Branch Secretary: Samantha Willows
GA York Branch
c/o Cranedale Centre
Kirby Grindalythe
YO17 8DB
Email: samantha@cranedale.com
Annual Membership of the York & District Branch is £10 with a concessionary rate of £5.00 available to students. Individual lectures for non members cost £3 and £2 for student and are held in Bootham School, Boothamgate, York.
GA York & District Branch
Contact
Programme
Current Issues on the Holderness Coast
20 January 2010, 7:15pm
Mike Ball, Principle Engineer, East Riding Yorkshire Council
Age of Stupid
10 February 2010, 7:15pm
The Age of Stupid is a film set in the year 2055 looking back at footage from 2007 and asking why we did not do more to stop climate change.
Sixth Form Conference: Changing Climate in a Changing world
Monday 1 March 2010, time TBA
Dr Alison Willows, University of Brighton / Open University
A practical, issue-based session looking at climate change, carbon calculators, and technological solutions to global warming.
Branch Update - December 2009
York and District GA branch have held 3 events this year which have been well supported.
In September Dr Rachel Unsworth from the University of Leeds spoke to a large audience about the rebranding of Leeds.
In October the branch held a primary INSET looking at enriching geography at KS1 and 2. There was a range of resources available for our primary colleagues to look at from the Centre for Global Education, Japan 21 and the GA. Although the number of people attending this INSET was disappointing, all participants found the INSET useful and went away with lots of free resources, and great ideas along with networking opportunities!
Dr Liz Brown and Dr Fausto Ferraccioli
Our latest lecture had a more adventurous and international flavour with Dr Fausto Ferraccioli from the British Antarctic Survey giving superb insights about the latest research from the Gamburtsev subglacial mountains as well as living in harsh environments and international collaboration.
The branch is looking forward to gaining an update on the Holderness coast from Mike Ball (East Riding of Yorkshire Council), a screening of the 'Age of Stupid' and the Sixth Form conference on climate change with Dr Alison Willows from the University of Brighton. Gyles Morris from Naturebase will be running an INSET on 'creating a sense of space in your school grounds' on April 10
Sam Willows, Secretary, York and District GA branch, samantha@cranedale.com
Have they lost their marbles? - Conflict and Cooperation over Water
The York and District Branch held their annual Sixth Form Conference on March 3 2008. The event, held at Bootham School in York, was well attended by 90 students from a variety of institutions including York Sixth Form College, Huntington School, Barnard Castle School and indeed Bootham.
Our speaker Dr. Bruce Lankford, Head of the School of Development at the University of East Anglia, ran a fantastic workshop on resolving water scarcity conflicts. His brilliantly conceived River Basin Game, around which the workshop revolved, was very engaging and students were able to gain considerable insight into the problems caused by the failure to adequately manage water in a river basin which caused a once perennial river to become seasonal.
Bruce developed this game in 2002 as part of his work on the Usangu wetland in Tanzania and has since used it successfully in Nigeria and South Africa to explore issues around water conflict with both farmers and government officials.
During the game students saw how so-called 'top-enders' living at the top of the drainage basin were able to take the lion's share of the water leaving the 'bottom-enders' sometimes without any water at all. The last part of the afternoon saw students speculating about what farmers with no water would have to resort to if they were to survive. Finally students were charged with playing the game co-operatively so that water was shared fairly between everybody using strategies to incentivise top-enders to share their water. These strategies and wider questions about war, conflict and water were also discussed.
Overall this was a great feel-good afternoon led by an expert with considerable experience in the subject, many thanks to all those who took part and made it such a super event.
Liz Brown
