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GeoJuice Newsletter Autumn
2009
Apologies! Bit late with the newsletter – so let’s
catch up.
The skeins of geese flying south each day have been
reminding me that it is time for the autumn newsletter.
I’ve finally got ahead with the wallpaper calendars
and I’ll try to stay ahead so that people with
two monitors can run two months at a time. Handy. China
CD4 is now complete and at the printers, now ready.
It was a very tight squeeze and I had to remove all
the Hong Kong images and one of the presentations to
get it to fit the 700Mb available. The HK stuff will
appear on the website and the presentation - “Change
in China” - will be available to download from
Slideshare until the end of November.
http://www.slideshare.net/aland/change-in-china
CD4 is now ready. Work on CD5, “Glaciated Scenery”,
is well underway and I hope to have it ready about Easter
next year. GA conference time perhaps! Who knows?
Mapping the Way We Live
The University of Sheffield’s geography department
has been (deservedly) getting a lot of good press recently
with their alternative world maps appearing in The Times
(Oct 3rd, 2009) and Sky News. (see example on right)
http://www.worldmapper.org/
“At first glance the maps could be mistaken for
distorted creepy-crawlies - bloated body parts with
randomly placed antennae and spindly legs, their gridlines
looking much like the compound eyes and variegated wings
of an insect (see on right). In fact, each image is
a country map - reinterpreted by a pair of Sheffield
University geographers. The result is a remarkable series
of cartographic designs that cast the world in an entirely
new light.” (BBC News Magazine)
The world maps have been about for a while now and are
not particularly accessible to young kids but what is
new is a series of country maps, nearly all of which
are highly accessible to our students. Great stuff!
There is also an atlas being published, The Atlas of
the Real World, a review of which will appear in the
next edition of “The Geographer”
Marketing Geography
The 2009 Student Essay Competition run by the Higher
Education Academy Subject Centre for Geography, Earth
and Environmental Sciences (GEES) has produced a fine
crop of essays on “Why Study Geography, Earth
or Environmental Sciences?” Congratulations to
Ross Clark of Glasgow University who was second runner-up.
There are loads of good marketing quotes for your departmental
publications in the winning essays, all of which can
be downloaded from
http://www.gees.ac.uk/projtheme/sawards/2009/sawards09.htm
“Environmental science is a relatively new and
relevant discipline and this is what makes it so exciting.
You’ll soon find that dynamic issues covered in
lectures appear in newspapers the next week, whilst
lecturers are so passionate about their speciality you
feel compelled to actually do the extra reading. Indeed,
studying environmental science will allow any student
to compile the perfect CV, in a way that not just ticks
the right boxes, but also allows personal growth and
fulfilment.”
Emma Hargrave, studying Environmental Science at the
University of Leeds.
“Geography provides a unique perspective, bridging
the supposed gaps between society and the environment,
and between social science, science and the humanities.
My experiences in undergraduate-level geography have
shown me the essential role that space and place play
in human development and interactions, and how to analyse
society, culture and politics from this perspective.
Geography is impossible to classify, as it draws on
such a wide variety of realms of knowledge, from the
hardest of physical sciences to the most profound of
philosophies. This admixture gives its student the impressive
ability to understand concepts from a wide range of
topics, and to integrate them in a manner not seen in
other academic fields.”
Ross Clark, majoring in Earth Science at Glasgow University
Staying on the marketing theme the The American Geological
Institute (AGI) has a neat video on YouTube - apart
from the earth spinning in the wrong direction in the
opening sequence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tvWDPBNiD4&feature=player_embedded#
The best graphic I’ve seen yet on CO2 capture
and storage underground is available at
http://www.co2captureproject.org/media/3_CCP_infographic.jpg
A programme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from
deforestation, known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is currently being
discussed in the negotiations for a global climate deal.
REDD aims to make it worthwhile for developing countries
to maintain their forests, as opposed to cutting them
down.
http://www.panda.org/wwf_news/news/?uNewsID=176141
Digital World? Analogue World? - It’s
One World!
