"Unique" Geographical Tags

Today in Geography we had a go at designing our own Geographical Tags inspired by  Meshu after reading this article.

The lesson was really simple... all that the students had was a world map and an Atlas.

Their first task was to find 10 countries that were of interest to them. Some chose places they had been or just countries they wanted to visit in the future. They then drew a line from the UK to their first country of choice before going on to the second, third and so on. After their last destination country they return the line back to the UK and therefore completing their diagram. All the diagrams will be different as students have a complete free reign over which countries they visit along the way!

The diagrams were then cut out before moving on to a European map and a South American map.... a useful and fun way for students to interact with the locations of countries!

Looking forward, the same idea could be applied in the first few lessons back to introduce students to how an atlas works in Year 7 or maybe even to essay planning as a template.

Hopefully some photos to follow!!

Try it out!! It was great fun.

Mr. Simmons

Some summer homework....

Summer is over, but the Geography you can find is not... so below is list of easy things you can do over the holidays to keep your geographical brains ticking over until September!

Year 7 – On the way to visit a place/attraction during the holidays, use a road map to track your journey. Highlight what you might see on the way paying particular attention to physical and human features of the landscape.

 

Year 8 – Create a collage or diary noting down any news stories or TV programs that you have watched over the summer that can link to Geography. Consider the 5Ws – What happened? Where did it happen? Why did it occur? Who was affected? When did it happen?

 

Year 9 – In preparation for studying extreme environments, watch programs such as Bear Grylls and Ray Mears or read books with a similar theme, and think about people’s experiences of these environments and how they have adapted to living in them.

 

Year 10 –While visiting a tourist attraction (this can be from Birmingham city centre to The Bahamas), reflect on the advantages and disadvantages tourists can have on the area. This will prepare you for the tourism module you will begin studying in September.

 

Year 11 – Using the internet, research how to carry out fieldwork techniques such as land use surveys and environmental surveys; and their advantages and disadvantages. Also practice your data presentation skills (in particular producing high quality graphs) using Microsoft Excel. Both of these will help you in the controlled assessment.

Have a great break everyone.... see you in September!!