Geographical Association

Margaret Mackintosh discusses the potential for delivering numeracy in primary geography.

• Putting numeracy in a geographical context
  
• Fitness for purpose
  
• Key questions
  
• Suggestions for a PGCE session
  
• Final comments
  
• Bibliography and weblinks

Geographical enquiry can be qualitative or quantitative and is often a bit of both! Numeracy is integral to quantitative work, but to what extent should primary geography be quantitative? Do the ‘quantities’ have meaning for young children?

It could be argued that much, if not most, primary geography is visual, descriptive, comparative and qualitative, and that measurement (whether of distance, weather, costs or movements) should be used only when it is essential to an enquiry and when its analysis is going to enhance understanding. Otherwise the collection of numerical data could end up as a ‘so what?’ activity. We’ve collected stream flow measurements, so what are we going to do with it?

The essence of primary geography can then be thought of as qualitative, followed by analysis and explanation of observations using ‘geographical thinking’ and a range of skills – including, where appropriate, number.

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Geography involves studying people and their physical environments. The realisation that people have different opinions and values, and that decisions about their environment have to be reached, is important. It is this that drives the collection of the data on which those decision can be based. Time spent identifying what we need to know, or what data would be helpful, is essential preparation for handling a questionnaire or tally chart. The numerical data collected may add little, if anything, to a pupil’s understanding if that preparatory work has not taken place.

Does knowing the time it takes for two Pooh sticks to move round the inside and outside of a meander add any more meaning to the investigation? What trainee teachers should be aiming to do is get children to try to explain this qualitative observation – and then measure it quantitatively – possibly to test whether the observation is always the case.

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Having established the context and fitness for purpose of numeracy in geography, some key questions are:

• What is the relationship between geography and numeracy?
• Is there a place for quantitative, as well as qualitative, enquiries in primary geography?
• Can numeracy support or strengthen teaching and learning in a primary geographical enquiry?
• Can geography provide a meaningful context for a numeracy investigation?
• When is it appropriate to introduce numeracy in primary geography?

Geography can provide a real context for the collection of numerical data. Traffic surveys, weather, land-use are commonly used examples. We should be encouraging trainee teachers to utilise geographical contexts for numeracy work – but only when they are confident that it is both fit for purpose and within their pupils’ experiences.

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In the primary classroom trainee teachers may be teaching geography as a discrete subject or contained within thematic or topic work. Throughout the following case studies, which involve geography and numeracy and possibly other subjects, encourage trainee teachers to consider: where pupils’ learning is and what the pupils think they’re learning - geography and/or numeracy?

Introduction
Using the land use enquiry presented by Dyer (1997) identify qualitative and quantitative or numeracy aspects. Discuss whether geographical learning is enhanced by the numeracy or whether this is an example of numeracy enhanced by its geographical context. What might a pupil’s perspective be?

Ask each group of trainee teachers to consider what a qualitative study might look like in one of these scenarios. What numeracy work could be included to make theirs a quantitative enquiry? Is this numeracy relevant to, and appropriate for, the pupils and the enquiry?

• A key stage 1 study based on QCA unit 5 ‘Where in the world is Barnaby Bear?’
• A lower key stage 2 study based on QCA unit 7 ‘Weather around the world’.

Experience suggests that weather studies in the primary school usually fall within the following areas:

• Design and technology - making weather-measuring instruments (of the Blue Peter kind).
• Science - the ‘water cycle’ and experimentation or demonstration connected with evaporation, condensation, etc.
• Numeracy - collection of weather measurements for making graphs and charts.
• ICT - using ICT to generate the graphs and charts from numerical weather data.

The study of weather is often not geographical, simply because its connectedness with ‘way of life’ and its spatial patterns are too infrequently identified and explained. But geography can be the lead subject area in a number of ways, including:

• A lower or upper key stage 2 locality study using a photopack, such as Chembakolli or Bangalore (ActionAid, 2002a,b).
• A lower or upper key stage 2 study of the theme of ‘water and its impact on landscape and people’ focusing on a named river (or based on QCA unit 14 ‘Investigating rivers’).
• Would the pupils play Pooh sticks? If so, how? What, if anything, would they record?

An upper key stage 2 local traffic enquiry, possibly using either QCA unit 12 ‘Should the high street be closed to traffic?’ or unit 20 ‘Local traffic - an environmental issue.’

Follow-up tasks

Maps: identify the qualitative and quantitative features and opportunities in using a wide range of maps, from pictorial to Ordnance Survey. Where should these aspects feature in the key stage 1 to key stage 3 continuum?

Critically comment on QCA unit 25 ‘Geography and numbers’. The introduction to this unit comments that it ‘aims to show how a geographical enquiry can provide a meaningful context for the teaching and reinforcement of many aspects of the framework for teaching mathematics’.

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Do we want geography lesson time being used to teach or reinforce numeracy? Of course the answer is yes, but emphatically not requiring children to produce ‘geographical graphs’ for the sake of it. Geography is important in itself and not just a vehicle for other subjects! We use numerical skills in order to improve geographical understanding.

The Chief HMI recently quoted Albert Einstein, who asserted that 'imagination is more important than knowledge’ (Bell, 2005). Einstein saw knowledge as being limiting and imagination as ‘embracing the whole world’. It is partly for this reason that many geographers focus less on the accumulation of knowledge and more on the application of concepts and the development of skills (including the imagination).

Good geography has a judicious mix of quantitative and qualitative work. This should be designed to encourage imagination and ‘geographical thinking’, which is what Chief Inspector David Bell is advocating. Quantitative work that has not been integrated into the geographical learning can militate against this. Convergent thinking towards a ‘right answer’ can stifle enthusiasm for numbers and can kill geography!

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Glancing in the indexes of key primary geography texts shows how little attention has been paid to geography and numeracy - is this significant or an omission?

ActionAid (2002a) Bangalore: Life and Change in an Indian City. Chard: ActionAid.
ActionAid (2002b) Chembakolli: Life and Change in an Indian Village. Chard: ActionAid (and accompanying website http://www.chembakolli.com/).
Bell, D. (2005) 'The value and importance of geography', Primary Geographer, 56, pp. 4-5. (A discussion of issues confronting key stages 2 and 3 geography with particular mention of skills and concepts versus knowledge and information.)
Carter, R. (ed) (1998) Handbook of Primary Geography. Sheffield: Geographical Association. (A brief mention of geography supporting teaching of mathematics. There is no reference to this in Primary Geography Handbook, Scoffham, S. (ed) (2004).)
Dyer, O (1997) 'There’s maths in them thar hills!', Primary Geographer, 30, pp. 14-15. (A useful account of some land-use mapping carried out by year 5 and 6 pupils with considerable numerical analysis of data.)
QCA (2000) Scheme of Work: Geography (particularly Units 5, 7, 12, 14 ,20, 25). London: QCA

Weblinks
Global Eye - view issues of the geographical magazine Global Eye which contain numerical data alongside descriptive information.
National Curriculum - support and examples of children's work can be found here.
Staffordshire Learning Net Geography - for superb, up-to-the-minute information, examples, ideas and everything geographical, especially ‘Geo-Primary’

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