China has several towns which are famous for the production of particular items, just as cities in the UK used to be connected with particular industries e.g. textiles in Manchester, hats in Luton etc.
SHEIN is one of the most popular websites for buying low cost (and therefore low quality) items.
There is a town in China which dedicates a great deal of manufacturing to producing items for this website.
This is a useful video describing the impact this has:
Thanks to Fiona Sheriff for the lead to this particular video.
A new StoryMap from Timberland: a company with strong sustainability credentials. This tells the story of the iconic yellow boot. It shows the global reach of this single product, which involves people from several continents, farmers and other industries.
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.
The policy as with other recent exhibitions is that visitors pay what they can afford under what they call a Universal Ticket.
The exhibition is called The Stuff of Life / The Life of Stuff.
In this major international exhibition, visitors will meet artworks composed of salvaged materials, resynthesised fragments, and e-waste. They will encounter new environmental zones, where synthetic and organic matter interact, providing a fertile ground for the invention of mythical worlds, dystopias and speculative future narratives.
These hybrid living-art entities have life stories that begin with the histories of the objects from which they have been born, and which tie them intimately to the things that construct our own sense of reality and animate our immediate environments. Through these challenging, empathic, and creative encounters with the artworks, visitors are asked to reimagine their relationship to synthetic materials and commodities designed not-to-last, and consider who is responsible for consumption, over-production, and waste streams in modern society. Ultimately, these artworks demonstrate the ingenuity of human creativity to re-imagine our relationships with the planet and inspire people to positively engage with our shared future.
This week, Year 8 will be exploring the story of a Valentine's Rose, and the social, economic and environmental costs of its production. There will be many more flowers being produced and grown specifically to come to the peak of their condition in the week running up to the 14th of February, which this year falls on a Sunday. Normally at this time of year, Rose sales rise to their highest levels in the run up to the 14th of February because of the links between roses and romance.
I wonder what impacts the COVID-19 pandemic and the Brexit delays on imports of fresh goods, which would also include flowers might have on this year's trade?
We will be using a version of the resources written by Louise Ellis in her book written for the GA's KS3 Toolkit series, which can be purchased at a 15% discount currently from the GA Shop.
This is the title of a new set of resources which have been produced by Trinity House, who previously ran the nation's lighthouses and light vessels, providing lighthouse keepers before they all went automatic. They have a vital role to play to keep navigation safe, keeping shipping traffic flowing and getting information provided to those that need it.
A brand-new suite of free learning resources should help Key Stage 3 students learn about shipping, seafaring and safety, as well as Trinity House’s role as a lighthouse authority.
Featuring a range of slides, videos, worksheets and games for you to deliver in class, kick off the new term with our curriculum-linked resources which explore a variety of topics centred on the maritime sector.
Topics include:
The impact of globalisation on our lives and the UK’s prosperity and the roles played by shipping and Trinity House.
The role of lighthouses and buoys in keeping ships and seafarers safe at sea.
The huge range of diverse, interesting and important jobs that keep food and goods moving in support of Britain’s economy.
The Key Stage 1 resources cover the following:
Our Key Stage 1 resources use slides, videos, worksheets and games to teach pupils to recognise that the food we see in our local supermarket comes from different locations all over the world, and to appreciate the importance of shipping as a means of transporting goods from overseas.
A useful video as part of KS1
The Key Stage 2 resources cover the following:
Our Key Stage 2 resources use slides, videos, worksheets and games to teach pupils that the UK is as an island nation reliant on trade links with the rest of the world; as such, the nation’s maritime sector has a vast range of job types, including seafarers, engineers, designers, port operators and more.
Pupils will be able to think about how these roles work at sea and on shore, and understand that Trinity House provides training for young people who want to be seafarers to ensure they can undertake their work safely and efficiently at sea.
Pupils will also learn about the role of aids to navigation such as lighthouses and buoys in keeping ships and seafarers safe at sea, and explore their own ideas about designing visual systems to convey messages to mariners about safe passages and hazards.