I had a shot on a whiteboard the other day. It was great
fun but it was the only screen in the classroom. I always
had two screens in my classrooms (or sometimes a screen,
a blackboard and a bit of wall, painted white. The point
was that you could leave a diagram or image on the overhead
projector for reflection, consideration, reinforcement,
while moving on to the next part of the lesson on a
different delivery vehicle. Some kids needed that extra
time. I sometimes needed that extra time! The overhead
projectors are disappearing which is incredibly short
sighted (It does save money, but it never pays to rely
on a solitary delivery system). The digital projector
is now god, which is great, if the screen / whiteboard
is big enough for the room and also for the task. A
lot of them are not. Digital delivery should complement
analogue delivery - not replace it. The best seminar
I ever attended was led by Peter Haggett at Mansfield
College, Oxford, in June, 1994.
Eleanor Rawling had organised a wonderful Council of
British Geography (COBRIG) event to debate the advancement
of British geography. It was Peter Haggett’s swansong.
The paper derived from this seminar is to be found in
Geography into the Twenty-First Century, edited by Eleanor
Rawling and Richard Daugherty (Wiley, 1996). The paper
is interesting enough but it gives no indication of
the enthusiasm, skill and humour of a teacher at the
height of his powers. Peter worked his way between two
flip-charts, about twenty feet apart. Each point was
illustrated and a conversation took place as he travelled
from one flip-chart to the next. The drawings ranged
from the abstract to fine line drawings of people. I
particularly liked the geo-political musings, illustrated
by a globe which then became Richard Chorley’s
stomach in the course of a couple of sentences. (For
our younger readers - Chorley and Haggett were joint
editors / authors of the seminal work, Models in Geography
(1967) which led to the quantitative revolution in geography
in the UK and beyond).
Afterwards, I complimented Professor Haggett on his
delivery and his provision of time for reflection on
each diagram. With a twinkle in his eye he added that
teachers should also always present a moving target
to their students - “for health and safety reasons,
you understand.” Well, some things haven’t
changed.
I’ve never seen a “digital” presentation
which has come even close to Peter’s presentation
that evening. Conference centres, I notice, are increasingly
adopting twin and multiple projector systems. Too expensive
for most classrooms but the twin set-up should be adopted
wherever possible. Peter Haggett also called upon COBRIG
that evening to facilitate / oversee agreement about
the geographic fundamentals at both school and university
level. Sixteen years later, it is a challenge (or chalice?)
which COBRIG has pointedly refused to pick up. COBRIG
was established in 1988 to “to co-ordinate and,
where appropriate, to initiate and act on behalf of
geography over matters concerning the status of geography
in education, research and public policy and affairs,
and over issues where the view of geographers ought
to be made known”.
Geography is a bit like the television. It was OK when
there were only two channels, but once the subject had
disaggregated into a myriad of different strands, we
were always going to have viewer numbers problems. If
our subject is to have any credibility, there has to
be agreement on what should be covered in schools and
universities. Our continental colleagues in the IGU
CGE did grasp the nettle with The Lucerne Declaration
in 2007, but the ensuing debate was largely contained
within the Commission for Geographical Education. We’ve
still got it all to do.
Further Reading
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/intellectual_property
_who_owns_green_tech/#Caprotti
http://www.geography.org.uk/resources/earthquakes
Spring 2009
Spring is now certainly in the air. The snow has melted
and the garden is burgeoning. It has been a long winter
but hopefully it is over. Work on the China CD is progressing
- the diagrams are taking forever I’m afraid,
but the end result will be worth it. I’m not so
happy with the quality of the limestone scenery images.
It rained the whole time I was in Guilin and Yangshuo
so I’ve got some very moody art photography but
not a lot of good teaching images, so I’m using
this as an excuse to return to China after the Easter
holidays when the fares become reasonable again and
hopefully before the rains start in May. It’s
about time my wife tasted China anyway! We’ll
also be able to drop in and say hello to Chris Durbin
in Hong Kong, which will be great. I’ve started
putting up the 600x400 China archive on the web so you
can get a flavour of what is coming.
Directories
The directories for CD1, 2 and 3 are now available as
pdfs under the “News and Features” heading
in the navigation column. You can also, if you wish,
print off a copy for your departmental resources file.
