GIS Day Livestream

 From the RGS-IBG this afternoon....

We all know our climate is changing. But how much has it already altered in your lifetime, where you live? What are the impacts of this change going to be on your everyday life; on the trains you catch, the food you eat, and the health hazards you experience? 

This GIS Day join us for a live webinar as we explore the history of the climate crisis, predictions about where we are going, and some of the tools helping to mitigate against the most catastrophic outcomes.

This webinar is aimed at students undertaking NEA fieldwork interested in climate change topics, and teachers looking to enrich their climate change teaching with Met Office data and game-changing GIS technology.

GI Pedagogy - come and hear about it

 

Come along to an ERASMUS+ event at my school: King's Ely, funded by the British Council.

This is a multiplier event for the GI Pedagogy project.

The GI Pedagogy project has involved exploring the pedagogy that might be applied when using GIS to support teaching, using Rosenshines Principles and a stepped model that we have developed, along with a literature review.

We have put together an online course which we'd also like to introduce you to during the afternoon session.

We'll give you a light lunch and refreshments.

Tickets to come along to Ely are free.

They can be booked on this Eventbrite link - there is space for 25 people in total in person.

If you can't make it in person, but would like to join online, let me know and we'll see what can be organised for you. Eventbrite doesn't seem to want me to add a hybrid event.

How could my local area be improved?

 

Our D3 project has come to a conclusion.

As the final part of the project, we developed a gallery of maps which were made by teachers who had engaged with the project itself.

Brendan Conway, with whom I am working on the GI Pedagogy project took the time to create a map for us, which is excellent and provides a good introduction to the 15-minute city concept which I drew on for my work on the project.

Check out this excellent StoryMap which he created.

Hottest places to live?

 

This BBC article looks at people living in the hottest parts of the country.

This is defined by a data set which is called the Heat Hazard Score.

They are made for the OS by a company called 4 Earth Intelligence.

The potential heat hazard score for small geographical areas - known as a Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) - was calculated by 4 Earth Intelligence, who measured the average land surface temperature over a sample of days in the past three summers across Great Britain.

Deprivation data was taken from the latest English, Scottish and Welsh Indices of multiple deprivation (IMD). Each IMD is the nation's official measure of relative deprivation, or poverty, and is weighted heavily towards income, employment, education, and health.

The scores range from one to five, and provide an indicator of how likely it is that an area will experience high temperatures during hot weather, when compared with other areas in the surrounding neighbourhood.

As the BBC article explains, there are certain things factored into the calculation, such as the presence of water and vegetation.

A statistical method was used to standardise land surface temperatures, which involved combining satellite images for different dates over the past three years. The temperature data was then adjusted to consider the different average temperatures of each region, to highlight hotter areas across the country, while accounting for varying climates. Five is the highest score.

Normalising the temperatures of each region before calculating the score means the data highlights hotter areas in different parts of the country, despite having different climates.

This ONS report, one of several which were produced during COVID, explained that one in eight houses has no garden. This means no opportunity for shaded outside space...

It would be great to have a subset of data available for educational purposes, perhaps for a city such as Leeds which has a river and parks, and is also an OCR A/B Case Study city.

ESRI K12 resources

 New out

Have you seen our shiny, new #K12 webpage? 👀

So many resources for #GIS in K-12 #education: https://t.co/pwPTCR8lvn pic.twitter.com/03IBgz8Osb

— Esri GIS Education (@GISEd) July 15, 2022

Slow Ways Map Crowdfunder

I've blogged about the Slow Ways project a number of times as it has developed.

It was featured on Countryfile on Sunday.

There is an option to purchase a large map of the UK with Slow Ways routes marked on which can be used to mark routes walked, or plan larger walks. There are 2 maps: a North Sheet and a South Sheet.

I've ordered a pair for me and a pair for the classroom.

Each map costs £5 and you can support the project on the link below.

A giant map of trails connecting all of Great Britain's towns and cities as well as every national park!?

Time to get:

🌈 dreaming
🐙 planning
✍️ drawing
🐌 hiking
💚 sharing

Back our crowdfunding campaign for £10 or more to get both maps! https://t.co/SRLQA9qmcV 👍 pic.twitter.com/xhzQ45zoc4

— Slow Ways (@SlowWaysUK) May 30, 2022

LIDAR

The new Bruce Hornsby album has a song called LIDAR for all the geographers out there.

