Skip to main content

Urban Earth Day - Hour 1

Urban Earth Day 1 from David Rogers on Vimeo.



Enjoying the half term rain at the moment and just about to head out to prepare my bike for the South Downs Way. Getting distracted at the moment by the Discovery Channel.

Sunday saw the first of 24 hour long walks. Part of an Urban earth project. The walks will build up into a picture of urban areas. As I had been invited to a BBQ at the potential-in-laws we decided to walk from the flat. A few things stuck me during the walk:
  • How easy it was to get into a really rural feeling area dispite being surrounded by suburbia. There was a real urban adventure feel to some areas
  • How British people love stripping off at the first sign of sun! I wonder if the pilgrimage to the seafront reflects the lack of space in our urban areas?
  • How very very quiet suburbia is. Sunday afternoon, lots of BBQ smells but the only real sounds being birdsong and bees. Away from the seafront we saw no one!
A very cool den, lots of improvised bike jumps and dens in this area. The path followed the edge of a housing development.

As we walked I used my iPhone to contribute to the #ueday tag. It as interesting to read and respond to other peoples Tweets. I think that this could be turned into a useful Doorstep Geography style activity.

iPhone used to interact and record the walk

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

High Impact, Low effort

This month is the start of the #29daysofwriting challenge.  I enjoyed this last year and will be using my Staffrm account to post.  I'll also be reporting here, both to give a little more detail and to keep a log of what I have written. The challenge developed a great sense of community last year, which is why I'm choosing to write on Staffrm. What I would say to those who are new to writing or don't want to run out of ideas is: Write for yourself. Clarify an idea, write something out loud. The process of distilling thoughts into writing is immensely beneficial to your practice. If other read, comment and respond, that's a bonus. Ignore the muppets who know nothing of your context, style or students. Mix it up - I like to read about real stuff from real classrooms and schools and also about other stuff.  If we always write about school, how does that work for workload? If you've nothing nice to say, don't say it. So, the following has been ...

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey.  As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others.  Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up.  I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions.  From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment.  From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die.  How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach?  Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment i...

Banned Word Board

Today I want to share some simple ideas that I have found to be very effective in the classroom. I can't say that they are my own original ideas, although I have played around with them. The first is the Banned word Board. This is a simple display in the classroom that lists a number of words that are not allowed to be used by pupils in their written or oral answers. The effect has been an increase in the quality of written work, and I have almost made comments such as 'Sir it's simple, the stuff just affects the thing and causes people problems'. Pupils are now more able to use specific language, something that is vital especially at GCSE. I have had to make a few modifications, such as the introduction of 'Heavenly Words' This is an additional display placed on the ceiling. I found this necessary as pupils needed some stimulus in finding replacement words. After advice received after posting the idea on the SLN forum , I have also introduced semi-banned words...