Creative Ideas for Geography Teachers

There is an overlap between this page and some of the information on the NEW KEY STAGE 3 page. What I hope to put here are some good ideas for Creativity which I come across, or develop myself. These could take the form of Starters, Main Course or Plenaries.

This will also continue through 2006 as a new Key Stage 3 course takes shape for my current school.

A posting on the SLN Geography Forum by Noel Jenkins suggested showing clips of 'The Italian Job' when studying Turin / North Italy and pausing it to let students describe the landscapes they were seeing. Check out the FORUM for more good ideas, and suggestions for GEO Films. Can you think of any other good films to use in the classroom ?

An idea of mine. Hand out a square of stiff paper, and take the students through the Origami folds to make a Salt cellar / colour changer. This is one of those things where you insert 3 fingers and a thumb and move the segments several ways, and then open out the central part to reveal a hidden colour or answer. When I was at school, you tended to write an insult on the inside, and then another person had to pick a number. You moved the salt cellar / colour changer and whichever one you stopped on, you then revealed that they were a 'smelly pig' or something similar.

Instead of insults. Students could be asked to prepare 8 questions and answers, and then select from these which ones to write on the inside of the colour changer. They could then test their neighbour, and the questions could then be collated.

I have an ancient Origami paperback by Robert Harbin, price 30p... the instructions for the Salt Cellar / Colour changer start on p.24 - I am aware of several Origami sites on the Internet which may also provide the instructions.

'The Independent' has a creativity column where people are invited to be creative... a recent column asked people to think of some creative ideas around mapping. They wanted to get maps away from what they called the 'Mappa mundane", and to try to think of things which perhaps should be shown rather than things like churches and post offices. They should tell us what we 'really want to know'. Also worth checking out Will Self's PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY column.

There were lots of interesting ideas of things which could have been added to maps. Some of them are listed below. Students could think of things that are relevant to them:

Most of your pupils will have mobiles and will text each other - in fact they may be doing it while you're teaching them... There is a whole set of shorthand codes which you'll have come across e.g. C U L8R etc. - why not set your groups the task of a text message homework.

Set a limit of 200 characters perhaps. I have a mobile phone outline which is good to use too. This could be a customised clip art.

Get the students involved in the powerpoint by using sound, or expecting some sort of 'audience participation'.

GOING GOING GONE relates to the artwork on the Suffolk coast at Bawdsey which was present from February to September 2005

You can buy a board game called 'Make your own opoly', which includes a board game and stickers which you customise to suit your own area or family. There is also a website where you can enter your choices. Which other games lend themselves to the Geography treatment ?

Speaking of Geography games, has anyone else ever heard of 'THE WORLD ACCORDING TO UBI'. I think I may be the only person I know who has even heard of this game, let alone own a copy. The game is fab, but it relies on people having fairly detailed geographical knowledge of the location of places, and without that it gets rather frustrating. I shall add some more on this when I get the chance.

7. CREATIVE TEACHERS
It's obvious to me, but teachers are far more creative than publishers, remarkable given the time pressure of being a teacher, let alone a HoD, and amongst the most creative that I know are:

TONY CASSIDY

My 'Guru' on creativity, particularly in the creation of WMV starters and quirky creativity.

There are plenty of links to Tony's work from this site.

NOEL JENKINS

Has now added an excellent LONDON FIELDTRIP with Google Earth and other links at : http://bluweb.com/us/chouser/gmapez/start.html and has continued to find interesting uses for technology in Geography.

ADAM LAWSON

He has started up the wonderful GEOGRAPHY AT THE MOVIES blog, which offers great video starters.

VAL VANNET

Although she doesn't have a website, Val has created a lot of materials which I have referred to over the last 3 years. The quality is always high, and via the SLN forum Val has given a lot of creative ideas. I still plan to develop the Dartmoor prison idea for teaching about Granite... Watch this space...

TOM BIEBRACH

Some great ideas contributed - a newcomer to the GA Secondary Committee: the master of Chroma Key. Check out some of his movie ideas at PENCOED GEOGRAPHY.

DAN RAVEN ELLISON

Creative consultant, creator of Virtual Transects and the instigator of the HAPPINESS PROJECT.

Check out the website of his new school, and splash £5 on a DVD of London with VIRTUAL TRANSECTS.

FLICKRTOOLS are found at Flagrant Disregard. A new tool is the Hockneyizer, which makes a Hockney collage style image from your photo.

Chris Durbin produced a large A1 poster which was distributed with the July 2003 issue of 'Teaching Geography' - this offers 7 by 7 ways to be creative with Geography. This is also available to buy from the GA Shop.

Chris Kington held a rather good conference in Cambridge in late 2005, and among the speakers was Keith Grimwade. One of the presentations, which can be downloaded from the GA website had lots of great ideas on Creativity, which I have used in the last few months.

Check out Noel Jenkins' work on San Francisco and Montserrat for use with GOOGLE EARTH.

A few postings on SLN reveal that Gavin of GeoExplorer fame is back with a new website/blog type e-learning thing called TWICT - Teaching with ICT. More on this to come....

Many thanks to Tony Cassidy for making me aware of this talk by Sir Ken Robinson. Excellent on Creativity and Education

Go to the BINGO page for the FLASH game, which was produced by a talented person at SANDFIELDS school. There are also more FLASH games which could be adapted for your use at the general page