Lyrics are all about 3D mapping and open data sets - a little niche :)

Scanning forest canopies, evidence to be found
They're free online in the public domain
Mapping truth, learning skills, through the laze

Big fan of Bruce since 1986, and seen him live three times in that time on his rare trips to the UK...

GI Pedagogy Training Course in Madrid - 4th-6th of July

Last week I had a meeting of the GI Pedagogy group of partners - which is funded by an ERASMUS+ grant, given by the British Council.

We have been working on resources and an online teacher training course. 

We now have an opportunity for you to join us for a face to face event in Madrid.

Free training course for secondary teachers - introducing an Innovative Pedagogical Model for Teaching using GIS, July 4-6 2022, Madrid, @GIPedagogy project, some travel grants available - find out more and register at https://t.co/8uy2lRNfpA

— karl_donert (@karldonert) May 19, 2022

The Registration form is here, and you can also request a first-come first-served grant of €200 to help with the cost of attending if you are outside of Spain.

It would be great to have you there. Happy to answer any further questions as well. 

RGS-IBG Podcast on ArcGIS Online

Check out the podcast with Jason Sawle: Global Schools Manager with ESRI.

The @RGS_IBGschools team pleased to feature @GIS4Schools - of @esriuk and @Esri & champion of importance & value of #GIS in education & #geography - in our latest podcast. Listen below ⤵️https://t.co/62j1zIo5I5

— Steve Brace (@SteveBraceGeog) May 11, 2022

Digimap for Schools Webinar

Earlier today I presented a webinar with ideas for using Digimap for Schools.

The theme was FIELDWORK. Linked to the GA's National Fieldwork Week.

I remember the launch of the service, which came after the previous chance for teachers to claim a free Ordnance Survey map for all 11 year olds.

I also wrote a great many of the resources for the service, which is one of the few resources to have gained the prestigious GOLD award in the GA Awards. 

Here are the slides I used for my webinar - those who came along will be sent a link to the recording, and I will add that here as an update to the post once it's available and badged up. 

It wasn't as epic as Kit Rackley's recent webinar but seemed to go down well. 

Thanks to all those who attended... a good number.

ESRI UK User Conference

 

I've registered to attend this event on the 17th of May, which will be here before I know it.

I'm looking forward to seeing Jemma Wadham speak about the work that led to the excellent Ice Rivers book, and also catch up with some education related GIS work as well.

New Digimap for Schools Webinar

Come and have a listen...

NEW WEBINAR ALERT! Looking into teaching #fieldwork with Digimap for Schools? Join us on the 27th at 4pm for a fantastic training session hosted by @GeoBlogs. Book your FREE ticket today! More details: https://t.co/yv50k3ZXgl #geographyteacher pic.twitter.com/TybJDRU4rp

— Digimap for Schools (@Digimap4Schools) April 19, 2022

Uninhabitable Earth

Thanks to GoogleMapsMania for the tipoff to an interactive globe visualising some of the findings which influenced the latest and terrifying IPCC report on the state of the climate and the narrowing time frame for doing anything about it.

Produced by the German Morgenpost.

A few screenshots:

GeoGuessr

I've just sorted a PRO subscription to the GeoGuessr site for the department. Several students requested it a while back.

I used to play this when it first came out in 2013. It was developed by Anton Wallén, and was originally free, but has moved to a subscription based model and now has a thriving community and a whole range of boards and challenges, including trying to identify countries in a streak as well as a daily challenge.

There is also the option to create your own map using the Map Maker tool.

There are lots of sites giving tips on how to identify countries from a range of clues.

It also makes use of Google Street View, which doesn't cover the whole world of course. A map of the coverage is here.

Interestingly, the game gained a lot of additional popularity during lockdown when people started playing it as a way of 'travelling the world'.

This article looks at the value of playing the game, particularly during lockdown.

There are some very sophisticated groups out there such as GeoTips, who have their own Discord server for keeping track of activity and World Record attempts.

There are also Twitch streamers who play the game live, perhaps in Battle Royale mode, where you compete against other players to identify locations the soonest.

Any other GeoGuessr tips and ideas welcome.