GeoNews
Over the winter, subscribers should have received “GeoNews”
items (960x720 slides) on the fluctuating price of oil,
the Russian gas crisis, the Aussie drought and bush
fires, the London snowfall and the current global financial
crisis. Slides on the effects of this recession on developing
countries and on the “carnage in the car industry”,
as well as recent earthquake and volcanic eruption events
have also been e-mailed to subscribers. Some subscribers
haven’t supplied their e-mail addresses so I’m
sorry but I can’t supply them with GeoNews. Please
e-mail me to remedy this. Everyone takes time off to
keep the kids up to date with world events but it is
often difficult to provide decent visual aids. Hopefully
the GeoNews items will be helpful. Some examples are
shown on the right. Nearly every school that I visit
these days has a LCD display in the foyer. Find out
who controls what gets shown on this monitor and offer
to supply a GeoNews powerpoint loop or video loop to
show on the monitor. Salt in some pictures of your students’
recent work / fieldwork and make sure that your loop
is running when parents’ nights are on!
The double page spread image in the centre of the Guardian
continues to provide the best ammunition for static
“Geography in the News” displays in the
corridor. Aerial views of Koubigou refugee camp in eastern
Chad, the Abruzzo earthquake and the Laxiwa Dam on the
Yellow River (Huang He) were the pick of the recent
offerings. The Guardian must pay a fortune for these
pictures and yet they rarely figure on their website.
I have suggested to them that they institute an “image
of the day” slot, similar to NASA’s excellent
“Earth Observatory” or even the Chicago
Tribune’s image of the day, but to no avail so
far. Even a 600x400 would be useful to have. The best
exemplar of digital “geonews” to date is
at the Boston Globe – simply wonderful!
www.boston.com/bigpicture/
China - Resources
Note also that some slides from the China presentations
that have been completed so far - “population
change”, “economic growth” and the
“Three Gorges Reservoir area” - are also
on the GeoJuice site now, and geographers may also find
the abbreviated, composite presentation on Slideshare
quite useful. There are 123 presentation slides (960x720s)
in the vault on CD4 so far.
www.slideshare.net/aland/slideshows/
Staying with China, the best images on the Olympic Games
in China probably are to be found on the Newsweek site.
I particularly like the shot of the cloud seeding armoury.
They don’t look like silver iodide shells to me!
Great for “Weather and Climate” with S3.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/148844
One of the widest range of graphs and diagrams on China
is to be found on the IIASA website.
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/
ChinaFood/data/t_data_1.htm
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
is a unique non-governmental, non-profit, global change
research institute. At the present time the institute
is researching China’s food supply and provide
a plethora of tables, charts, diagrams, maps and animations
on China’s Population, Diet Change, Urbanization,
Cultivated Land, Water and Technology. The animations
have already “popped up” on several geography
sites and blogs. This is where they came from. The maps
and animations are the work of G K Heilig. A CD of the
in-depth analyses, detailed maps, and many of the larger
tables and figures is available for order ($39).
More “Free” Resources
The Planet Earth site has put up more “copyright
free” presentations for teachers to improve our
earth science teaching. The new themes are: Oil and
Gas; Geological Time; Ice Ages; The History of Life;
and Evolution. First class.
www.earth4567.com
I was fortunate enough to be invited to give talks to
the Ayr and Helensburgh RSGS centres during the winter.
It was magic to meet up with so many “well-kent”
faces - Jim Stewart, Ian Geddes and Margaret Neville
to name but three. The welcoming atmosphere in both
venues was superb and the “craik” in the
pub in Ayr was brilliant (Swapping info about mountains,
short-eared owls and creosote plants!). Jim had fallen
off his bike earlier that day but he still looked good.
The fees from the two talks also mean that I’ve
got enough money to print CD4 professionally, so thank
you guys.
Congratulations are in order for Nicolina Georgieva
from Bulgaria. She was the winner of the Geography Poster
Competition which SAGT ran for the IGU conference in
Glasgow in 2004. Nicolina enjoyed Scotland so much that
she has decided to come and take her degree here. Well,
it was Malcolm McAskill who showed her round Glasgow!
Thanks Malcolm. (You did us all proud - as ever. ) So
I’m looking forward to meeting Nicolina again
in the autumn.
Congratulations are also in order for Gordon Lobban.
