A map which shows a terrible toll...

Hardly any part of the country has remained untouched by the pandemic...

The latest interactive map from the ONS.

Rivers and GIS crowdsourcing project

Time to sign up for the Great British and Irish River Managment GIS Initiative, being organised by Alistair Hamill, Brendan Conway and Andy Funnell.

Get more of a sense of the Great British and Irish River Managment GIS Initiative in this video. These are the citizen scientists across these islands who have signed up so far.

Want to join us? https://t.co/x73nk7dAR7 pic.twitter.com/7XBvpKTrTk

— Alistair Hamill 😷 (@lcgeography) February 20, 2021

As it says on the sign-up page:

The local walk has been the lifeline for so many of us over the past year. The chance to get away from the desk and from the computer screen; the chance to get out and feel the wind against your back and the warmth of the sunlight on your face (or, perhaps, if you live in N. Ireland, yet more rain driving into your face!)

And, perhaps, during your local walks you have come to know your local area a bit more. Perhaps you’ve ventured down pathways or streets you don’t normally walk; perhaps you’ve come to appreciate that little bit more that place we call our community.

Maybe, like me, you’ve spent more time exploring your local river, getting to know all its twists and turns, watching it respond to the changing weather patterns. Perhaps you have come to appreciate it even more too.

If so, then the Great British & Irish River Management GIS Initiative might be just for you.

The idea behind this is to pool the resources of geography teachers and other interested parties in a kind of ‘citizen science’ data capture of river management across these islands. Not in some theoretical way – but in the way it happens on the river beside us, the river we have local knowledge and experience of. River management as it actually happens, warts and all. So we’re interested in the small scale stretch of river beside you; the kilometre or three that you walk along, that you know and love well.

We will use GIS to collect and collate the information. All it will take is for you to collect data with your phone and you will be supported into how to bring this into the wonderful world of GIS. Don’t worry if you haven’t much experience in using GIS so far. The skills you will need for this are very accessible and you will be supported in developing them.

SIGN UP HERE.

Townscaper

Townscaper 1

I first came across this game in July 2020 when it was on early access on Steam, and sadly not available for iOS. I coveted it. It's created by Oscar Stålberg.

I downloaded it a couple of months ago, and have finally had a few hours to get to play with it, and it's excellent and very calming.

I shall probably be posting numerous screenshots in different locations over the next few days.

There's a GUIDE here, although you can start playing immediately by choosing a colour, scrolling around the existing town and then clicking in different directions. I love watching the seagulls circling and settling on the rooves as well.

Here's the description on Steam. It currently costs £4.79

Build quaint island towns with curvy streets. Build small hamlets, soaring cathedrals, canal networks, or sky cities on stilts. Block by block.

No goal. No real gameplay. Just plenty of building and plenty of beauty. That's it.

Townscaper is an experimental passion project. More of a toy than a game. Pick colors from the palette, plop down colored blocks of house on the irregular grid, and watch Townscaper's underlying algorithm automatically turn those blocks into cute little houses, arches, stairways, bridges and lush backyards, depending on their configuration. Post settings Labels Urban,Townscaper,Games Based Learning,Games,Cities, No matching suggestions Published on 19/02/2021 12:38 Permalink Location Options Post: Edit

StreetView in a Pandemic

Thanks to Rob Morris for forwarding this article on the use of Google Street View to 'take us places' when we are unable to visit places at the current time, and international travel is looking unlikely for another summer. 

Google Street View may offer us a short-term escape as we perhaps explore (un)familiar places which are far away...

The New Yorker piece has some interesting ideas which would be relevant to the classroom. One person who is mentioned is Nick Nicholaou, a London-based developer, who built a site called MapCrunch ten years ago. 

I've used this for about that long in sessions with teachers and also in my teaching, and it allows for random street views, or views within a particular country or area chosen on the map. It also mentions games / challenges such as the MapCrunch Airport Game.