With the sun shining, we took the new Internet Geography DJI Mini 3 drone out to Mappleton on the Holderness Coast to capture some images and footage for a new case study video we’re developing. After sharing some images on social media, we’ve been asked to post some examples on the site!
The images we’ve shared on this page have not been processed yet and are low resolution. Over the coming days, they’ll be replaced with higher-resolution images.
Images
Coastal management at Mappleton
Aerial photograph of Mappleton coastal defences
360° Images
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Free resources like these are only available due to the support of Internet Geography Plus subscribers. We’d like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who supports Internet Geography Plus.
I’m interested in your views on an Internet Geography Plus resource idea I have to support weekly revision for your GCSE students. The proposal is that they are provided with an A4 double-sided page which provides a breakdown of each unit, outlining what they need to revise every week. Each weekly revision slot will have a QR code to a page on Internet Geography, which will then provide links to an online review quiz to check their understanding, then links to online information for them to read and produce revision materials (there will be guides on how to complete revision cards etc.).
The screenshot below (click to view) shows a basic draft overview of what the resource given to students could be like (the QR codes are mockups and don’t work! It also looks a bit unattractive at the moment, but you get the idea!).
The A4 sheet above will be editable so that you can customise your revision assignments. So, for example, once the bank of revision sheets is completed for your spec, you will be able to identify areas in a mock, for instance, that students didn’t do too well on and copy and paste from across the different units to provide a customised revision schedule.
I’ve created a draft version of a weekly revision page on Internet Geography for Week 1 of The Challenge of Natural Hazards weekly revision resource above. The page needs more work and titivating, but it might give you an idea. You can view it here.
Before investing more time into this, I would love to hear your thoughts (positive and constructive – but do let me know if it’s not for you or your students). Please take a minute to provide feedback.
https://www.internetgeography.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Weekly-Revision.png12521800Anthony Bennetthttps://www.internetgeography.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Internet-Geography-Logo.pngAnthony Bennett2022-09-10 20:09:432022-09-10 20:14:57Internet Geography Plus Weekly Revision Idea
Developing knowledge organisers for AQA GCSE geography units provided a stark reminder of the sheer number of geographical terms students need to understand to be successful in geography. As a result, I have included seventy-four key terms for the documents covering River Landscapes in the UK alone.
AQA has produced a document containing key terms and definitions for each GCSE geography unit. However, it falls short of including all the terms students need to know. When adding vocabulary to the knowledge organisers, it reminded me of the significant number of tier three literacy terms students need to be able to use. It also made me reflect on my time in the classroom and that, in all honesty, I didn’t do enough to teach these critical terms to my students explicitly. I think I probably got in the comfort zone where I assumed students would know and be able to use these terms.
“The use of language is an integral part of learning geography, and literacy skills are essential for geographical understanding. It is through language that students develop their ideas about geography and communicate them. “
Rather than consider literacy as a discrete element, literacy should be a foundation of geographical education, including the explicit instruction of tier three vocabulary.
“Literacy in secondary school must not simply be seen as a basket of general skills. Instead, it must be grounded in the specifics of each subject. Crucially, by attending to the literacy demands of their subjects, teachers increase their students’ chance of success in their subjects. Secondary school teachers should ask not what they can do for literacy, but what literacy can do for them.”
Many learners may struggle with tier 3 (subject-specific) vocabulary as it is often unfamiliar. A Year 8 student, for example, will rarely see ‘gross national product’ or ‘tributary’ in their wider reading.
Learners who can’t understand subject-specific terminology can’t access the taught content. Fortunately, content and vocabulary don’t have to be separate entities.
Approaches to the development of subject-specific language
Identify key terms – Before teaching a lesson or sequence of lessons, identify the geographical terms students need to be able to use fluently. Find out the words students already know and which you will focus on. To do this, you could provide them with a continuum, as shown below.
Present the terms in context – Give the class a passage of text containing the keywords used in context. Once they see the big picture, you can start exploring their meanings.
Word morphology – Breaking words into prefixes, suffixes, and roots is an effective way to help students link with familiar language. So many terms that seem intimidating initially contain parts that students already know. For example, a biome is a large-scale ecosystem. Breaking this down and looking at the prefix ‘bio’ – life – will help them define the new word ‘biome’. Online tools such as Etymonline Online are useful for investigating etymology. Additionally, a Google search of a keyword followed by etymology provides a very useful overview through a branch diagram, as shown below.