Last year, he and his wife, Helen led a joint excursion
from Trinity Academy and Beeslack HS to Japan. The kids
had a great time and made such an impression on their
teachers upon their return that Gordon had a delegation
from them asking if he would organise a similar trip
for them. So he and Helen are off to Japan again for
the sakura. It was Gordon who introduced me to Japan
back in 1990, so this must be about his sixth visit.
Geography in action! Well done, sir.
Congratulations also to the team of four Spanish teenage
students and their teacher from IES La Bisbal school
in Catalonia who launched a weather probe they designed
and built themselves. Their helium-filled balloon carried
a payload of electronics and a camera to take atmospheric
measurements and photographs throughout the trip. After
getting permission from aviation officials and getting
good weather, they released the probe on a trip that
took it over 30,000 meters (19 miles) above sea level,
through winds gusting up to 100 kph, and temperatures
reaching -54C (-65.2F), and traveling 38 kilometers
overland in a time of 2 hours and 10 minutes. The Meteotek08
team has collected their images and data on both their
blog and flickr page. Well done lads!
Congratulations finally to RSGS on the “refreshing”
of their newsletter / magazine - “The Geographer”
(Great title!). Twenty pages, full colour, a bit of
design, competently desktop published and some cracking
articles. I particularly liked the “What Geography
Means to Me” column and the Greenland article.
Relevant and useful. Jim Hansom and his team have also
done a great job with “The Scottish Geographical
Journal” as well. Well done, RSGS. Enjoy!
December 08
The Long Silence
I apologise to our subscribers and visitors for the
recent inactivity on the GeoJuice site. My mother died
in July after a long period of deterioration and it
is only now that the numbness is beginning to lift.
I thank my friends and colleagues for their kind condolences.
Much appreciated.
Work in Progress
The first thing I’ve done is fix the subscription
pdf download (or rather I got Chris to do so! Thanks
Chris). I’ve also started preparing the remaining
Japan images for upload and I’m still hoping to
get most of the China images online by Christmas. The
CD won’t be ready until February 2009 –
at the earliest. My trip to Iceland with Ivan had been
planned for almost a year and we were just on the point
of cancelling when my mum, God bless her, departed.
Her timing was always great! The Iceland trip produced
a rich vein of images which I’m just beginning
to mine.
Iceland
Just Ice
Svinafellsjokull
One of the benefits of the recent credit crunch crisis
is that the price of beer in Iceland has halved. Good
news for Malcolm McDonald and the SAGT cohort visiting
there next year, although I think that most of them
will stay dry like me …. Well, maybe not the two
Malcolms. I was horrified to see that paying for drink
in Reykjavik using the dreaded “plastic”
was the norm. You also pay for on the spot traffic fines
using a credit card (so I’m told!). Tourists get
a 20% discount and its still a fortune!
A copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3 has presented a whole
new range of challenges and opportunities. GeoJUICE
can now produce contact sheets of all the images on
the CDs so would-be subscribers will be able to preview
the images that are not included on the web site. The
contact sheets can also be used for search and browsing
purposes. I’m still working on how best to incorporate
the contact sheets into the web site. The site is going
to metamorphose into something even better. The more
I learn, the more I can teach. Some things don’t
change. The url of the site, however, will change eventually
to www.earth-e.org where the “e” stands
for “education” (or maybe even “ecstacy”?)
The series of articles on “visual education”
which I have contributed to SAGT’s newsletters
and journals is also now available on-line. Go to articles
in the navigation bar on the left.
Planet Earth
The “free” NERC magazine surpassed even
its own high standards with the autumn 2008 issue. The
usual insights and summaries on a whole range of environmental
issues were accompanied by DVD on Rapid Climate Change.
