"CHINA IN YOUR HAND..."

A TASTE OF CHINA for KS3 GROUPS (designed to take around 1 hour and give a taster of the country...)

Also updated into 2008 for new SoW

CONTENT  (subject to change and additions...)

I put  some posters up in the department a couple of weeks in advance to build up anticipation.. Some bold images of China, with the text " Coming soon to a lesson near you....."

Will add some more and give more detail. Thanks to all colleagues in the department for being so enthusiastic about the whole idea, particularly Mrs. Clarke.

CHOOSE FROM THESE OPTIONS

I have done duplicates of CHINA MAP, and also an extract from John Widdowson's excellent EARTHWORKS PLUS resource: Teacher Guide.

1. PhotoJam - China images and music (already well underway) - will be hosted on NETWORK...

PHOTOJAM is a piece of software which can be downloaded from MACROMEDIA.

Images: supplied by David Rayner and Alex Murchie, or sourced from various PHOTO GALLERIES, such as GEOGRAPHY PHOTOS and FLICKR groups.

Music:

• Trisan (Guo Yue) : May Yo I, Wintermoon, Mother and Son, Tri le Cheile
• Simon Jeffes, Cheng Yu and Zhou Yu: Chinese Canon

All REAL WORLD recordings.

2. China Map - Outline map and marking on key Geography features - small INSET map to show comparison of scale with UK - get various other maps if you prefer by doing a search...

Use GOOGLE EARTH and also the worldmaps and country outline on the SMART BOARD software to prepare a map which indicates some key Geographical locations in China.

Suggested labels for the map:

CHONGQING

BEIJING

SHANGHAI

HONG KONG

TIEN SHAN

WUHAN

Physical features: Rivers, Desert areas, Sea Areas

Click to enlarge...

3. Population - again some comparison - possibly using Gapminder to zoom in on population ideas, and identify just CHINA and the UK. Follow the growth of China's population and how it scores on other indicators.

Could prepare a datafile of key indicators, with the values for the UK and China..

Could also use NATIONMASTER to see where China ranks on a series of indicators.

Picture from Daily Mail, from an article which has the title "Noodle Junction" (instead of Spaghetti junction - get it !) - imagine some of the other problems with having a population of well over 1 billion people. Despite this view, bicycles are still very popular. There are a lot of them in Beijing apparently...

4. City growth - the visitors are from Chongqing, which I believe is possibly THE fastest growing city in the world...

Think about the problems that would face King's Lynn if the population doubled within a couple of years. What resources would start to become in short supply ??

Also have use of a new resource presented to us by our visitors: a DVD with aerial views of NEW CHONGQING. The central part of the city with the skyscrapers has apparently all been constructed within the last 10 years to replace an area of old housing.

5. Possible use of this article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1985929,00.html - Chelsea trying to crack Chinese market and look at basketball player Yao Ming... Globalisation of sport

6. Great Wall of China - tourists are doing what the Mongol hordes never did...

Great Wall of China is being affected by tourism. See some of the pictures in the PhotoJam.

7. Geographical divide based on climate ? - possibly look at comparing the North with the South, and show the huge comparisons to be made within the country...

e.g. impact on diet: rice or noodles

8. Manufacturing - Toy Story - some of Michael Wolf's photos...
Want to avoid stereotypes, but at the same time giving them something memorable and valuable.

9. FORMAL AND INFORMAL SECTOR EMPLOYMENT

This will fit in nicely with the work that Year 7's have been doing

I have a PHOTOJAM which is made up of pictures sent by Alex Murchie at Harrow School in Beijing (for which, many thanks !) which looks at some of the informal sector jobs.

Have also put up a new CHINA GALLERY with pictures of street traders and various repairmen.

He also has some pictures shortly of the new OLYMPICS STADIUM.

10. Thanks to Daniel Letouzey, French GeographyPages correspondent for these links...

IGCS, a good portal on China: http://www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/

Some other websites : http://clioweb.free.fr/dossiers/chine.htm

The Three Gorges Dam : http://clioweb.free.fr/dossiers/3gorges.htm

Simpsons in China ?

May also bring in the film "GHOSTS" - new Nick Broomfield film

Don't forget that there is also a sizeable Chinese community in King's Lynn

11. CHINA HALF A MIN

Not the most rigorous of resources, but a HALF A MIN plenary which Mrs. Clarke and I produced. This was the most enjoyed part of the whole lesson.

12. BEIJING OLYMPICS

I have a webpage about BEIJING 2008

Picture taken by Alex Murchie less than a mile from the Olympics stadium - that road is the THIRD ring road...

12. DONGTAN

Sustainable City being built in China - here are the details from a forthcoming lecture at the LSE:

Work has begun on the creation of Dongtan the world’s first purpose built eco city . It is being built on an island near Shanghai and when completed will be home to half a milllion people on an area about three quarters the size of Manhattan.

Dongtan is being designed to be both truly sustainable and beautiful, giving its residents close contact with green open space, lakes and canals.The need for car use will be reduced with safe walk and cycle ways as well as plenty of public transport The aim is to ensure that no resident is more than 7 minutes walk from public transport. All buildings will be powered by renewable energy and most of the city’s waste output will be recycled and composted. The bulk of the organic waste will be returned to the local farmland to assure its long term fertility and its capacity to provide much of the city’s food.

To find out more about how Dongtan is being created on an island in the previously heavily polluted Yangtse river come to listen to one of the senior consultants to the Dongtan project - Professor Herbie Girardet -who will be speaking at the London School of Economics on Wednesday February 21st at 6.30pm. Admission to this event which will be in the Old Theatre in the main LSE building on Houghton Street (just off Aldwych) is free.

Dongtan has been commissioned by the Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation and it is planned that the first stage of the city - to house 25,000 people- will be completed by 2010. It is hoped that if successful Dongtan could be a model for sustainable urban design not only for China but also for the rest of the world.

13. SPEAK SOME CHINESE IN YOUR LESSON

Thanks to Alex Murchie for this WORD DOCUMENT with some basic Chinese phrases for use in the classroom - complete with intonation notes, which are very important !

FREE CHINA CD in The Times on 10th of February 2007

Number 1-4 indicate tones in pinyin. If there is no number after a pinyin, no tones are required. 1= keep on the same high pitch     ,2= rising pitch      , 3= falling then rising tone , 4=falling tone

This is apparently fairly accurate if you follow the instructions.

Thanks to colleague of Alex Murchie for details.

WEBLINKS

http://www.geographyinthenews.rgs.org/news/article/?id=310

China Booming Giant from RGS-IBG Geography in the News site 

http://www.nytimes.com/specials/chinarises/intro/index.html

Excellent interactive atlas 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4722587.stm - Looking for China Girl (plus transcript for download) 

http://www.sln.org.uk/geography/population_and_migration.htm - China resources on SLN 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1832109,00.html – article and discussion on urban growth in China 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2006/emerging_giants/default.stm

- BBC Special Report

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_China

 Acknowledgements

• Thanks to Flickr Users for images for "in house" Photo Jams
• Thanks to GeoDave for some great images from his recent trip to China (Summer 2007)
• Thanks to Karen Mulvey for the links
• Thanks to Alex Murchie in Beijing for the images of Chinese life.

Gavin Locke has produced some CHENGDU MYSTERY materials which can be found on SLN...

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