A geographer in New York...

Back in Feburary, at half-term, it was far colder than it is now, and I was standing in a [very long] queue with a bunch of sixth form historians to go through super-sensitive metal detectors to get on a ferry to Ellis Island (woohoo - it must be named after you Miss!) and the Statue of Liberty. Partly, I was concerned about whether a certain student would be allowed through security with her very attractive leg splint and walking stick, but mostly I was hoping that the Battery Park Busker would not pick on me next... Luckily, he didn't - that leg splint and walking stick were far more interesting topics for the next song.

Several months later, I had some nice memories of the USA trip, and am hoping to go and visit again soon, but had forgotten all about the Battery Park Busker until I heard he'd been tracked down on YouTube and identified as Freddy Harrington. There are various videos of Freddy and his songs on YouTube, but I was particulary interested to find this one, in which he is interviewed, and he talks about the fact that he is a teacher, and about teaching his daughter about USA geography, and about our increasing connections with the rest of the world... If I go to New York again, and Freddy is there, I'll be sure to have a chat to him about some geography!

Strange Worlds

Strange Worlds is an amazing set of miniature landscape models, made by a New Jersey artist called Matthew Albanese, from all sorts of things ranging from paprika to feathers to fireplace ash!

Check out the Strange Worlds photostream on Flickr... Could you make your own??

How Earth Made Us

New Iain Stewart series starts this evening on BBC2, 9.00pm.

Professor Iain Stewart tells the epic story of how geology, geography and climate have influenced mankind.

Because of Geography...

Conversations in a variety of contexts with a variety of students about Dubai over the past week or so, so I was interested to see the Fly Emirates advert:



Also interesting, in my planning for the AS Geography taster lessons, to read about Xeritown... More links later, but don't want to spoil Tuesday!!

GCSE Geography

I have spoken to all Year 9 geographers this week about GCSE Geography... As a reminder and for those who were too busy playing in the snow to come to school today, here's the presentation I used. Many thanks to Liz Smith and Jo Blackmore as several of the slides were borrowed from their presentations.

GCSE Geography

View more presentations from vikellis.

And the Geography Matters video here:


Don't forget, if you have any questions about the course, or about GCSE Geography in general, speak to your Geography teacher or come and see me...

Iasi

Since I added the FeedJit widget to the blog, the most interesting thing has been watching the various odd locations it seems to think I come from - at the moment, it thinks I live in Worksop, but whilst I've been sitting in the very same spot I'm in now, it's had me in Rotherham, Doncaster, Nottingham and Mansfield. At my parents' house in Bradford, it thought I was in Mansfield and Huddersfield, mainly. It's also been pleasing to see that there have been a good number (though perhaps not as many as there should be, given the intended audience of the blog!) of visits from Alfreton (or maybe the visits registered as Alfreton are actually in Sheffield somewhere...).

Anyway, another interesting thing about it is that I have discovered a regular visitor from Iasi in Romania. Being a geographer, and having never heard of Iasi, I felt the need to go and find out more...

Iasi (which should have an accent on the s which I can't do in Blogger (does any one know how?!)) is, according to Wikipedia (which can't always be trusted, admittedly!) pronounced Jassy. It's a city in the northeast of Romania, as shown on the less than brilliant Google Earth screenshot below...

Although there are a good many videos about Iasi on YouTube (the "sad city", the "city of dreams" etc) I haven't found it particularly easy to find out much more about Iasi - other than that it is sometimes known as The City of Seven Hills.

Iasi is also home to the oldest Romanian university, and is a city known for its culture.

The Wikipedia entry (approach with caution!) is here, and there is more information on the Iasi City website.

Hopefully Suzzmoon, (my Romanian is not great, but I think that she is a geographer and student, perhaps a geography student) will be able to tell us more....????

For a more general flavour of Romania, have a look at this video from http://www.romaniatravel.com/:

Geography on Radio 4

This morning, I finally got round to listening to the bits I missed from the Today Programme from New Year's Day - some really interesting discussions and interviews on a wide range of topics... And fantastic to hear the word "geography" used so many times!

You can "Listen Again" to the programme here.

One of the things that the G-Team looked at was MyWalks - a project set up by Dr Duncan Fuller, a geographer at the University of Northumbria. Here is the description of the project from the website:

"'Mywalks' is about (re-)engaging with our immediate urban, day-to-day, city, country, local, taken-for-granted environments and geographies through the medium of photography and audiography.Why? For the simple reason that all too often we don’t – we autopilot on ipods, get into our cars and turn the stereo up, dash from place to place, focus on where we’re going, not where we are (and what is there). So mywalks is about paying more attention to the streets, places, and spaces we walk through..."

Visit the website, read all about it, and then open your eyes and get involved!!

There was also an article in The Times the other day about the MyWalks project.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

My sister has just sent me this article which is much more interesting than marking coursework (sorry Yr11!): Which tube line runs to Edinburgh?

The question about building Windsor Castle in the flightpath of Heathrow reminded me of a website I found yesterday while planning Yr9 lessons (and unfortunately I didn't save) - which asked "Why do so many volcanoes occur in densely populated areas?"