Geography etymology branch diagram
Images and definitions – Ask the students to draw a simple image to summarise the word. They should then write a definition for each word. As they do this, check for understanding as you circulate. Address misconceptions with individuals and provide whole class feedback.
Images and definitions – A downloadable PPT of this is available to Internet Geography Plus subscribers.
Video – Videos are often shown in geography lessons to introduce new information. A problem with this is that students may be unfamiliar with the technical terms used in the video. Perhaps we should rethink how we use videos in the classroom by showing them after students have engaged with geographical terms (through the exercises above) so that they can process the information more effectively.
Low-stakes quiz – Regular quizzes are a great way to revisit the course content and beat the forgetting curve. Multiple-choice and short-answer questions are ideal for this.
Internet Geography Plus subscribers can access a significant bank of multiple-choice booklets, and Google/Microsoft forms multiple-choice quizzes.
Odd-one-out – Odd one out activities encourage the retrieval of prior knowledge, promote critical thinking and provide opportunities to practice geographical vocabulary. Provide students with a collection of words (3-4) where the majority are connected. Students then identify the word that is the odd one and explain the reason. Odd one-out activities encourage students to think about characteristics and processes. To complete the task successfully, students must know the vocabulary’s meaning, enabling them to identify similarities and differences. These skills have a positive impact on the geographical communication not only of individual students but of the class as a whole.
Odd one out
Internet Geography Plus subscribers have access to a collection of odd one-out activities.
Keyword dominoes – There are various ways students can use dominoes to build an understanding of key terms. The keywords could be added to dominoes that students match up at the most basic level. The next level would be to add a definition to one side of the domino with a key term on the other. Finally, students could match key terms that link, so long as they can explain the connection, e.g. vertical erosion will match abrasion as abrasion leads to vertical erosion in the upper stages of a river.
Vocabulary groups – Grouping geographical terms can help students build reference points in their new vocabulary. In the case below, three processes of erosion that lead to lateral and vertical erosion are grouped together. A blank version of the diagram below could be given to students to populate with key terms until they become confident in using vocabulary groups. Students could develop their own vocabulary groups when they become more familiar with the studied terms.
Vocabulary groups
Flashcards – Flashcards are a common revision tool used by students and are one of the most effective ways for motivated learners to study and retain information. Students should be encouraged to create keyword flashcards throughout the course. Why not share our guide to creating flashcards? Alternatively, we’re building a bank of revision flashcards that can be accessed in our interactive revision area.
Fraya Model – The Freya model is a graphic organiser that provides a simple but effective framework to help students to organise their understanding of a new geographical term.
The Freya Model in geography.
A template for the Freya Model is available in an editable PPT format to Internet Geography Plus subscribers.
Students must regularly revisit these key terms to be committed to their long-term memory. Therefore retrieval practice activities will be essential over the long term.
If you’ve successfully used a strategy to support teaching geographical vocabulary, please join the discussion and let us know below!
We’re excited to announce that we’ll soon be launching Internet Geography Primary Plus. As you might have guessed, we’re extending our Plus family to include resources specifically developed for the primary school curriculum. Our team of writers are currently developing editable resources for use in your classroom!
We want to make sure Internet Geography Primary Plus works for you! So, we’d love to hear your views about the types of resources you’d like to see made available on Internet Geography Primary Plus. As a thank you for taking the time to share your views, we’ll make sure you’re the first to know about the launch of Internet Geography Primary Plus and will throw in a discount on your first annual subscription!
https://www.internetgeography.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Ice-Core-Lesson-by-Ewan-Vernon.png11861140Anthony Bennetthttps://www.internetgeography.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Internet-Geography-Logo.pngAnthony Bennett2022-07-18 22:10:212022-07-18 22:10:21Ice Core Lesson by Ewan Vernon
This year we’re teaming up with schools across the UK to run the Geography Summer Challenge. The challenge aims to encourage young people (11-16) to engage in activities relating to geography over the 2022 summer holidays.
We’re encouraging schools like yours to run the competition across key stages 3 and 4. The competition involves students selecting ten activities from our menu of challenges and collecting evidence of completing each as they go along. Students then submit their entries to their school, where the best three are selected. Prizes could be awarded for first, second and third places. Each school is then invited to enter their best submission to the Internet Geography National Geography Summer Challenge. Internet Geography will choose the top three, and the winners will each receive a £30 Love to Shop voucher (you can read our terms and conditions here).
