RESOURCES FOR TEACHING THIS POPULAR TOPIC IN GEOGRAPHY LESSONS
They think it's all over.... It is now !
Coming up next....
http://home.skysports.com/worldcup/articlefp.asp?hlid=386697&chan1nel=worldcup2006&
- a useful quiz - quite hard too... What's your best time ? Nice to see Sky using the word GEOGRAPHY !
http://skysportsgame.skive.co.uk/ - FLASH football game...
The OFFICIAL FIFA WORLD CUP SITE is a good place to start your investigations.
Geography Factoid...
Kobe bounced back from the earthquake of 1995 to become a host city, although there are still areas where the damage from the quake could be seen until very recently. The World Cup 2002 was part of the recuperation of the city.
I suggest that all school Geography departments make a big thing of producing at least a wall display about the World Cup. We will also be running a competition around the locations of the various groups of nations. There is a corridor display and wall charts from the newspapers.
I'm sure a few suitable searches would bring up the details on the key players in each country. There will also be lots of free handouts available nearer the time with details on the venues and matches to be played in most newspapers.
You could see how multinational the team is in terms of where they were born. For example how French is the French team ?
Alternatively, set a mapping homework over half term, where the students are issued with a blank map and have to show the various teams in the groups in as imaginative a way as possible. Either way, if it gets them looking at the Atlas and seeing where countries are then that has to be a good thing.
Choose or allocate a group....
1. Which other teams are in the same group as the country you chose ? (Could give small groups a whole Group to research if you have groups which are nowhere near 32..)
2. Which continent is your team in ? (World outline maps could be made available, or the final reports could be placed around a large world map.)
3. Find an outline map of your country and mark on the following details:
a) names of all neighbouring countries: which of these are also competing in the World Cup 2006 ?
b) capital city, and any other particularly large cities
c) at least one major river and area of mountains, plus any other notable features
4. Produce an A3 sized illustrated poster of your chosen country. You could include the following details:
a) the country's flag
b) details on population, currency, political situation, 'famous people' from that country, notable events in recent history
c) choose one particular region within the country to talk about, or one notable import / export or custom / event associated with that particular country
e.g. if Spain was chosen, you could describe the Pyrenees mountains, and write about the 'sport' of bullfighting, you could include details on the recent arguments about the handing back of Gibraltar, or include a brief city guide to Barcelona.
Ideas to investigate included:
Country Studies
Perceptions of the countries
Environmental Impacts
The venues: cities / regions
Economic benefits: Impacts / sponsorship
Globalisation: NIKE etc.
Impacts of building new infrastructure - available space ?
Climate
How to get there - routes to Germany / stadium
Time zones / Latitude and Longitude
GDP / Population linked to success in the competition
GOOGLE EARTH tours of the stadia and other key German locations
Nigel Warren, Head of Geography from Coleshill School, Warwickshire has been quick off the mark, and has posted some excellent resources at the SLN site: http://www.sln.org.uk/geography/Sporting%20fever.htm to download them...
Many thanks to Clare Seccombe from Sunderland for sending me a link to a whole range of resources produced by teachers from the NE relating to the World Cup - I recommend you check these out... (also some excellent MFL stuff)
http://www.sunderlandschools.org/international/resources-worldcup.htm
SLN FORUM RESOURCES
SLN Forum member Benchmarrow suggested in February 2006 that a collaborative effort take place to produce some World Cup resources. These will start to appear below.
Paul Williams has sent a WORLD CUP ODD ONE OUT to try out for size..
Thanks to David Rayner for hosting some of Simon Turton from SLN's excellent resources. Get hold of these if you can - they will save you a LOT of time... I have used these in Year 7, 8 and 9 lessons this year.
Hosted at GEOINTERACTIVE's SLN page: http://www.geointeractive.co.uk/slnresources.htm - thanks to David
Some good ideas in 'The Guardian' on 9th May 2006. Top Trumps anyone ?
I have made some of these with students and some scans will appear here shortly - at the moment they're all forming a wall display, but they look rather nice when laminated.
Also remember WHO SHOULD I CHEER FOR ??
This gives a summary of various development indicators....