The document discusses ways to make tired or uninteresting geography topics more engaging for students. It provides examples of topics teachers and students commonly find dull like soils, meanders, and weather. The document suggests updating topics to reflect changes in context and new approaches. It also proposes using new teaching methods and technologies like Google Earth to bring topics to life from different perspectives. The challenge is to discuss a topic for a minute without repetition, hesitation, or deviation to demonstrate how to energize content.

1. ‘ Transforming Tired Topics’ Fred Martin Tom Biebrach Alan Parkinson GA Secondary Phase Committee

3. But... Some of them could do with a polish...

4. Made at http://ruletheweb.co.uk/b3ta/bus/

5. Ox Bow Lakes in Siberia from 30 000 ft by Fred Martin

7. Text book 2009 Text book 1983

11. Topics mentioned by teachers... Brazil – Soils - Human geography “a bit depressing’- Lapse rates - Specific skills e.g. Cross sections - Map-skills- “Almost all settlement”- Global fashion- Mass movement – Statistics “I can’t do maths...”- Football - Rossby waves- Farming- Weather and climate - Meanders and river processes - Shopping hierarchies – EU - Regional inequalities in Italy

14. So how do we ‘polish’ tired t . . . . . ? topics

15. Student Voices Hadleigh School, Suffolk Thanks to Dale Banham, Suffolk Adviser Video clip

16. What do the students say ? Students are from a school in a small town in Suffolk, which has the Secondary Geography Quality Mark, and is also a ‘Centre of Excellence’ – it has superb exam results and an impressive take up for Geography at Key Stage 4

17. Teacher voices... Survey on SLN

18. Developing empathy for the geographies of others “what has it got to do with me ?”

19. “ The debate is about how we teach, not what we teach: pace and challenge, innovation, personalisation...”

20. “ Important that topics we don’t enjoy should at no time be obvious to the pupils...”

21. “ Following someone else’s SoW... I can only tell my own story in my own way.....”

23. Teaching Tired Topics A Case Study

24. Chicago, 1925 Manchester, 2009 What is the connection?

25. Burgess Concentric Ring Model, 1925 Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentric_zone_model

27. Alternative approach to land use mapping – Google Earth ‘street view’ CBD Older terraced housing C.19 th Later housing (1930s-1950s) Modern housing Retail and leisure Industrial estates

29. View from within Where am I? What can I see? What can I hear? What do I feel about this place? How could/should this place change in the future? Google Earth Street view…the modern day flâneur (or voyeur?) How has this place changed?

31. “ There are only ever choices.... When choices are made and accepted by a sufficient number of teachers, they tend to become 'common sense‘” (Noel Castree, 2005) The choices YOU make are all important !

32. “ The best teachers will provide a narrative that engages and thrills. There’s always a story to be told and I think it’s possible to make any topic interesting, at least for one lesson anyway...”

33. “ Weather came out bottom in popularity amongst the students, so I am trying to rework it as ‘extreme weather’... I get the nagging feeling that I am ‘selling out’...

34. Lampedusa

35. Plastiki

36. Using movies

38. Manifesto Link