Showing posts with label Follow the Things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Follow the Things. Show all posts

Wednesday, 24 July 2024

Article in Teaching Times

I was contacted by Teaching Times who were interested in the session I had planned for the GA Conference 2024 on 'Everyday Geographies', which was called 'Wake up, smell the geography'. I turned it into a piece which fitted their structure and it has now been published on their website. A recent piece on GIS was written by Katie Hall I noticed.


You will need a subscription to read the whole piece, but you can read the first part at least.

Subscribers will also be able to see the final section where there is a chance for you to get in touch and share your own everyday curriculum adventures...

Wednesday, 8 November 2023

Sam's Clothes

 Thanks to Ian Cook for leading me to this project from Dr. Jennifer Rudd. We already followed each other on Twitter as it happens.

This looks like my sort of thing. It is based on research, which has been developed into a children's book. I have been sent the various training materials and will take a look over half term. They include a series of lesson plans and associated materials for introducing ideas around sustainability and clothing manufacture.


A copy of the book can be purchased from here.


More on this to come... 

Saturday, 22 April 2023

Rana Plaza - ten years on

Regular readers will know that I have been involved with the work of the Follow the Things project for some time now.

This is a project based at Exeter University, which started with the work of Professor Ian Cook, exploring global supply chains, trade justice and the stories of the things that we own and consume.

One of the associated projects that explores this area is Fashion Revolution Day.

We are approaching the tenth anniversary of the Rana Plaza tragedy on Monday and a pack of materials has been produced to help teachers and students think through its significance and the wider question of 'who made my clothes?' 



The education materials can be seen and downloaded at this page.

There are also Top Trumps cards to be made as part of the activity, exploring the impact of globalisation.
Ian Cook writes about using the cards here. Make sure that you are using the most up to date Transparency Index.

We will be using the materials at my school with Year 8 in some format and marking the tenth anniversary of Rana Plaza.

Friday, 29 November 2019

The story of a Zara Hoody

A site we shall be exploring with Year 8 students in the Lent term...
Exploring the story of an everyday item, the Zara hoody.
Scroll down to reveal the story.

Thanks to Follow the Things for the tipoff to the site. I'm preparing some associated resources, including a Google Form quiz.



In related news, J Williams (@geteach) has been getting active with the new Google Earth Creative tools to produce a new version of the NPR Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt activity.

Wednesday, 22 November 2017

The Lives Behind the Label

A new 'Follow the Things' style resource exploring the Lives Behind the Label.
It's been put together by the New Internationalist.

It's an interactive resource which will go well into our Geography of my Stuff unit for Year 8.
Meet the people behind the high street: garment workers of Bangladesh.

There are 6 garments that you can click on, each of which gives you access to a story (the total time for these is around 20 minutes so that would work well with a lesson for a self-guided lesson.
There are some interesting stories here, particularly the film on Sharif, who belongs to the hijra: the third gender community who have particular issues to deal with.
There is also a photo gallery of garment workers, which shows their different personalities. It was developed along with the Awaj Foundation in Bangladesh.

Thanks to Stephen Schwab for the early heads-up on this resource.

Nice work by Paul Myles and Davide Morandini

Saturday, 27 August 2016

Subvertisement booklet - coming to Year 8...


A YouTube video showing the subvertisement workshop which we will be using later in the year with Year 8 students. I helped with a few of the final elements of the booklet.
Great work by Eeva and Ian.

Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Media literacy and geographies of consumption

Here's the latest resource that I have worked on (a little - I gave some guidance on the contents and Finnish translation and activities)

It's been developed by Eeva Kemppainen and Ian Cook, who I've worked with previously.

Developed for Pro-Ethical Trade Finland

This guide sets out an approach to teaching media literacy and the geographies of consumption that has been developed by the NGO Pro Ethical Trade Finland (Eettisen kaupan puolesta ry), with funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland.
A subvertisement workshop involves interpreting and subverting the messages made in product advertising.
With their teachers, students are shown how to critically read advertisements brought into the classroom and encouraged to work out:
• How images and texts are designed to convey a message about a commodity
• How advertisements convey relationships between people, places and things
• What claims advertisements make about the origins and uses of commodities and what information and imagery is missing
• How advertisements can be altered to convey alternative messages
• How and where subvertisements can encourage critical readings of advertisements?

Children and young people are bombarded by diverse commercial messages on social media, on the street, on TV, in movies and in games. Teachers can help students to learn the differences between journalism and marketing as well as develop their capacity to critically interpret what they see and hear.

Would be useful for Cultural Geographers and also connections with Changing Places units as well.




You can download a copy of the whole guide in English (unless you want it in Finnish) as a PDF file.

For more on the previous work that I have done with Ian and Eeva check out the Follow the Things education page.

Thursday, 19 May 2016

Friday, 18 March 2016

Monday, 27 April 2015

Following a Thing

Year 8 will be exploring the story of a 'thing' for prep and two lessons this week...
Details on Firefly

I followed the story of an HP Ink Cartridge 
Image made with Adobe Shape app

Monday, 20 April 2015

Geography of our Stuff...

Last weekend, Miss Kyndt and I were in Manchester at the Geographical Association conference and one of the sessions that I went to was by Hannah Campion, who was sharing her work using the Follow the Things project (you'll have seen our shopping bags around the classroom from time to time)
This looks at the story of a £4 t-shirt....

You are going to be doing a similar project in the next few weeks.... following the story of a thing of your choice...