Mr P on the radio

This morning was the broadcast of an interview that Mr P had with Dorian Brown: a host on Teachers Talk Radio.

You can listen again here:

We talked about the GA and blogging and a whole range of other things. 

If you enjoyed it, check out some of Dorian's other recent guests, also from the GA 'community'.

Your commute for later sorted...

Thought for the Day

"The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world"

Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum.

The Diverse Book Award 2021

The DiverseBook Award 2021 goes to BenjaminZephaniah for Windrush Child.

We are using this book with our Year 7 groups this term and they will all be receiving a copy.

Congratulations to Ben on the award.

GeoFile Competition

This would be good for 'A' level Geographers.

The full rules and information can be obtained from this document (link leads to download)

Closing date is the 10th of January 2022

Food waste / plastic packaging

An interesting tweet which led me down some interesting avenues, and was a reminder of the importance of critical thinking which we hope our King's Ely Geographers are capable of...

Wrapping broccoli in a material that slows down its respiratory rate doubles it shelf life.

Going for the unwrapped version not only potentially doubles food waste (probably the greatest environmental threat to humanity), it can cause a nutrient decline of up to 90%. pic.twitter.com/A4OqymXieM

— James Wong (@Botanygeek) November 1, 2021

While we're at it, how about this one as well. 

Walking to the front entrance of the G20 summit, it’s basically a car park of vast vehicles, about 50% with their engines idling, among them the US presidential limousine. Absolutely absurd when we’re going in to hear Boris Johnson talk about reducing emissions. pic.twitter.com/0Poxb8KQvj

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) October 31, 2021

Also check out the Climate Science video here:

 

SDG Progress Trackers

I've been working on the teacher training materials for the D3: Developing Digital Data Literacy project and came across two excellent tools for checking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, using EuroStat data.

They are excellent, and better than other dashboards that I have previously found.

The first one, shown above is called SDGs and Me. Click a country, then an SDG.

Details

This digital publication "SDGs & me" was created by Eurostat and aims to help all interested citizens to explore the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an EU context.

Differences between the UN and EU SDGs indicator sets

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are at the heart of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development comprise 169 related targets.

The European Commission is committed to monitoring progress towards the SDGs in an EU context. Eurostat has led the development of a reference indicator framework for this purpose in close cooperation with other Commission services and with Member States organisations in the European Statistical System (ESS).

For this 100 indicators have been selected which are evenly distributed across the 17 goals and take into account their policy relevance from an EU perspective, availability, country coverage, data freshness and quality. They are selected to reflect the SDGs broad objectives and ambitions. 42 indicators are "multi-purpose", meaning they are used to monitor more than one goal. This allows the link between different goals to be highlighted and enhances the narrative of the monitoring report. Out of the 100 EU SDG indicators, 55 are currently aligned with the UN SDG indicators.

Indicator selection in the digital publication

This digital publication does not present all the 100 SDGs indicators from the EU reference indicator framework. For each goal, 2-4 indicators were selected based on their relevance for citizens. Definitions as well as the source data for each indicator can be access next to the visualisations via the information button.

The second one is called SDG Country Scores. This shows a quick visual guide for each country using colour coding and placing them on a grid.

• SDGs in the green quadrant show that the status is above the EU average and the country is progressing towards the SDG.
• SDGs in the (lower) yellow quadrant mean that the country is progressing towards the SDGs but the status is below the EU average.
• SDGs in the (upper) yellow quadrant show that the status is above the EU average but the country is moving away from the SDG.
• SDGs in the red quadrant mean that the status is below the EU average and the country is moving away from the SDG.

The status of each SDG in a country is the aggregation over all the indicators of the specific goal, put in relation to the EU average. It is a relative measure, which also depends to a certain extent on the natural conditions and historical developments of each country. It should be noted that a high status does not mean that a country is close to reaching a specific SDG but it signals that it is doing better than the EU on average.

The progress score of each SDG in a country is based on the average annual growth rates of all assessed indicators in the specific goal over the past five years. Hence, it is an absolute measure not influenced by the progress achieved by other countries.

The underlying data stem from the 2021 edition of ‘Sustainable development in the European Union - Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context’.

Take to the skies for Climate Change

This video came into my social media feed this morning. How much of our energy comes from renewable sources?

The latest video featuring Danny MacAskill, who has appeared in our Adventure Landscapes schemes regularly as his new videos are released.

Climate Change - Teach with GIS

The new ESRI UK Education Team resources for teaching about the Climate Emergency have now been released and are ready for use. They explore climate change in the UK, and were produced in partnership with the Met Office.

They include Teaching Resources for different key stages including Primary.

They also include a Teacher Knowledge section.

This includes the useful resource on COP26 below.

A typically stylish and useful set of resources generously shared.

Grab a coffee, and listen to some geography...

I'm pleased to say that I am the latest of Kit Rackley's guests on the Coffee and Geography Podcast. We chatted about a range of things which Kit picked up on in their summary.

Some of the audio had to be rerecorded by me separately because of problems my end, so there was a little more in the original recording on my GA Presidents blog and the legacy of the former Presidents' work. Well done to Kit on editing that in so smoothly.

Why not head there to listen to me, or perhaps to some of the other guests who are far more interesting than me :)

The Podcast series has also just passed 1000 downloads. Well done to Kit and all the previous and future guests.

BBC Scotland Landscape Animations

Well done to BBC Scotland for continuing to create new content for the Bitesize site for Geographers.

The animations feature 11 different landscapes and landscape features.

🌊🌍🏞️🛤️🌄🏔️🥾Want to go on an adventure around Scotland's incredible landscapes with our animated explorers, Isla and Connor? Take a look at our new videos for @BBCScotLearn here: https://t.co/qFxgzlkAqA#geography pic.twitter.com/pWEG9pt4xB

— Bright Button (@BrightButtonPro) October 15, 2021

Oxfam Climate Activist movies

 Climate Activism video from Kenya.

Independent Education Today

Back in 2012 when I was a freelance geographer, working on as many projects as possible to keep money flowing in, I wasn't sure what might happen next. As it happens I got an email from a teacher I'd met at an event I presented at, was familiar with my work with Mission:Explore and had just helped steer her department to the Secondary Geography Quality Mark. She invited me to work at the school and that took me back into the classroom part time, and eventually full time. The school was/is King's Ely and the teacher was Claire Kyndt.

Last week, I was featured in Independent Education Today, which is aimed at leaders of Independent schools, profiling me taking on the role of GA President. 

I have just finished a project writing a biography of all the GA Presidents who have come before me.

GA Presidents 1893 2021 from GeoBlogs

You will see there are quite a few groups who have not been represented yet within that body of over 100 Presidents. There is a deadline of the end of October for people to put themselves forward to be the GA President and details are in the GA Magazine and also on the website, and in the newsletter.

Stereotyping Africa

A slightly different take on 'the danger of a single story' which we have used already with students...

Megaships and Containers

Thanks to @GeoIanPort for the link below, showing how we moved towards the use of megaships...which can cause problems when they get stuck...

One to remember for the next time we return to Supply Chains and Globalisation.

Standing Firm

I'm looking forward to this film produced by BT Sport. It's presented by Benjamin Zephaniah and tells the story of how the footballers of the Windrush Generation made their impact on the football league.

Premieres in late September.

Presented by Professor Benjamin Zephaniah, Standing Firm, the latest BT Sport film, will celebrate the legacy of the Windrush generation and examine the impact they, their descendants and continued Caribbean migration to the UK, had on English football.