Wind Farm lesson

For my new teaching job I had to teach a lesson on the theme of Wind Farm Development.

Fortunately, the department has been using my GA KS3 toolkit 'Look at it this Way'
This book is still available to buy from the GA Shop.

I decided in the time that I had to prepare for my interview lesson, which was very short and ended up being in the early hours of the morning of the day itself, that I would adapt a lesson from the book. Some of the students had apparently been doing some of the activities already, so had a flavour of what to expect.
Here's an image of a wind farm that I took while on my way between home and Sheffield.
I discovered that in terms of the definition of a wind farm, then as few as two wind turbines could be classed as a wind farm for planning purposes, although some local authorities classed it as three. There was no overall definition in terms of numbers.

Wind Farm, Lincolnshire Fens, as seen from the A17
Image by Alan Parkinson

As I had a bit of advance notice of the lesson topic, I was able to ask some of my friends to tell me some words to describe wind turbines, and I was able to create a word cloud.
Word cloud created using Wordle.net

Thanks to those people who helped with the lesson in this way.

And here is the lesson itself.

I uploaded it to Slideshare...

Wind lesson from GeoBlogs

And here's the lesson plan....

Note that this is an interview lesson, so is not necessarily representative of normal practice...
I over-prepared and adapted some of the activities (of which there were too many)

Wind Farms lesson plan from GeoBlogs

Back to the classroom...

Some news over on Living Geography

ArcGIS Online Story Maps

A useful blog post here to explain how to download the MAP STORY TOUR template and start to use it with ArcGIS Online.

It's not a straightforward procedure, but this post by Rupert Essinger takes you through it nice and clearly.
I'll perhaps give it a go, to check that it works before using it with colleagues at a course at the end of the week...

Support from Australia...

The new Australian Curriculum document for Geography was launched in the last few weeks.

The support site for the introduction of the new curriculum has now gone live too.

It's called GEOG SPACE.

There's quite an influence from some familiar UK names here, such as this diagram on the 'Child as Geographer' from the work of Simon Catling.

© 2013 Education Services Australia Ltd, except where indicated otherwise. You may copy, distribute
and adapt this material free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes, provided you retain
all copyright notices and acknowledgements.

There are also influences in the SUPPORT UNITS from a range of UK geographers including Fran Martin, Paula Owens, Stephen Scoffham and Liz Taylor.

The SUPPORT UNIT section, in fact, would make excellent reading for geographers around the globe. It's a really useful synthesis of key thinking around concepts, fieldwork, geographical enquiry, ICT and related areas of geographical thinking.
There are extracts from the GA Secondary Handbook, and useful links to other websites.

Delve into the CORE UNITS, and you will find a range of materials for teachers to use straight away and get the curriculum underway...
Here's an activity sheet for a unit on MUSIC FESTIVALS for example (PDF download) which provides a good starter, although I think the Woolvens did a better job here :)

I also liked the unit on E-Waste, and ideas for units about place, coastal management and

For example, here's the New South Wales About Fieldwork website, which was a new one for me.

Well worth spending some time looking through these sites, particularly for new teachers of geography.

And visit the site of AGTA, who were involved in creating these new resources. Plenty of additional ideas and resources on this site too.

So I wonder where the equivalent website is for UK teachers ?
We are getting one, right ??

SW Geography Conference - 1st July

At the start of July I'm going to be in Newquay in Cornwall, working with colleagues in the South West for the first time.
I've been asked to lead a morning on the broad theme of Progression in Geography. 
This will include sessions on national developments, raising standards (some ideas), good practice in leadership and management of teaching and learning. My input will finish with some ideas for the use of new technologies, which is where I'll be on safer ground.
One issue with leadership and other aspects is the extent to which it is affected by the personality of the leader, but also the make-up of the whole departmental team. I've been fortunate to work with some great colleagues in my time, but recognise that it can be hard if you're working with uncooperative colleagues.
Here's the flyer for the event... looks good :)

If you're in the area, you're very welcome to join us. Further information can be obtained from Jo Bardell on 01872 322931. The event is free for SLA subscribers, and costs £175 for non SLA subscribers.

I may well be tweeting some questions over the next few weeks (I'll wait until the term restarts to ask them....) to prepare some provocations and elements of tasks for colleagues to engage with...

If anyone reading this has a particularly good reference / website / resource on progression and raising standards in geography, which is a bit of a 'thorny' and contested issue, I'd love to hear from you...

Teachmeet East

Teaching in the East of England ?
Get yourself over to Norwich on the 22nd of June for TEACHMEET EAST 2013

Great work by Tim Handley once again...

Bluebell Primary School
Lovelace Road
(Near UEA)
NR4 7DS Norwich
United Kingdom

Sign up HERE

There are several stages to the event.
From 11-1 is TEACHMEET HANDS ON.
Two hours of hands on activities. I was asked to come and do a Mission:Explore activity as part of this stage, but couldn't make it as already 'taken' that day.
Then there's the TEACHMEET from 2 - 5.45....

Sadly I can't make that weekend, otherwise I would be there....
Get your ticket soon...
And say hello to my good friend Andy Knill who WILL be there...

LocateStreet - a nice end of term activity...

You may have seen an earlier post on GeoGuessr,  but here's a big mention for LOCATESTREET 

This is a variation on GeoGuessr, with various points being offered for guidance, although the Elevation option doesn't offer that much help...

You can choose to play on a Global basis, or other scales.

You are presented with 4 options of location to choose from, and if you pick the correct option you can earn bonus points for clicking on the actual location on a map...
The site takes you to some fairly out of the way places... I seemed to end up on rural roads, and in cul-de-sacs on industrial estates quite often.

Hardcore players should choose the GLOBAL option... and discover that South America looks a lot like Australia in places...
Choose the COUNTRY option, and explore a range of countries from a list, which includes the UK. This offers potential for a CITY based search for example.
There are also some US based Thematic search options.

The game is addictive. Had to stop myself playing on it last night....
If you get one of the highest scores so far you can enter your e-mail to be added to the High Score table. May be an incentive for some to use additional 'support' to search for business names etc., but that wouldn't be in the spirit of the game...

Also, while playing, I've come across a few random sights.
This looks like some sort of hawk diving into a field to catch something ?

And what is this bloke doing standing in the road ?

The game was developed by Nick Burkhart of Chelonia Labs in California.

As with GeoGuessr, there are various clues that you can look for to help with locating yourself in fairly random housing estates.

Telephone dialling codes tend not to be blurred out. 020 will tell you that you're in London.

If on a main road, head for junctions where there'll be road signs.

Look at the vernacular building materials - some places have distinctive stone or house designs.

Become familiar with the basic geography of London, which features heavily in the UK option.

Be aware though, that they can be misleading. I spotted a Yorkshire registration on a motorbike, which ended up being up in the far north of Scotland, flipping tourists...