GeogPod

Episode #43: David Alcock - ‘Hopeful geography‘

David Alcock, is a geography teacher, teaching and learning champion at Bradford Grammar school as well as a writer and presenter.

David joined John to discuss, among other things, his concept of 'Hopeful geography', which he has developed over a number years of work of and reflection.

Series 7 of GeogPod is kindly sponsored by Britannica. 

Take Britannica's LaunchPacks GCSE for a spin with history and geography lessons, built with Shireland Academy educators and mapped to UK curriculum needs. Within each KS3-4 topical pack, find a learning route, learning journey instructions, printable activities, and corresponding Britannica LaunchPacks articles and multimedia resources. 10% off for GeogPod listeners! 

 

Links from the pod

David's blog

'Optimism, progress and geography – celebration and calibration' - David' article for Teaching Geography

Gapminder

 

Episode #42: Caiti Walter - The building blocks of curriculum design

This week John sat down with Caiti Walter to discuss her route into geography teaching and to explore her views and strategies when it comes to designing a geography curriculum (plus much more). 

Series 7 of GeogPod is kindly sponsored by Britannica. 

Take Britannica's LaunchPacks GCSE for a spin with history and geography lessons, built with Shireland Academy educators and mapped to UK curriculum needs. Within each KS3-4 topical pack, find a learning route, learning journey instructions, printable activities, and corresponding Britannica LaunchPacks articles and multimedia resources. 10% off for GeogPod listeners! 

Links from the pod

Caiti's blog

Deep curriculum thinking - Part 1: building blocks

Map Chart

Ventusky

If It Were My Home

The Queen's Green Canopy

Episode #41: Dr Simon Carr - ”Our eyes are the most sophisticated piece of geographical equipment we have”

This week, John spoke to Dr Simon Carr. Simon is Associate Professor of Geography and the University of Cumbria, specialising in geomorphology and climate change.

Much ground was covered in the pod, including Simon's work in geomorphology, the Anthropocene, what constitutes a truly natural environment and the importance of getting out and seeing a landscape for yourself. 

Series 7 of GeogPod is kindly sponsored by Britannica. 

Take Britannica's LaunchPacks GCSE for a spin with history and geography lessons, built with Shireland Academy educators and mapped to UK curriculum needs. Within each KS3-4 topical pack, find a learning route, learning journey instructions, printable activities, and corresponding Britannica LaunchPacks articles and multimedia resources. 10% off for GeogPod listeners! 

Episode #40: Dr Amber Murrey - Geographies of race and racialisation and designing an anti-racist curriculum

This week John was joined by Dr Amber Murrey. Amber is an Associate Professor in Human Geography, Fellow and Tutor at Mansfield College, Oxford University. 

John and Amber touched on many issues in their chat, including confronting the silence on racism in school geography, what an anti-racist curriculum could look like, the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline and witchcraft!

Series 7 of GeogPod is kindly sponsored by Britannica. 

Take Britannica's LaunchPacks GCSE for a spin with history and geography lessons, built with Shireland Academy educators and mapped to UK curriculum needs. Within each KS3-4 topical pack, find a learning route, learning journey instructions, printable activities, and corresponding Britannica LaunchPacks articles and multimedia resources. 10% off for GeogPod listeners! 

Links from the pod

Amber's article in Geography with Steve Puttick

Amber's article with Nicholas Jackson on 'Localwashing'

Amber's Twitter

Episode #39: Professor Ben Hennig - Iceland, Worldmapper, Trump tweets & more

Ben Hennig is Professor of Geography at the University of Iceland, an honorary research associate at the University of Oxford and also the founder of Worldmapper.

Ben sat down with John to talk about his career to date, his work at the University of Iceland, the origins of the Worldmapper project, Trump tweets and much more. 

Series 7 of GeogPod is kindly sponsored by Britannica. 

Take Britannica's LaunchPacks GCSE for a spin with history and geography lessons, built with Shireland Academy educators and mapped to UK curriculum needs. Within each KS3-4 topical pack, find a learning route, learning journey instructions, printable activities, and corresponding Britannica LaunchPacks articles and multimedia resources. 10% off for GeogPod listeners! 

