Geographical Association

These materials originally appeared as a 'Theme' in the Resources area.

Students' interest in Euro 2004 provides a great opportunity for geographers to deliver a range of activities in a topical and relevant manner. Charles Rawding outlines how you can use this sporting event in your lessons.

A wide range of activities can be carried out using a range of data and maps, for example:

Provide students with a copy of Table 1 and ask them to map and devise a key for the 16 competing countries in relation to the group they will be competing in. (These are the successful countries from the qualifying groups, Table 2 shows how the countries of the British Isles fared - pupils could use this data to track each country's route to Euro 2004.)

Given the increasingly international nature of football, you could focus on which countries or teams particular players play their league football (Table 3). Start with your nearest leading English football team (the top four all have eight players representing three or four different countries).

As a follow-up links could be made with the most successful teams in the principal European leagues (Table 4).

You could consider focusing first on Portugal (perhaps as a country study) and then on the locations of major venues (give groups of pupils 'tickets' to a series of matches over the two weeks and challenge them to come up with an itinerary for travel and accommodation) (Table 5).

In 2004, The FA created a pack of free resources for Key Stage 2 (7-11) entitled 'Ready for Euro 2004'. The pack was sent to all primary schools and included worksheets and posters for Geography, Science, Maths, English and PSHE - find out more on the FA website. The Geography / Maths worksheets and accompanying teacher notes are available to download below.

www.thefa.com

The Wikipedia Euro 2004 page features comprehensive information about the tournament including the opening ceremony, teams, venues, results and statistics. The map below shows final team rankings and is available as part of the Wikimedia Commons. It can be viewed in its original format here.

The Germany 2006 section of Planet Sport features a range of activities focusing on geography and football, including free journal article downloads.

The original Euro 2004 resources were added to the website in May 2004. This page was created 14.07.08.


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