Living Streets and Pavement Clutter

A useful possible NEA topic would be to explore the impact of pavement clutter in urban areas, particularly perhaps in High Street or city centre areas. This could also be a useful focus for young people to explore, and I may add this to my usual exploration of the High Street with Year 7 early in the new academic year.

The charity Living Streets has started the Cut the Clutter campaign to try to reduce the amount of pavement clutter - quite apart from all the existing street furniture. 

Badly parked cars are the main culprits of course, although they tend to be restricted in city centres due to other restrictions. That doesn't stop rental e-bikes and scooters from being dumped on pavements. The growth in ownership of electric vehicles has also led to charging cables being run across pavements, or chargers taking up space. Advertising signage, particularly those with display screens are another menace, as well as guzzling energy and therefore having a large carbon footprint.

There are a number of things which encroach on pavement space, which can be an issue for all pedestrians, but particularly those with mobility or vision impairment.

Living Streets has shared resources on this before, and an email to mailing list subscribers earlier this week reminded me of this topic. It would make a useful topic for some fieldwork, so I am going to work up something for my Year 7 groups for the first couple of weeks of the new term - I've started to put together the resources.

Living Streets is calling for local authorities to prioritise clearing footways and pavements through measures including (but not limited to):

• banning all A-board advertising on the pavement
• putting in place plans and budget to remove excess or unused street furniture (eg signs and poles, guard rail and utility boxes or phone boxes)
• providing guidance to businesses using pavement space for outdoor entertainment that they must maintain a 1.5m pavement width
• ensuring maintenance of trees and hedges that encroach on pavements
• making a commitment that EV charging points and cycle storage will only be placed on pavements where 1.5m clearance width for pedestrians can be maintained
• Ensuring that rental e-scooter parking is placed on the carriageway, and not on pavements – there is no need to sacrifice pedestrian space in order to support micromobility.

The clutter produces issues for Guide Dog owners and others who are visually impaired.

Outdoor dining has proliferated since the pandemic and some of this occupies pavement space as well.

Download a free copy of the WalkBook from here (PDF download)

This provides an impetus to walk in urban (and rural) areas rather than rely on other forms of transport.

Moving stories

I'm going to be moving to a new classroom for September 2023.

Last week was mostly spent packing up ten years of stuff into boxes, ready for school custodians to move it across and then I have a couple of days to unpack it all and set up my new room.

Leaving Antarctica alone

 One for Year 8

An important piece in 'The Atlantic' which I will be using next year when teaching about Antarctica.

It is described as 'The Last Place on Earth any tourist should go'.

There are some excellent quotes in the piece.

You are what you eat...

We have a copy of Henry Dimbledby's 'Ravenous' in our departmental library. It's an excellent read, and I will be reading it again over the summer to help inform some updates to our 'Food for Thought' topic.

Whichever party is in power in ten years time, they will be crippled by the harm diet is doing to our health. The current political inactivity is grotesque and irresponsible. https://t.co/gbTBa9xl0h

— Henry Dimbleby (@HenryDimbleby) June 22, 2023

 

New from Alastair Bonnett

A nice new piece on the Geographical blog from Alastair Bonnett.

He references Tim Marshall and his new book which focusses on space, and talks about three new geographical trends which he thinks will emerge in the decade ahead.

The first is 'Virtual and AI Geographies', although he reminds us that reality will generally win out over the virtual experience.

Geography will be able to offer many forms of substitute experience in the coming years – and they will get better – but geography has always been about getting out into the real world, feeling the cold rain and walking in dark and pine-scented woods. It’s the one slot in the curriculum that allows kids to breathe freely.

The second is 'Diverse Geographies'.

The second is our survival... as we face increasing challenges which are of our own making.

Consideration of the relationship between environment, agriculture, what we drink and the species that end up on our plate point to new urban realities and new recipes for geography lessons.

Well worth reading...

Hunstanton Fieldtrip

Off to Hunstanton a couple of weeks ago for a fieldtrip. 

The booklet has been tweaked again and the students enjoyed the experience of visiting this seaside resort, which has been welcoming visitors since Victorian times.

Thanks to colleagues Helen and Kathryn for their work on the day.

Hunstanton aerial image - very hot Sunday 25th June #Hunstanton #aerial #image #Norfolk #coast #aerialphotography pic.twitter.com/s97kVa0QFx

— John Fielding Aerial Images (@johnfielding001) June 26, 2023

Image: Mrs. M

Invasivores

We have a unit on food, which features a few invasive species, such as the grey squirrel.

We also look at a recent 'trend' which is to encourage the eating of these invasive species to protect the native ones they are competing with e.g. American crayfish which are found in British rivers.

This is something that we had already explored in our Mission:Explore Food book.

We also produced a special resource for National Geographic.

What invasive species could you eat?

Ethical Fashion Report

 

Baptist World Aid's Ethical Fashion report is an annual event, and the report for 2022 has been released recently.

The full report would usefully sit alongside other materials linked with the teaching of the impacts of fashion, alongside Dana Thomas' excellent book perhaps and the resources created by Fashion Revolution.

