every book - but also considered their origins and the images can be laid out in different combinations. An example can be seen above.

There's a French edition of the Katalog available as a physical book - I'd quite like to see how the project is portrayed in the printed edition.

I won't attempt something quite on that scale, but I think the actual project is worth looking at for a possible student project on capturing images of their own belongings.

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.

Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education

We will now have access to this creatie suite of online tools, which will hopefully help to raise the quality of what we produce in the school. All tips and tricks welcome...

Townscaper

I first came across this game in July 2020 when it was on early access on Steam, and sadly not available for iOS. I coveted it. It's created by Oscar Stålberg.

I downloaded it a couple of months ago, and have finally had a few hours to get to play with it, and it's excellent and very calming.

I shall probably be posting numerous screenshots in different locations over the next few days.

There's a GUIDE here, although you can start playing immediately by choosing a colour, scrolling around the existing town and then clicking in different directions. I love watching the seagulls circling and settling on the rooves as well.

Here's the description on Steam. It currently costs £4.79

Build quaint island towns with curvy streets. Build small hamlets, soaring cathedrals, canal networks, or sky cities on stilts. Block by block.

No goal. No real gameplay. Just plenty of building and plenty of beauty. That's it.

Townscaper is an experimental passion project. More of a toy than a game. Pick colors from the palette, plop down colored blocks of house on the irregular grid, and watch Townscaper's underlying algorithm automatically turn those blocks into cute little houses, arches, stairways, bridges and lush backyards, depending on their configuration.