Another growth area for Geography. The European Union is set to become an increasing part of all of our lives with further unification and standardisation: the Euro etc. It has also seen a lot of changes in name. The original EFTA became the EEC, then the EU, and I saw the other day the EEA (European Economic Area) which includes three other non-EU members. There has been a lot of recent talk on a referendum on joining the Euro currency system (the Eurozone) There was also the grouping called BENELUX which was in existence before the EU.
From 01/01/2007 - welcome to Bulgaria and Romania, which takes us up to 27 member countries.
Talks also under way to pave the way for TURKEY and others who are currently taking the 'tests'...
Order your FREE EU MAPS from http://www.europe.org.uk/maps/ - March 2007 - got an e-mail to say that they're on the way, but need to be updated to take account of the 2 new members...
Maps arrived - excellent and free !
Think you know the GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE ? Try GEOSENSE (World version also available)
There are several sites featuring useful FRENCH GEOGRAPHY .
We also had some materials from the GEOG.1 CD ROM. These included blank EU OUTLINE MAPS.
For cities it has to be PARIS : go to the site for lots of information and pictures to use. Within the city, you could visit the EIFFEL TOWER.
For more detail, go to the Merriam Webster site for a more detailed MAP (link from ABOUT.COM page) - gives details on why there are the 3 colours in the French flag, and other French facts. One of the homeworks I give groups is to come up with Five Fascinating French Facts. The ones they tend to come up with are distinctly underwhelming however...
LONELY PLANET has a nice introduction to the country. Basic information available via NATION BY NATION. Since the Greenwich Meridian runs through France, it's also covered on the ON THE LINE site.
Take your groups into the computer room and direct them to MAPGAMES page here. Go to the EU Locational Knowledge Quiz, and try it out. A little temperamental, but give them an atlas to help them and it will help with locating key European locations: mixture of cities and other features.
Log on the EU Information website and you can send off for lots of freebies. I ordered large volumes of free resources which can be used for Year 7 and 8 groups, and can either be reused or given away as freebies to the students. My Year 8 top set were very enthusiastic about the stickers and free EU maps I gave out recently. You can't beat a few stickers for motivation.
For all the statistics on FRANCE that you could want, and then some, go to the INSEE page in France.
For French holiday destinations, try SELECT FRANCE or BRITTANY FERRIES or the FRENCH TRAVEL SERVICE.
France is often called 'le hexagon': it can be drawn roughly as a hexagon, and then the coastline can be drawn in.
There is an overlap here with tourism in the ALPS which is covered in the Key Geography Interactions textbook. Go to the ALPS page for more details on this issue. The Alps are an area under severe pressure (but isn't everywhere these days...)
A quick search using GOOGLE Image search will throw up endless photos. Go HERE for one of the sites I came across in this way. There are also the various photo gallery sites: a useful search is to put a place name and then "photo gallery" after it.
The world's greatest sporting event takes place in France each year: THE TOUR DE FRANCE.
A CHAMONIX page.
Assuming we are still going to be doing BRITTANY as our scheme of work, we are going to be able to use a fab ONLINE GIS style website based on FLASH. This focuses on FRANCE, and allows you to focus on an area, such as BRITTANY, and then to look at POPULATION DENSITY. You can change the scale and the image changes immediately so that you can see the effect of RELIEF and the importance of the CITIES around the COAST as being the centres of population. The site is called GEO CLIP and I recommend that you check it out.
ITALY
Start off with the INTERNET ITALIAN GUIDE. This is designed for hotel bookings, but is fairly useful.
As a book, we use the Key Geography 'Basics' or 'Connections' for further information. The teachers' copy-masters are good for this. They are published by NELSON THORNES, and have a website to support them. The 'Places' book in the same series also features Italy.
Channel 4 offer their ITALIA site. This allows for the comparison of the UK with Italy, and links to a TV series which we have in our department, but may not necessarily be available in yours. There are large numbers of resources available as downloads, and the address has changed recently so you may be redirected.
The programmes are as follows: links to the pages then allow you to download fairly large (around 1Mb or larger) Shockwave activities. Allow plenty of time for downloading: this needs preparing before the lesson, and you may find it difficult to use with a large group without a few technical 'issues'.
Programme 1 : The Deep South: this looks at closing the gap between the North and South of the country, and has activities relating to the Fiat car company.
Programme 2 : The Third Italy : people have generally heard of the Industrial triangle, and the Mezzogiorno, but not N. Central Italy: the area around Bologna. Also looks at migration from the former Yugoslavia.
Programme 3 : Alps under stress : looks at the impact of tourism in the Alps, in the area around Livigno
May 2005
I have produced a sheet to help students access the information contained in this video. The area of Livigno has undergone tremendous change within the lifetime of the people featured in the video. Download the sheet HERE.
http://web.channel4.com/learning/main/netnotes//programid1458.htm - has some programme notes. This will also allow access to the other programmes.
Programme 4 : Land: EU and Global influences on the Italian farmer: Sicily
Programme 5 : Newcomers to the City : Drastic change in the city of Genoa - "my aunty came from a sea port in Northern Italy" - "Genoa ?" - "of course I do, she's my aunt!" (the old ones are the best....)
One of the areas where Italy is important to study is the area of TECTONIC activity.