The DVD emphasises the importance of the Atlantic Meridional
Overturning Circulation and demonstrates the latest
attempt to understand this phenomenon by placing sensors
in the Atlantic Ocean along the 26.5°N line of
latitude. The most interesting finding so far is the
realisation of just how volatile or fragile, this circulation
is. For example, 8,200 years ago the overturning circulation
was disrupted for a period of 150 years by a rush of
fresh water from receding ice sheets. Rapid Climate
change took place and temperatures in Greenland dropped
by 60C for the duration of the disruption. Preliminary
results from the sensors also reveal a surprisingly
high variation on a day-to-day basis. (Marta Sebestyen’s
soundtrack for the DVD is superb as well, although it’s
a bit too good for the kids probably.) Order your copy
at http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/
Viral Expansion Loops
Some jargon, such as the ‘Atlantic Meridional
Overturning Circulation’ has to be taken onboard
and added to the kids’ vocabulary. Other examples
of jargon are superfluous to our curriculum but interesting
none the less. ‘Viral Expansion Loops’ is
classic assembly fodder. Well, S5 and S6 assemblies
at any rate. “Viral loops have emerged as perhaps
the most significant business accelerant to hit Silicon
Valley since the search engine. They power many of the
icons of Web 2.0, including Google, PayPal, YouTube,
eBay, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter, and
Flickr.”
Ning's
Infinite Ambition
Kids need to understand how these sites work and it’s
easy to work it in to our geography curriculum (networks,
nodes, spacial awareness, socio-economic developments,
group dynamics, defensible space et al!) The important
question to ask is “Who benefits from this?”
If you (and your students) understand the processes
involved it’s easier to set up and organize your
online space to your own benefit rather than be organized
into something of benefit to a corporation.
I love the parallels being drawn between Ning and Tupperware
parties in the fastcompany article above. Just shows
you that there is nothing new under the sun. Instead
of supporting Ning, however, why not support a Scottish
site that provides exactly the same (free) service and
is run by two really nice Scottish guys?
Click
here to view (login required)
Although for them to succeed and influence the zeitgeist
they will probably have to come up with some catchy
jargon instead of calling themselves ‘Community
in a Box’. Far too obvious and clear for the technoprats,
my boys. Maybe “Ying” would do the trick?
The
Ying Tong Song - The Goons
Our younger readers should just chill and go with the
flow. This is bank full discharge music kids.
Congratulations
Finally congratulations are in order. Firstly to my
old friend, Jim Carson, who is going to receive the
RSGS’ first medal for excellence. It really couldn’t
be more appropriate, nor could it happen to a nicer
chap. Jim was SAGT’s first president and has been
our most stalwart supporter and astute critic ever since.
I remember once failing to mention the Glasgow Panel
in an article for SGN. The eloquent letter was on my
doorstep the day after publication! Constructive criticism
is always welcome Jim. All the best!
Secondly, I wish to congratulate my young friend from
Beijing, Chen Hong. Hong is a geography teacher trainer
who helped me out on my visit to Beijing in 2005. I
even cracked the bus service thanks to Hong. Hong was
awarded her doctorate recently. I know how hard she
has had to work and how high the quality of that work
will be. Hong has contributed articles to the Geographical
Association’s ‘Teaching Geography’.
I do hope that we will see an article based on her doctorate
at some time in the future. Well done Hong.
10 April 2007
GeoJuice launched on Tuesday 10th April 2007 after a
gestation period which would make even an elephant blanche.
However we did make it just in time for the GA conference
in Derby. A bit close for comfort but we made it.
Several geography teachers have been providing us with
encouragement and advice. The “next” button
is on its way as are more graphics, annotations and
title pages. CD1 is now ready for delivery and CD2 is
well on the way. GA and SAGT members are entitled to
an introductory “two for the price of one”
offer.
Watch us grow! Help us to grow!
Chris from “preciseWebSolutions” has borne
the bulk of the hassle in his own inimitable, unflappable
style and deserves a special thank you, as do Liz, Malcolm,
Barbara, Malcolm, Mary, Jack, Gavin, Alasdair, Mary,
John, Michael, Liz and Paul. Thanks guys! Brian McMorrow
and David Jarman were our first two contributors and
also deserve a special mention. It was so long ago that
they have probably forgotten! Thank you all for your
patience and constructive criticism. Much appreciated!
I will get your stuff posted as soon as possible! Honest!
Finally GeoJuice must thank Len Brown and John Briggs
who both said (separately but vehemently) that any educational
images must be accompanied by a narrative description
at the very least. I hope you like the fruits of your
advice. They also said that it helps if your images
are up to Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s standard! (Sorry
guys.)
(GeoJuice News: 10th April 2007)
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