Where Will I Live? - Geographical Imaginations
| School/Scheme | Examples of activities related to 'Geographical Imaginations' |
|
Westholme School, A Geographical Mystery |
The students are shown two pictures of similar houses, they are asked to describe the houses and to give a value to them. Later in this scheme, students find out about the geographical imagination of others by interviewing different community and local government representatives. |
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Habergham High School What makes an area good or bad? |
Students draw on their prior experiences to suggest what features and characteristics make an area good or bad. They are then asked to justify their thoughts. |
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Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar Where would you be willing to live? |
Before students carried out an in depth analysis of data for a ward in Blackburn they were asked what they already knew about it and how their understanding had been informed. |
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Ivy Bank Business and Technology College Urban Change |
The teacher read out their own personal geography of they area where they lived when they were the same age as the students. The students in pairs answered some questions based on this personal geography. The students were then asked to complete their own perception geographies for the Padiham area (the area local to the school). |
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Colne Primet High School Environmental Quality |
To introduce the ideas of environmental quality students were asked to describe the area that they lived in. A PowerPoint presentation and questionnaire were used to stimulate this thinking. |
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Edge End High School What is all the fuss about? |
This practical sequence of lessons involved students in photographing the area (they decided what to photograph and why) and they interviewed a variety of local people, with different perspectives about their thoughts about the regeneration of their place. This included a local resident who could justify why they thought the regeneration had damaged the community. |
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Coleridge Community School and Parkside Community School Marshall's Airfield |
In lesson one students used a 'what's it got to do with me frame' to think about how an image of a homeless person connects with them and their personal geography. This is a challenging activity. |
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Sawston Village College New housing developments |
The students were asked to respond to images from both East Lancashire and Cambridge. The students all live near Cambridge. This activity highlighted their perceptions of both their own place and a place that none of them had prior experience of. |
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St Bede’s Inter-Church Schools and Chesterton Community College Perceptions of places |
Students brainstorm as individuals or in pairs to produce a mind map to show characteristics of local area. Use MindMap software to collate ideas on the whiteboard and save in a file. Students then draw a mental map of their local area (5 minutes walking radius of home) then work in pairs or small groups to draw mental map of 5 minute walking radius of school. They compare mental maps of school area. Have people chosen similar characteristics and used similar symbols? What influences the choice of features that have been included? They then look at O.S. map of local area (could be done on ICT using multimap if necessary, especially if aerial photos needed). Self-marking and peer-marking of mental maps using the O.S. map. Students should devise their own set of marking criteria. Homework: use mental map, O.S. map and photos/leaflets/drawings to make a poster or PowerPoint presentation called 'This is my area'. If PowerPoint is used, the slides should be printed out. Plenary – rapid fire round of 'one thing I’ve learnt about my area I didn’t know before'. |
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Hills Road Sixth Form College Managing Urban Environments |
The students are asked to respond to the question, 'Why is the management of urban areas an increasing and global problem?'. They are shown a variety of images from around the world and then asked to mind map their current understanding on an A3 sheet. They are provided with a framework and a list of issues as stimulus. They annotate their mind map to explain any links and inter-relationships that they have suggested. They are asked to highlight economic, social, cultural and environmental issues. |
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Comberton Village College and Saffron Walden High School Sustainable Cambridge? |
The students are asked to respond to an image of Cambourne. They are then asked to list 10 words that come into their mind to describe the geography of this image. They are then asked to underline any words that might be connected with the concept of sustainability. |
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Chesterton Community College Housing Design and Housing Needs |
The students are asked to draw an image of the home that they would like to live in. All but two of the students draw a traditional house. A discussion then ensues about what informs our perceptions and how we can widen our thinking. |
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