Links from the pod

Ben's website

Views of the World (blog)

Worldmapper Project

GeoVis Lab Iceland (research group)

Re-Enlightening Views of the World (4-minute ‘lightning talk’ about Ben's work)

Selected readings mentioned in the podcast

Overview of Ben's main academic publications on GoogleScholar

Sheffield – A Tale of Two Cities (by the Sheffield Sasi Research Group)

COVID-19’s Spread Across the World (access by request) 

In Focus: How Joe Biden Won the White House (access by request)

In Focus: Trump Tweets: Power and the Global Politics of Social Media (access by request)

In Focus: Nationality, Citizenship and Refugees: A Global Perspective (access by request)

Spatial and temporal inequalities in mortality in the USA, 1968–2016 (open access)

Monitoring fish spawning sites in freshwater ecosystems using low-cost UAV data: A case study of salmonids in lakes in Iceland (pre-print, open access) 

Episode #38: Jamie Woodward - Understanding climate change during the Quaternary and microplastic transport and storage in river catchments

This week John spoke to Professor Jamie Woodward from the University of Manchester about two key global issues; our developing understanding of climate change during the Quaternary and microplastic transport and storage in river catchments.

Both are major examples of how physical geography research has impacted on national and global policy. Jamie’s research on microplastics in rivers is now feeding directly into the Parliamentary Inquiry into Water Quality in Rivers.

Jamie Woodward is Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Manchester.  

Thanks to Collins for sponsoring series 6 of GeogPod.

Links from the pod

The Ice Age: A Very Short Introduction

Microplastics in Rivers

Jamie's Ted Talk, 'Changing Rivers'

Free resources

Quaternary ice age poster from Geography Review

 

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the Keeling Curve and the carbon cycle

 

Full text view-only version of the Nature Sustainability paper

 

This work was discussed on the BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science

 

Film clip here from the BBC News report

 

Guardian article

 

Policy at Manchester blog that explores some of the policy implications of this work

Episode #37: Stephen Scoffham - Quality geography, atlases, capital cities and making geography fun!

This week John spoke to Dr Stephen Scoffham, former GA President, Visiting Reader in Sustainability and Education at Canterbury Christ Church University and author of atlases, text books and much more besides. 

John and Stephen covered a lot of ground, including why geography matters, what makes good quality geography teaching, tackling controversial issues, capital cities, whether geography should be taught as a single subject or integrated, and the Collins Atlas series. 

Thanks to Collins for sponsoring series 6 of GeogPod.

Purchase the Collins Atlas series on the GA Shop.

Some of the recent GA publications Stephen has been involved in:

Leading Primary Geography

Geography Plus: The UK: Investigating who we are 

 

Episode #36: Rachel Kay - preparing for an Ofsted inspection and 'deep dive'

In this week's episode, John spoke to Rachel Kay about how to prepare your department for a deep dive visit from Ofsted.

Rachel is Head of Geography and Lead Practitioner at Yorkshire school as well as being a member of the GA's Secondary Phase Committee.

 

Rachel's articles in Teaching Geography:

'The deep dive geography experience: intent, implementation and impact' (2021)

'Mark my words' (2016)

 

Episode # 35: Professor Tamsin Mather - Volcanoes, a ’fundamental fascination’

This week John was joined by Professor Tamsin Mather from Oxford University. Tamsin is professor of Earth Sciences and her research centres around volcanoes and volcanic behaviour. 

Thanks to Collins for sponsoring series 6 of GeogPod.

Links from the pod

Public Lecture: Volcanoes and past climate: adventures with deep carbon

Blog about Masaya and volcanic gases

Volcano watching: weapons of ash eruption

University of Oxford Earth Sciences undergraduate course

The Geological Society university pathway page

Teaching resources Tamsin helped create:

Your science out there - Oxford Sparks

Using your science to understand volcanic eruptions - Oxford Sparks

Episode #34: Professor Johanna Waters & Dr Maggi Leung - Geographies of education

This week John was joined by Professor Johanna Waters from University College London and Dr Maggi Leung from Utrecht University to discuss examples of students travelling across borders for education.

The conversation focuses mainly on the China/Hong Kong border but also cited other examples of this phenomenon and various push and pull factors related to it.

Thanks to Collins for sponsoring series 6 of GeogPod.

Johanna and Maggi's Geography article with the photos mentioned in the pod