Building Sustainable Communities - Online CPD Unit
Stimulus
Through this unit we highlight:
- Characteristics of sustainable communities
- Skills for sustainable communities
- A futures approach
- Everyday geographical experiences
- Surrogate and authentic fieldwork
This unit is about placing the learners' experiences at the heart of their geographical education. This is then linked with significant, worthwhile and relevant geographical understanding. The rewards of such an approach include not only a rich and engaging sequence of lessons, but also learners are supported in using their geography at the heart of their life-long learning.
This CPD unit is for individual or group reflection. It provides a sound preparation for the consideration of a new scheme of work for Key Stage 3 or GCSE. It would be useful to have to hand your previous scheme of work and the appropriate programme of study and GCSE specification.
The associated reading suggested in this unit is either self-contained or can be accessed from downloaded documents. It does include quotations from some key texts, such as the Secondary Geography Handbook, and you are encouraged to read the full chapter concerned.
Finally, this CPD unit makes connections with whole-school initiatives and concerns particularly relevant to geographical education such as sustainable schools and careers education and guidance.
'Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated'
From 'Burnt Norton' by TS Eliot (1935): a no-longer fashionable poet, but surely a geographer of the mind!
'One of the overarching purposes of practising geography is the exploration of sustainable development and developing the knowledge, understanding and skills for building sustainable communities. In this way, geography can contribute powerfully to a critical, active and informed citizenship.'
Balderstone, D. and Lambert, D. (2006) 'Sustaining school geography' in Balderstone, D. (ed) Secondary Geography Handbook, Sheffield: Geographical Association.
Now do Activity 1 >>>
This project was run in partnership with the Academy for Sustainable Communities which has since become the Skills and Knowledge team at the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).
