LinkingSustainability

and Geography

Angus WillsonPannage.com

National Sustainable Schools Conference

10 July 2013

Curriculum clamour

“And a bit more monitor, if you’ve got it.”“Can we have everything louder than everything else?”Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, Live in Japan,1972

School curriculum

“It is intended that the new curriculum will provide a benchmark for all schools including those that are not required by law to teach the national curriculum.” DfE (May 2013)

What is curriculum making? • the creative act of interpreting a curriculum specification or

scheme of work and turning it into a coherent, challenging, engaging and enjoyable scheme of work.

• a job that really never ends and lies at the heart of good teaching.

The ingredients of curriculum making Teachers make it happen in the classroom by drawing from their knowledge of:• teaching approaches and specific teaching techniques• students and how they learn• the subject - geography - and what it is for

Why think about significance?

Thinking about geographical significance may help as we choose what to include in our new curriculum - themes, case studies, place studies etc.

What makes something sufficiently significant for students to need and want to learn about it?

Why think about significance? 2

Is it… personal relevance, general interest, global relevance – who decides? How do we build on pupils’ experiences?

• Can you justify your choice of places, themes and issues?

• How do we explain to learners the importance of what we teach?

Effective?

Periodically evaluate and record the impact of your curriculum developments on learners by collecting clear evidence of the number of learners affected and the degree of difference seen in them.

Maintain, change or move on…

Task – choose a topic

What keywords might we associate with this topic?

What will your children already know about this topic?

What do your students want to learn about?

Documentation

Department handbook• KS curriculum plan < localisation• National Curriculum• Topic outline• Schemes of (SoW) < significance• Units• Lesson plans

The 5 minute Lesson PlanThe BIG picture?

Engagement?

Stickability!

Differentiation A f L

Learning

Episodes

Teacher Led or Student Led?

Teacher Led or Student Led?

Teacher Led or Student Led?

Teacher Led or Student Led?

R.McGill 2012 - @TeacherToolkit

Leve

l 4

Level 5

Level 6Level 3

Leve

l 7

Objectives

along the way….

….print and scribble your way to Outstanding!

Habitat, home and community

Everyone has to live somewhere. The youngest child has their own sense of ‘home’ and what it means to live with others. Older children become aware of the variety of housing and the equivalent ways animals and insects live together. They gain an understanding of interdependence and become young people making their own choices connected with how we live with each other.• How is this developing experience related to

sustainability in our school curriculum?

Reflection and evaluation

• Why do we do it like this?• How do we know it is successful?• What is the impact on teaching and learning?

£ $ £

“It is difficult to look at mainstream educational discourse without observing that, in the main, educational institutions are becoming increasingly more efficient at aligning their structures and processes with the logic of neoliberal institutions,

[

institutions that have been shown to be more interested in maximizing efficiencies in natural and human resource production than they are in caring for the well-being of diverse people and the environments in which we live (Lipman, 2011; Pierce, 2013).”

Online discussion

Cross-references

Y7:1 Where we liveY7:2 Our amazing worldY7:3 Wild weatherY7:4 GlobalisationY7:5 People everywhereY7:6 Mapping decisions

Y8:1 Flood disasterY8:2 Local actions – global

effectsY8:3 Kenya enquiryY8:4 Countries comparedY8:5 EcosystemsY8:6 Coastal landscape

Y9:1 HazardsY9:2 TourismY9:3 In the newsY9:4 AustraliaY9:5 StuffY9:6 Development issues

Geography - Purpose of studyA high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As pupils progress, their growing knowledge about the world helps them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation of landscapes and environments. Geographical knowledge provides the tools and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time.

Task – make the links

• Where are the sustainability opportunities?

• Do certain localities lend themselves to a study or an understanding of sustainability?

• Which items of core knowledge might be a preparation for sustainability?

Pupils should be taught to: Sustainability opportunities

describe and understand key aspects of:  

physical geography, including: climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle

Bio-diversity; climate change; rainforest destruction and desertification; systems

human geography, including: settlements, land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals, and water supplies

Habitats, homes and community; urban impact on countryside; rural protection; renewables; peak-oil; food security and waste; food miles; water consumption; supply chain

Pupils should be taught to: Sustainability opportunities

understand, through the use of detailed place based exemplars at a variety of scales, the key processes in:

 

physical geography relating to: glaciation, plate tectonics, rocks, soils, weathering, geological timescales, weather and climate, rivers and coasts

 

Climate change, desertification, water cycle

human geography relating to: population, international development, economic activity in the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors, urbanisation, and the use of natural resources

Finite and renewable resources, waste and re-cycling,

understand how human and physical processes interact to have an impact on and form distinctive landscapes

 

Habitat loss, flood threat, coastal management

Physical geography: processes and change

Geomorphic processes and landscape […]Changing weather and climate – The causes, consequences of and responses to extreme weather conditions and natural weather hazards, together with their changing distribution in time and space. The spatial and temporal characteristics, evidence for and causes of climatic change over the past two million years to the present day.

People and environment: processes and interactions

Global ecosystems – An overview of the distribution and characteristics of large scale natural global ecosystems (such as tundra, rainforest and temperate forest), drawing out the interdependence of climate, soil, water, plants, animals and humans and the issues related to sustainable use and management.

Resource management and biodiversity - How humans use, modify and change natural ecosystems in ways that may be sustainable or unsustainable. At least three specific examples at local and regional scales should be chosen to illustrate how this may lead to beneficial (e.g. agriculture and food production, identifying new energy resources) and/or detrimental outcomes (e.g. desertification, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation) for human well-being.

Ecosystems

Levels of organisation within an ecosystem • recognise the different levels of organisation from

individual organisms to the whole ecosystem • the components of an ecosystem • describe abiotic and biotic factors that affect

communities • explain the importance of interdependence and

competition in a community.

Pyramids of biomass and transfer through trophic levels • recognise trophic levels • describe pyramids of biomass and deduce the

sources of the loss of biomass between them • calculate the efficiency of energy transfers

between trophic levels.

Biodiversity • carry out an investigation into the distribution and

abundance of organisms in an ecosystem and determine their numbers in a given area

• explain what is meant by biodiversity and discuss the challenges

• recognise both positive and negative human interactions with ecosystems and their impact on biodiversity

• discuss benefits of maintaining local and global biodiversity.

Task – report back

Are we confident that sustainability has staying power in the school curriculum?

Yes < - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -> No

Explain.

We need to know more about…

• how to link transmissive with transformative learning;

• the ways in which geography teachers build up their own conceptions of ESD;

• how to connect whole school approaches to ESD with curriculum-based approaches to ESD;

and…

• the role of leadership in promoting ESD within the geography department and across the school;

• how pupils feel about ESD in geography and what they want to know; and

• ways of developing ESD as an overarching frame of mind.

Maggie Smith (2013)

Implications forprimary geography practice

1. Pupils come to school with experience, knowledge, understanding and concerns.

2. Pupils don’t learn what teachers teach.3. Pupils are reluctant to absorb other people’s preoccupations and

prejudices.4. Pupils never respond well to pessimism and tales of looming

disaster and dread.5. Pupils are not there to cure their parents’ bad habits.6. Pupils rarely judge school in terms of how relevant the content

is.7. Pupils cannot fully develop social and citizenly skills until they

can practise them for real.Bill Scott (2013)

www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/index.html

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xn1gfcefh318adj/9D3koV2lqf

References

• See the ‘notes’ section below each slide for web references

• Key documentation for sustainability here