Students should be provided with a planning sheet which links to the student guide and menu. Once they have identified the challenges, they would like to complete, they then complete them. As they do this, they should gather evidence of completing each challenge. How students collate, this information is entirely up to you. For example, they could add their evidence to a single document, e.g. using Word/Google Docs etc., upload it to a folder on Google Drive, Microsoft Drive or a file sharing service such as DropBox or submit paper-based evidence. You know what will work best for your students.
Once you’ve judged your entries, send us your best Geography Summer Challenge entry by 29th September 2022. To enter the competition, you can either email the project to [email protected] or save the project to an online drive (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive etc.) and send the link to [email protected] via an official teacher email account. The winner will be notified after 5th October 2022 via the email provided during submission.
We’d like to express a huge thank you to everyone who has suggested a Geography Summer Challenge idea. If you’ve got one to share, do let us know via the comments below or by emailing [email protected].
A special thanks to all our Internet Geography Plus subscribers who make projects like this possible! Not got a subscription? Go on, treat yourself and help us grow Internet Geography together. Sign up here.
The census happens every 10 years and gives us a picture of all the people and households in England and Wales.
On Sunday 21st March 2021 every household was required to complete the census, a detailed questionnaire asking a host of questions about those who live there. The Census questions ask for details on people’s sex, age, ethnicity and the status of their health, education and occupation.
The huge survey has been taking place every 10 years since 1801 (except in 1941), with the last one being in 2011.
The Census is run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in England and Wales and by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. Scotland’s Census was delayed until March 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Covid outbreak also means the Census in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was the first to be primarily completed online.
Census 2021 first results
The first results were published on Tuesday 28 June 2022. These are estimates of the number of people and households in England and Wales. They show the number of people by sex and age at the local authority level, rounded to the nearest 100.
On Census Day, the size of the usual resident population in England and Wales was 59,597,300.
The population of England was 56,489,800
The population of Wales was 3,107,500.
This was the largest the population has ever been.
Key findings of the first results
The population of England and Wales grew by more than 3.5 million (6.3%) since the last census in 2011, when it was 56,075,912.
The population grew in each of the nine regions of England and also grew in Wales; the region with the highest population growth was the East of England, which increased by 8.3% from 2011 (a gain of approximately 488,000 residents).
There were 30,420,100 women (51.0% of the overall population) and 29,177,200 men (49.0%) in England and Wales.
There were more people than ever before in the older age groups; the proportion of the population who were aged 65 years and over was 18.6% (16.4% in 2011).
There were 24,782,800 households in England and Wales on Census Day; the number of households increased by more than 1.4 million since 2011 (6.1%), when there were 23,366,044 households.
Population change between 2011 and 2021, local authorities in England and Wales
At least 1,036 people have died, and another 2,949 were injured in an earthquake that struck Afghanistan’s Paktika province on the morning of Wednesday 22nd June 2022. The earthquake struck about 44km (27 miles) from the south-eastern city of Khost shortly after 01:30 local time (21:00 Tuesday GMT), when many people were asleep at home.
Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan’s mountainous province of Khost — nearly 50 have been recorded over the past five years, according to the US Geological Survey.
Afghanistan is earthquake-prone because it is located on the Alpide belt, the second most seismically active region in the world after the Pacific Ring of Fire.
The Alpide Belt
The Alpide belt runs about 15,000 kilometres, from the southern part of Eurasia through the Himalayas and into the Atlantic. Along with the Hindu Kush, it includes a number of fold mountain ranges, such as the Alps, Atlas Mountains and the Caucasus Mountains. It has been formed by the collision of a number of tectonic plates.
The Arabian, Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet In Afghanistan and create earthquakes when they shift against each other at their borders. The boundary between the Indian and Eurasian plates exists near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.
The earthquake in Afghanistan formed when the Indian plate crashed violently with the Eurasian plate. Collisions like this shake and squeeze the ground upwards. Along with causing earthquakes, this movement creates mountains like the Himalayas or the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountain ranges in northeast Afghanistan.
What were the effects of the Afghanistan earthquake?
The most recent figures put the death toll at 1,150 people with at least 1,600 injuries. The number of dead and injured is expected to rise as remote areas are reached and rescue workers are able to search collapsed buildings.
The earthquake destroyed critical infrastructure — including homes, health facilities, schools and water networks.
