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...

Yi Fu Tuan - RIP

Cross posting from LivingGeography blog. 

Very sad news of the passing yesterday of Yi-Fu Tuan, at 92. Such an important scholar in so many fields, from geography to Sherlock Holmes studies. pic.twitter.com/nk5wutDvCh

— matthew edney (@mhedney) August 11, 2022

Sad news yesterday of the passing of geographer Yi Fu Tuan, whose work will be familiar to many, and who inspired some of our thinking around Mission:Explore and other work on place, and the idea of topophilia.

I wasn't able to confirm the news, but it appears it is now confirmed.

We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Professor Yi-Fu Tuan.

His work has had a profound influence on the way in which we all think about key geographical concepts. He will be sorely missed both by those that knew him well and by the discipline as a whole. pic.twitter.com/zdndOzMCgk

— Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) (@RGS_IBG) August 12, 2022

His work has been influential for many - particularly in the area of place and other conceptual thinking.

Mission:Explore National Parks - now out...

Members of QP will remember the part they played in the development of the latest Mission:Explore book, which is published in association with National Parks.

There's an excellent Ordnance Survey Blog post here which says a lot of nice things about our Mission:Explore National Parks book. It also features a short video with Steve Backshall.



The Mission:Explore team compiled the book after putting a huge selection of challenges to the vote by schoolchildren, with the favourites selected to be published.

It’s the seventh book the Mission:Explore team have released, since winning the Geovation Challenge in 2010, when they wowed the team with their exciting ideas using geography. If you haven’t come across them before, the project encourages people, and especially children, to see, explore and act in new ways.
Mission:Explore founders saw the subject of geography being marginalised, and in schools and neighbourhoods children’s physical geographies being reduced due to risk aversion. And they wanted to change that.

Mission:Explore - a book which underpins a lot of what we do in the Geography department

Mission Explore slo mo from Alan Parkinson on Vimeo.

Mission:Explore National Parks

Out soon in English and Welsh, the latest of the Explorer HQ books under the Mission:Explore name. Year 7 will remember the Food book that formed their prep this term.
This is Mission:Explore National Parks, and involves the usual shenanigans of creative ideas for kids of all ages.
The books will be available for £5 from all National Park shops in England, Scotland and Wales. Here's a pile fresh back from the printers.

As always it's been wrangled by the Explorer HQ team, which includes Mr. Parkinson. Queen Philippa were also involved in helping choose the missions that made it into the book during a house assembly earlier in the year.

Watch this space for plenty more exciting Explorer HQ news soon….

Tom in the Guardian

400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death has been commemorated with various activities at school. Year 7 Geographers will be familiar with the Mission:Explore books and today the Guardian has put a lovely illustrated piece by Tom Morgan Jones on their website: how to make a quill pen...

Coming soon for Year 7

Whole school CPD - April 17th

Get ready to explore Ely using Mission:Explore...

Font copyright: Tom Morgan-Jones

Mission:Explore Food

This is a special seafood issue of the Mission:Explore Food book that has provided the basis for the preps in Year 7 this year...

Some interesting ideas here to add to your prep tasks...

Mission Explore Food Sustainable Seafood

Peter's Australian cookie

I like the accuracy of this one...

Lily's pizza...

Lovely work - tasty!

Remember to keep your food pictures coming, and you too could earn 2 merits...

Mission:Explore

We'll also be signing students up to the Mission:Explore Wild School Account for King's Ely - at the moment there are only two members of the team: my HoD Miss Kyndt and myself, but we'll be joined soon by lots of Year 7 and 8s who will be challenged to complete the missions for prep...

Find your school's account, sign up and tell us that you're a teacher and we'll get you started...
The challenge is on !

Mission:Explore and the Humphries Shield

Spent an afternoon earlier in the week running an activity for the Humphries' challenge at school. This involves Year 8 students, and I decided to do something inspired by Mission:Explore and an image that I used some years ago when doing a presentation at the Education Show.
It was an A-Z which has been discovered on Google Earth. I adapted the idea for the school grounds, and we had some great results. Check N2 for some examples.

Humphries Challenge from GeoBlogs

Banana cake...

Excellent banana cake made with Fairtrade bananas.

Remember to check out Foncho's story.

We have plenty of banana related stickers and other things heading our way in time for Fairtrade Fortnight, which is on the theme of bananas this year.

Tasty work from Isabelle.

Mould Mapping Set now on Flickr...

How is your bread coming along ?

Mould Mapping...

Lucy created a really nice booklet describing the slow process of a piece of bread going mouldy, and recorded the results...

Year 7 Prep Booklet

For those who want to really challenge themselves, the missions that are contained in the Year 7 prep booklet are taken from the full version of the book. If you have a Kindle, you can download it for FREE from this Amazon link.

Tongue map prep...

Excellent tongue map prep from Arthur from the Year 7 Mission:Explore inspired prep booklet for this term... Feel the quality..