David Rogers

The image above was taken by a rather cool laser scanner just after the final picnic lunch of The Goldsmiths’ Company Science for Society course put together by the lovely people at Southampton University's Geography Department .   The course is supported by Ordnance Survey and The Goldsmiths’ Company, one of the ‘old school’ livery companies within the City of London. Rather than give you a full rundown of the content, you can head over to the Earth Surface Dynamics Blog here for a list of resources and links.  I wonder how many geography departments could rebrand some of their Geography as ‘Earth Surface Dynamics’…..? The week long course was an excellent opportunity given to me as a result of this .  First, the week long course is well worth the effort, although those that are rather ‘out of touch’ with current developments in geography would benefit more than those either new to the profession or fairly active geographers.  I went along to a simila...

Each year the Goldsmith's company pay for a number of Science for Society courses. This summer I was lucky enough to get a place on the Sustainable Development course held at Brunel University in Uxbridge. As I'm sat here trying to get ready for my Alpine trip on Saturday I thought I'd better get something down! Firstly, I was reassured to find that Secondary and University geography don't seem to be that far apart, at least when it comes to sustainability. I'm going to share what I thought were the interesting parts of the course in a little detail. I'm leaving out the lavish dinner at Goldsmith's Hall in London but needless to say that a good time was had by all! The week started by considering what we mean by sustainable development and whether it is actually possible. After the usual difficulty in defining what is meant by sustainable development the lecturer shared a great definition by the country of my birth Wales: 'We should treat the Earth as th...