Leonard Parkinson of the Maroons

 

The last half term has seen the second running through with Year 7 of our reading of 'Windrush Child' by Benjamin Zephaniah.

The British Library has a piece which explores a little more about the history of the area around Maroon Town.

Slavery made a huge impact on much of the world, and continues to do so through the legacy of colonialism and the campaign for proper reparations. Many landowners in the UK 

Maroon Town is an important place in the book. It is where the main character in the book was born and where the spirit of 'Nanny of the Maroons' who is featured on a Jamaican banknote. I came across this image of Leonard Parkinson, who was one of the Maroon freedom fighters. 

The main character in the book is called Leonard (we don't find out his surname), but it would be interesting to know whether he was named after this person.

Source: http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1227

If you haven't seen this UCL map before, this is also an important resource for exploring local connections with the slave trade.

It's produced by the Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery.

GI Pedagogy MOOC - check it out

We are now coming to the final stage of the GI Pedagogy project.

The target audience is wide and you may be part of it...

The project’s outputs and events are aimed specifically at supporting educators (Horizontal Priority: Supporting Educators). 

This training will help teachers embed GIS within their curriculum. 

It will support them to feel confident in teaching GIS as a fundamental tool for modern geography, not as a superficial add-on to existing methods.

The training takes the form of a MOOC: an online course basically, with resources, videos and presentations.

King's Ely is a partner in this project.

Feel free to check it out.

Also feel free to follow us on Twitter @GIPedagogy.

Palm Oil: the Grease of Empire

We are currently teaching a unit on Food - Geographies of Food, or Food for Thought. 

Palm Oil is a ubiquitous substance which can be found in far more than just chocolate biscuits. Max Haiven's book is in our departmental library.

This article explains the reasons why it replaced whale oil and continues to be used in huge quantities.

GA National Fieldwork Fortnight 2023

 

After the sucess of last year's National Fieldwork Week, the event is back again with some tweaks. The event was organised by the GA, particularly thanks to the work and energy of Paula Richardson, and formed part of Mr. Parkinson's GA Presidential year in 2021-2.

It is now a fortnight - between the 26th June and 7th July 2023.

This year's theme is 'Environment'.

I'll be heading out - in fact I was discussing a trip with colleagues yesterday - and I hope you will too, and share what you get up to with the hashtag which we'll remind you of nearer the time.

1953 East Coast flooding - a new resource

 A new resource I've written.

This got slightly delayed by other factors, but is now available ahead of next week's anniversary and commemorations which will take place along the coasts which were affected. I know there is a service and exhibition in both Snettisham and Hunstanton and aim to visit them this weekend, and then locations further round to the south of Norfolk and the Broads.

The Environment Agency - one of the GA's strategic partners - published a useful image of the flood defences as they were back in 1953 on a Pinterest board and it is shown below.

Download the resource below:

1953 Flooding - 70th Anniversary from GeoBlogs

More to come on this over the next few days. Look back at the posts from Southwold at the start of January as well for more related content to the floods, or search this blog using the search box top left.

There is also an associated Pinterest board.

I shall be out and about along the coast this coming weekend in a number of locations and will share some pictures in a Flickr album which I will share here.

I know there are permanent memorials in Hunstanton and Snettisham, and a search revealed one in Harwich. I would imagine there are others and would love to hear about them or see pictures of them if you know of one.

Global Garments

 A useful video for our work on fashion and stuff.

A short @timeforgeog video looking at Global garments: geographical imaginations, branding and attachment 🌍 | developed in partnership with @chestergeog @PortsmouthGeog | @DrHarrietRidley @CarolineEDay @Collins_R_C https://t.co/HN1ai3ksa0 pic.twitter.com/ExT6nexrP3

— Time for Geography (@timeforgeog) January 22, 2023

Look up

It turns out that Cambridgeshire is a UFO hotspot, according to the local paper.

If you do see a UFO, there is a reporting website here.

Oymyakon: Pole of Cold

The destination of the Pole of Cold expedition, led by Felicity Aston. Also visited by Nick Middleton in one of his TV series on extreme locations.

Brutal.

