geogalot

Students have finished the What is Geography? unit and have started the Using Maps and Atlases unit by looking at Map Projections.

Students have covered biofuels and locating a wind farm - which uses a geographyalltheway.com worksheet with a GIS simulation produced by Ordnance Survey.

Students have continued to work positively through the Population Change section. They have looked at the Impact of HIV/AIDS and the Population vs Resources debate.

Students have finished the River Processes section and completed an IGCSE style assessment using past questions.

Students have been studying Population Distribution and Population Fertility.

Students have been looking at Contrasting Levels of Development by comparing the development of Norway and Niger. Then they started the Sustainable Development section.

Next Week

Students will cover Longitude and Latitude and hopefully progress onto Atlas Skills.

Students will prepare for ‘The Great Wind Farm Debate‘ - using the information provided by Talking Heads, Google Earth overlays and delicious bookmarks.

Students will study Population Policies.

Students will start the Marine Processes / Coast unit of the course by looking at Wave Processes and Coastal Landforms.

Students will finish the Population Fertility section by looking at Spatial Patterns and then start the Population Mortality section.

Students will be look at Sustainable Development at various scales - Local, National and International.

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Last Week > Next Week

Published

Richard Allaway

on September 15, 2008

in geographyalltheway.com

. 0 Comments

I’m a little late doing this, this week!

Last Week

Continued with the ‘Induction Unit‘. The ‘When and Who Geography‘ proved to be an interesting baseline assessment of their research and ICT skills.

I continued to develop the Energy Resources unit as I teach it. A big thank you to Kathleen Noreisch who sent me some resources based on ‘peak oil‘ after reading last weeks blog post. The lesson went really well. The resources can be found here - Running Out?.

The Demographic Transition Model and Ageing Populations were covered.

Levées and Floodplains and an MEDC Flooding case study were covered.

Second week of the Induction Programme saw the students hand in their detailed disease case studies and start work on their presentations. They were also informed that they would complete an exam question to finish off the Induction Unit.

Covered slightly less than planned - looking at Poverty and Development Indicators.

Next Week

The final week of the ‘Induction Unit‘ will include ‘Why Geography‘ and then some finishing off.

The Energy Resource continues to develop as I teach the unit. This week the students will look at managing energy demand using Electocity and then look at Biofuels, focusing on the what are they and how they generate press attention.

Youthful Populations and HIV/AIDS.

Flood Management and River Fieldwork. The River Fieldwork work acts as revision for the fluvial processes part of this unit plus add knowledge and understanding necessary to the ‘Alternative to Coursework’ IGCSE Geography exam.

Will finish the Induction Unit by giving presentations and completing an exam question. Peer assessment will be used with the presentations using Google Forms as a way of collating feedback. We will then start the course proper - looking at Population Distribution to start with.

Life After Death by PowerPoint

Started the week with an excellent whole class game of Top Trumps. This week we will complete Development Indicators, Patterns of Development and the Rostow Development Model. The Rostow Development Model page of geographyalltheway.com has been redeveloped to include a living graph exercise.

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Last Week > Next Week

Published

Richard Allaway

on September 7, 2008

in ICT in Geography Education and geographyalltheway.com

. 0 Comments

So this is the second ‘Last Week > Next Week’ post. The last one is here.

Last Week

Year 7 Geography

The new Year 7s have had a positive start. They are all currently deciding upon at least 8 places that are important for them as part of ‘Where Geography?‘.

Year 9 Geography

Again a positive start - hitting the floor running. The revision of Energy Resources went well. I have really tried to focus their presentations with the skills of giving presentations and constructing effective slides. This video clip has helped discussions:

Year 10 IGCSE Geography

Having just eight students in this group this year means I have the ability to really focus upon each student. I went straight into the Population Structure unit and the atmosphere has been very productive.

Year 11 IGCSE Geography

Trying to get the River Processes unit finished. Two sections completed as planned.

Year 12 IB Geography

Induction unit has progressed with a couple of hiccups due to the network firewall etc. All students now using delicious to help then research a disease for their case studies.

Year 13 IB Geography

A steady start to the finial section of the Core - Development. Some really interesting discussions about what development is and global disparities in wealth when looking at the Millennium Development Goals.

Next Week

Year 7 Geography

Will be using a lesson to complete their ‘Where Geography‘ Google Earth Tours and then a lesson looking at ‘When and Who Geography‘ and the research skills associated with the set tasks.

Year 9 Geography

One lesson will be spent watching the student’s Energy Resource presentations. I will be using ClassTools.net’s excellent Random Name Picker to select the order of the students. I will also be uploading the presentations to slideshare.net for feedback. The second lesson of the week will look at Peak Oil and the ‘running out’ of fossil fuels. This lesson is still under-development!

Year 10 IGCSE Geography

We will be looking at the Demographic Transition Model and then I haven’t decided whether to do ‘Jelly Baby Geography‘ now or at the end of the unit as revision. If we don’t have any Jelly Baby or Smarties based fun we will be looking at Ageing Populations.

Year 11 IGCSE Geography

We are still looking at the Lower Course of the river. Levées and Floodplains and a MEDC Flooding case study this week. Students have completed a LEDC Flooding case study as their summer work.

Year 12 IB Geography

The Induction unit continues with the students having their disease case studies completed by the end of the week. I will also add some skills associated with organising their tasks and time - the use of RSS feeds, Remember the Milk, Google Alerts etc - this will require the students to have Google accounts.

Year 13 IB Geography

Poverty, Development Indicators and maybe even a start on Patterns in Development will mean a busy week for Year 13. They are also doing a timed exam question - just a single 10 mark question - so about 23 to 25 minutes of writing during Wednesday’s lesson. They will do one of these every fortnight - with me telling them the area of the course the question will be taken from a week before.

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Last Week > Next Week

Published

Richard Allaway

on August 31, 2008

in geographyalltheway.com

. 0 Comments

I intend to write a blog post at the start of each week that outlines what I will be teaching in the coming week and reviewing what I taught in the previous week. It’s an effort to try and be more reflective - in a slightly more formal way. The style of these weekly post may well develop over time - we will have to see.

Just to outline my teaching commitment - I teach all year groups except Year 8 (who are being taught by a colleague using www.geographyalltheway.com). I have one Year 7 group who have two one hour lessons a week. I have two Year 9 groups - each having two hours a week. I have two IGCSE Geography groups - one Year 10 and one Year 11 - each having two one hour lessons a week. I have two IB Geography groups - one Year 12 and one Year 13 - each having four one hour lessons a week. I also have a Year 9 form and will blog a little about PSCHE in the near future. All students have their own laptop computers.

Last Week

Staff were back for two days of INSET last week so there were no students in school and therefore no lessons. I will have more to write in this section next week.

Next Week

I have redesigned my short Year 7 induction unit this year around the What, Where, Who, When and Why theme that I try to use in case studies with all the year groups. So this week Year 7 will be looking at ‘What Geography‘ and ‘Where Geography‘.

A change from last year - I am starting with a new unit on Energy Resources. It is still in development but will start with some revision and checking what the science department has already taught them! Before looking at energy management, biofuels and wind farm location.

Starting with the Population unit - looking at Global Population Growth and then Population Pyramids.

We will be picking up where we left the course before the summer break looking at the Lower Course of a river. So this week we are looking at Fluvial Deposition, Deltas, Levées and Floodplains.