In the areas that have been accessed so far, as many as 1,900 homes have been destroyed including 1,028 in Giyan, 450 in Barmal and 416 in Spera. Many homes had large families of seven or more people, so the number of people affected is significant. This is well over half of Giyan’s housing stock.
As many as 10,000 more homes have been damaged extensively and risk imminent collapse. Many of the homes were comprised of mud bricks, making them very susceptible to damage and destruction. Ongoing assessments of the conditions of the housing are continuing.
At least 65 children have been orphaned or are unaccompanied in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Of the deaths, at least 155 were children, including 134 in the Giyan district, and 250 were injured. Seven schools in Khost and Paktika provinces were damaged by the earthquake (5,135 students) with additional damage reported in Gani Khil and Dor Baba districts.
The risk of communicable diseases, such as acute watery diarrhoea (AWD)/cholera, and malaria increased due to the fragile living conditions in the affected communities and high temperatures in summer. There was an upward trend of AWD cases following the earthquake (Between 3 to 10 July, a total of 464 AWD cases were reported).
What were the responses to the Afghanistan earthquake?
Since the take over of government by the Taliban in 2021, Afghanistan has experienced a humanitarian crisis, especially since many countries cut diplomatic ties with the country. The new regime has struggled to get to grips with food shortages and a flailing economy. More than a third of people cannot meet their basic needs, women’s rights have been restricted and foreign aid has evaporated.
Dr Orzala Nemat, an Afghan researcher and human rights activist based in the UK, fears that the response could quickly become chaotic without “systematic governance” structures in place since the Taliban takeover.
In a rare move, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzadah, who almost never appears in public, pleaded with the international community and humanitarian organisations “to help the Afghan people affected by this great tragedy and to spare no effort”.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers pledged not to interfere with international efforts to distribute aid to tens of thousands of people affected by the earthquake.
Humanitarian aid has continued, with international agencies, such as the United Nations, operating.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said Afghanistan had asked humanitarian agencies to help with rescue efforts, and teams were being sent to the quake-hit area.
Afghanistan military provided support in search and rescue operations.
International Aid
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates all offered to send aid. Supplies from neighbouring Pakistan crossed the border.
On July 12, the Government of Japan decided to extend Emergency Grant Aid of 3 million US dollars to Afghanistan in response to the damages caused by the earthquake that had occurred in eastern Afghanistan on June 22. The Government of Japan offered to provide assistance in areas such as health and medical care, shelter, and water and sanitation through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to the Afghan people affected by the devastating earthquake.
Non-Government Organisations (NGOs)
The World Health Organisation’s polio team was on the ground joining forces with UN agencies and NGOs to ensure an effective and coordinated relief effort. The team’s invaluable experience and local knowledge gained from more than 2 decades working among local communities in both Paktika and Khost provided the foundations of an assessment tool to map communities (the Open Street Map Humanitarian team issued a request from arm-chair mappers to use satellite images to create and update maps in the area) and assess the number and extent of casualties as well as the destruction to homes and buildings. This ensured accurate data guided a focused response in the immediate aftermath, including the rapid construction of tents for shelter, as well as housing ad hoc health camps.
Polio teams turned a helping hand wherever needed including digging for survivors, building tents, unpacking trucks and distributing shipments of WHO emergency and surgical kits, medical supplies and equipment, and the heartbreaking task of preparing and assisting in transporting the dead for burial.
A new EU Humanitarian Air Bridge flight delivered 36 tonnes of life-saving cargo consisting of medical equipment, medication, and relief items to support WHO, UNICEF and Médecins Sans Frontières delivering earthquake response and other humanitarian needs in Afghanistan.
Below is the start of a collection of resources to support educating students about the earthquake in Afghanistan. Please let us know about other resources in the comments below.
Afghanistan Earthquake Relief
While many relief agencies are currently not providing support to Afghanistan there are a number of organisations providing support. These include:
If you are aware of other aid agencies providing support or are able to provide a link for donations to aid agencies please send us an email.
Support
Teachers
Below we have included links to websites that provide support in teaching events such as this in a considered way, after all, there are a number of children from Afghanistan being educated in schools outside of the country and may be in one of your classes.
Check learner understanding of the velocity of a river where there are meanders with this simple activity. Great for discussions and application of geographical understanding of river processes.
Click the image below to download the PowerPoint slide.
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