The coldest permanently inhabited settlement on Earth, Oymyakon (Russia), just dropped to an unforgiving -61.0°C (-77.8°F).

One of the coldest moments in recorded history in this part pf the world for this early in the winter. pic.twitter.com/144CGfuli9

— Scott Duncan (@ScottDuncanWX) December 13, 2022

Ben Zephaniah video for Year 7

An interview with Ben Zephaniah where he talks about a key point in the book we are reading with Year 7.

New LGBT+ Census 2021 data released

Cross posting from LivingGeography blog.

The BBC article here talks about the new Census data which was released this week.

Many people have been waiting for this release as it is the first time that particular questions were added to the official Census form and therefore data was collected at a national level.

I mentioned this in a previous post, which considered whether it was time to reevaluate the traditional population pyramid with its gender binary structure.

The article provides a useful summary of related terms. See below:

LGBT+ is an "inclusive" way to represent all the different identities in the longer acronym but here's a breakdown of what each of the letters in LGBTQQIAAP mean.

L - lesbian: a woman who is attracted to other women

G - gay: a man who is attracted to other men or broadly people who identify as homosexual

B - bisexual: a person who is attracted to both men and women

T - transgender: a person whose gender identity is different from the sex the doctor put down on their birth certificate

Q - queer: originally used as a hate term, some people want to reclaim the word, while others find it offensive. It can be a political statement, suggest that someone doesn't want to identify with "binaries" (e.g. male v female, homosexual v straight) or that they don't want to label themselves only by their sexual activity

Q - questioning: a person who is still exploring their sexuality or gender identity

I - intersex: a person whose body is not definitively male or female. This may be because they have chromosomes which are not XX or XY or because their genitals or reproductive organs are not considered "standard"

A - allies: a person who identifies as straight but supports people in the LGBTQQIAAP community

A - asexual: a person who is not attracted in a sexual way to people of any gender

P - pansexual: a person whose sexual attraction is not based on gender and may themselves be fluid when it comes to gender or sexual identity

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-33278165

There are maps of course which can be used to explore the data for any particular area.

Here's Brighton for example:

And here's Norwich - closer to home...

Use these to explore your own home area.

Some more thoughts here:

The latest census data is here, looking at sexual orientation and gender identity in England and Wales

Let's dive into the data 🧵 #Census2021 https://t.co/lyX4s98BRNhttps://t.co/R3syuHCbDX

— Matilda Davies (@matildakdavies) January 6, 2023

Antarctic Tourism

This piece in 'The Guardian' by Peter Hannam is well worth reading by Year 8.

We have been exploring the impact of tourism in Antarctica and this provides some useful perspective on this issue, and also some excellent images to show the juxtaposition of the landscape and the visual impact of cruise ships and tourists with their high visibility clothing.

Happy New Year

And we're back in the room for 2023 with more tales from our classrooms in Ely.

99% Invisible

 

Another reminder of this podcast series.

There are hundreds of episodes, many of which focus on the story of a particular object or a particular place.

This episode starts with the story of Beechey Island, where the graves of some of the sailors from Sir John Franklin's lost expedition were found.

My friend Val has been fortunate enough to visit Beechey Island on a Hurtigruten voyage - what an amazing privilege.

Plenty here for units on the geographies of stuff....

How has the High Street changed in recent years?

 

This article and interactive from the BBC News website is particularly useful in helping to answer that question and is particularly relevant for our work with Year 7.

Enter a postcode to see which changes have occurred in your local area.

There is also a useful summary showing the changing fortunes of certain shops and services.

The data has been collected by the Ordnance Survey.

Ely High Street mirrors some of these changes to some extent.

Census 2021: How well do you know your area?

These quizzes were previously available for the 2011 Census, and are now back with data from the 2021 Census.

✨IT'S QUIZ TIME!✨
So, you think you know your local area? Now you can test your knowledge in the new #CensusQuiz and broadcast your scores on to your friends and followers on social media!https://t.co/yIf0YfMx6q pic.twitter.com/SHLuFnDw14

— Ahmad Barclay (@bothness) December 2, 2022

The quizzes can be embedded, which makes them particularly useful for teachers who can add them to VLE pages etc.