Here are the criteria they used for their scores - always important to know how any index is calculated.

Download it from here.

Alford Gardner's Windrush story

 

We shared the story of Alford earlier in the week in our Windrush75 discussions with Year 7. Later that day, he appeared as one of the subjects of the BBC portraits of Windrush, and will be on display in the National Portrait Gallery later in the year.

We are delighted to announce that portraits of the Windrush Generation commissioned by His Majesty King Charles III will go on display in the Gallery from October. pic.twitter.com/UwcoCx7QyT

— National Portrait Gallery (@NPGLondon) June 22, 2023

 The book that Alford and his son wrote about his life is also published now and available to buy.

Refugee Misconception Study from Gapminder

We start Year 8 by looking at the work of Gapminder and their misconception tests. 

There is now a new one for our students to complete.

Most people overestimate how many refugees flee to the richest countries! We discovered this misconception and many more in our new Refugee Misconception Study.
See all of the findings here: https://t.co/a6CM5VgQvK pic.twitter.com/rJNT9MQPma

— Gapminder (@Gapminder) June 21, 2023

Gapminder has released a report which is available to download, and explores the misconceptions that people have about migration and refugees.

As it says on the site:

Refugees are often in the news. The best ways to help them, where they should be housed and how much money to spend assisting them are fought over by politicians, the public and in the media. In our Refugee Misconception Study 2023, we discovered that – regardless of people’s opinions – they were almost equally wrong about the facts.

We asked nine fact questions in seven different countries. The average number of questions each person answered correctly across those countries was 2.1. That is worse than random!

I like the fact that as well as monkeys they also now compare people's score with chatbots...

Time to update my knowledge again...

Windrush Day 2023

We will be revisiting the work we did earlier in the academic year today with those groups who have a Year 7 lesson.

Windrush Day marks the day that the original migrants disembarked from the ship and changed the history of Britain.

Local newspapers have been sharing many stories of migrants for some days, and local news has also had some good coverage, which is pleasing to see.

I have a growing library of books on this and related topics, including the book by Floella Benjamin.

There have also been some recent interesting new additions:

- The Royal Mint has launched some new coins, desgined by Valda Johnson. 

- The Royal Mail has also got in on the action with some lovely stamps.

There are 8 stamps featuring related scenes and I have ordered a set, along with postcards.

Further stories of the callous government decisions affecting the Windrush Generation are emerging.

RMetS Heatwaves Scheme

The Royal Meteorological Society has been working with the Young People's Trust for the Environment on a new 4 lesson scheme of work about Heatwaves. This is timely given the first amber alert which has been announced for the southern half of the UK this coming weekend and into next week.

Heatwaves are now being graded on a four point scale. This is part of the Heat Health Alert Service.

Details are here.

All of the materials are available to download from the RMetS website

This package of lesson plans consists of 4 lessons:

Lesson 1: What are heatwaves?
Lesson 2: Why are heatwaves dangerous?
Lesson 3: How can schools prepare for a heatwave?
Lesson 4: What is your school like during a heatwave and how could it be improved?

By the end, students should be able to show which places in the school are most affected by extreme heat, understand what measures could be put in place to reduce the impact of extreme heat and be able to present their learning and research.

The lessons have been designed to support learners in Key Stage 2 (or equivalent) with understanding more about heatwaves, the reasons why we are likely to face more of them in the future and some steps that schools can take to protect young people during these events. 

The lessons can be adapted to suit other age groups by modifying the information given in the linked notes.

New Polar maps from the British Antarctic Survey

The Arctic and Antarctic are changing so rapidly that the maps need updating regularly. This work is completed by the British Antarctic Survey. I have one of their maps for my department, but perhaps need the latest now to replace it (or for comparison).

Today our cartographers released new Antarctic and Arctic maps - with lots of changes to these fast changing and fragile places:

🧊 ice sheet loss
🌊 new sea ice data
📌 using indigenous town names in the Canadian Arctic#WorldOceansDay #climatechangehttps://t.co/GNfe2F5BEF

— British Antarctic Survey 🐧 (@BAS_News) June 8, 2023

The BAS have just released some new maps.

News here.

Had their chips?

We have been covering some of the reasons for the current food inflation which is causing real concerns for many of the poorest in society, as food prices are rising well above the rate of what is already a high rate of inflation...

In a recent issue of the Guardian there was a piece on the growing price rises facing consumers and business owners, and the impact of potato prices in particular (on this occasion).

Open Farm Sunday

For King's Ely Geographers this is your annual chance to see some of the place where your food is grown as farms open their gates and welcome visitors.

There are some local farms doing this, including some particularly large farms which are important local employers.

Two weeks until the big day! 👏🥳

LEAF Open Farm Sunday, 11th June 2023 - don't miss out on the opportunity to visit a farm and hear first hand from a farmer about where your food is produced, what they are doing to look after the environment & more! 👇👇https://t.co/JZpwphs1t1 pic.twitter.com/NQb1jeqpsv

— LEAFOpenFarmSunday (@OpenFarmSunday) May 28, 2023