Our Key Stage 3 resources use slides, videos, worksheets and games to give pupils a more advanced understanding of the role the maritime sector plays in the UK’s prosperity, and the huge range of diverse, interesting and important jobs that keep food and goods moving in support of Britain’s economy.
Pupils will learn how Trinity House keeps ships and seafarers safe by providing a mix of aids to navigation and training for seafarers, keeping the movement of commercial shipping safe, constant and vital at a time when globalisation has made the world a smaller and more connected place.
Pupils will also be challenged to work within a team to address and solve design problems given to them, developing specifications for innovative and functional products that respond to stakeholder needs.
Three lessons:
Just the job
Safety at sea
Global connections
This last one is perfect for Globalisation / Stuff related lessons... We will be using this with Year 8 groups.
"The birds have gone, we can't keep animals anymore," he says. "It's getting harder and harder to grow crops. If it gets any worse... we will have to emigrate." Jorge Cruz
Atlas Obscura had some amazing images of lithium mining in a recent blog.
A recent National Geographic magazine also had an excellent report on this particular industry, which sits alongside cobalt mining as being an extractive industry which influences all of our lives, via the requirements of smartphone manufacture and other items needing batteries.
Lithium is used in the creation of batteries which have a long life, and are rapid to recharge, while being very light and compact. One key area for lithium extraction is Bolivia.
Electric cars are becoming more common on our streets, as the charging infrastructure expands and costs come down (or the maths make more sense as fuel prices rise)
There is still a way to go before they challenge conventional petrol engines, but they all need a battery, and batteries need lithium. The narrative that electric cars are better for the environment doesn't really play out when one considers all the costs.
This is another link with our work on the geographies of our stuff, and the globalised nature of the world. We are connected in many ways.
The Mirror has a piece today on Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's latest campaign. He is exploring the places that our recycled plastic goes. It turns out, shock horror, that some of it isn't actually recycled, just sent to a poorer part of the world. Remember the e-waste we explored that wasn't supposed to be exported but was...
There is a forthcoming programme with Hugh and Anita Rani on this issue in early June.
And some countries are preparing to send the waste back... "Return to Sender"
It's not just the UK doing this of course, remember that too.
And finally, we even have connections between our parts of the curriculum...
Look at this tweet here:
Plastic collected throughout the region will be used to create a dance arena in the Shangri-La area at this year's Glastonbury Festival in a collaboration between Orca Sound Project, Shangri-La and Keep Britain Tidy, who are aiming to collect 10 tonnes of waste.
We are underway with the Geography of our Stuff unit... This will involve us in exploring the personal geographies of the things that we own.
We also have been creating our Cultural Objects slide with the things that represent our teenage years.
We've followed the story of our uniform, created by SchoolBlazer, and will move onto t-shirts and sweatshops next.
Here's a video to get you thinking...
We've been using Dollar Street with Year 7 and Year 8 groups to explore the inequalities in access to food and other items in homes with differing levels of income.
The students have been fascinated by the images that Dollar Street offers, and we have been asking them to explore the 'stuff' that is owned by the families and whether there are thresholds to owning an object such as a washing machine (see the Hans Rosling video on this topic to see how important it is)
I've put together a resource for Geography teachers (and others) on how to use Dollar Street in the classroom.
It's not finished yet, but is a collaborative Google Drive document which will hopefully grow... You're very welcome to add your own ideas to this document... It's embedded below for your interest...
Following on from that, Anna from Gapminder gave a TED Talk a while ago, and that is now available to view.
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
Just came into my social media feeds... A simple video to go along with our lesson on plastic ducks as part of our Ocean plastics unit as part of the Geography of our Stuff...
A short CNN video on the Fairphone. I've mentioned this before, and it's an interesting development which provides an option for those who are concerned about the environmental impact of their smartphone.
The product has conflict-free minerals and the supply chain is followed carefully.
