This is my first post... hopefully not my last...

Many Geographers have probably come across the aerial photography of Yann Arthus-Bertrand (yannarthusbertrand.org), whose striking images seek to show the beauty of the planet, human life-stories and human impacts. Some of you may even have been lucky enough to see the Earth From Above touring open-air exhibition, which stopped off in Bath a couple of years ago.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand's concern with human impact on the natural world has been made into a feature-length film entilted HOME which is shot entirely from the air. While it might not be possible to show the whole film during lessons, excerpts can still have a profound impact on the students and can provoke some very interesting discussions and viewpoints.

The film has been made free to view and can be linked from http://www.homethemovie.org.

I've uploaded the trailer to give a taster of the rest of the film:

Relatively recently it was announced that a sequel is in production.

I hope that some fellow Geographers find this inspiring / useful.

Teachmeet Clevedon is a brilliant gathering of inspiring teachers sharing ideas. It's the perfect antidote to tedious staff meetings and generic INSET. Sign up here.

Ive just started teaching the AQA A Water on the Land module toYear 10 and was a little daunted by the sheer volume of key words that sound almost identical that they need to remember. I still struggle with the difference between attrition and abrasion! So i wrote a story to help them remember the difference. My A and A* students preferred just to learn the definitions but for my C/D borderline kids it has proved a revalation and one particularly disaffected student left with a beaming grin after being able to recall all 8 erosion and transportation key words! Here it is! I hope you enjoy it!

This is an example of Earth Art by Year 7 students, utilizing Google Earth and the Motivator tool. The activity formed part of a unit on landscapes; the objective was to capture a unique view of the Earth and apply a suitable descriptive title. It's a good way to encourage students to explore unfamiliar places and it also helps them appreciate scale.

See some more examples of the student's work here. Do feel free to leave a comment for them!

It's great to see the Preston Geographers producing a Posterous site for their students. Lots of great weather resources for AQA A already up.

I've finished an urban topic with my Year 10s and the resources are all arranged under the Changing Urban Environments tag.

Please let me know of any other similar resources being produced around the County.

Noel

Noel Jenkins is running a Google Earth training course at Court Fields School on Tuesday 29th November at 3.30pm It's open to all Somerset teachers; please let me know in advance if you're coming. The empahasis is on basic skills that can be applied across the curriculum.

We are hoping to re-launch the cluster meetings for Somerset Geographers in the next few weeks.  The meetings will review the progress of the Somerset Geographers network so far (conference & Posterous site) and think about how this network could develop, then will look at issues of interest to those attending the meeting. 

These meetings are not just for Heads of Department – anyone with an interest in geography is very welcome.  Please forward this e-mail to anyone who you think might like to attend if they aren’t on the list. 

The current plan is:

Taunton Group – 4.00-5.00 - Tues 22nd Nov - Bishop Fox's in the B&E Room – contact Kate Sumption if you would like more information

Yeovil Group – 4.00-5.00 - Wednesday 7th December at Westfield – contact Jason Woodfin if you would like more information.

Bridgwater Group – 4.00-5.00 – Tuesday 29^th November (prov. – will confirm) at Robert Blake Science College – contact Catherine Owen if you would like more information

Sue Knight has sent an e-mail to find out who would be interested in forming a ‘Northern’ group and where you would like to meet – please contact Sue if you are interested in this.

Thanks to Sue, Jason and Kate for co-ordinating these meetings.  Please try to support these meetings – if they are well attended then we will aim to keep them going. If you have any questions or comments about the Somerset Geographers network please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 Regards,

 Catherine Owen

 

 

Awesome video from National Geographic that I converted from YouTube into a Windows Media Player file. Has some really hard hitting facts about what 7 billion actually means. Has provoked some fantastic questions from my classes.

R. Perryman

source

Thanks to Rachel Perryman for showing me The Big Picture at the online version of Boston Globe today. It's a great source of inspiration for tutorial lessons and geography classrooms.

I also like the Guardian Eyewitness which is now an essential iPad app.

ArcGIS Explorer online is a free web-based application for viewing GIS data. The Microsoft Silverlight plugin is required.

With a little searching, it's possible to find a wide variety of maps that will be very useful in the geography classroom. One of my favourites is an interactive presentation / map focusing on the concept of Core Knowledge, embedded below (if you have Silverlight)

View Larger Map

Alan Parkinson mentioned this resource some time ago, though I found it by searching ArcGIS Explorer online with the term "UK". Particulalry useful maps I've found include UK Employment, the Broad Street pump from Snow's 1854 cholera map and the UK Geology map.

ArcGIS Explorer makes it easy to add your own content to the maps. This may take the form of shapefiles or GPX data from GPS devices. Create an account and you can save your maps.