Integrating Fieldwork Geography changing practice Making fieldwork a

Integrating Fieldwork

Geography – changing practice Making fieldwork a focus The majority of the primary and secondary schools in the survey did not recognise the value of fieldwork sufficiently and did not fulfil the requirement to provide it. Concerns about health and safety, curriculum time, expertise and budgets reduced the amount and effectiveness. Yet it motivates pupils and enhances their interest in geography, as reflected in the better take-up of geography at Key Stage 4 in schools with a good programme of fieldwork. Ofsted Report 2008

Geography in secondary schools (HMI 2553), Ofsted, 2005. Well planned fieldwork in geography adds clear value to learning in the subject as well as providing a positive contribution to the wider curriculum. Pupils gain first-hand, practical experiences which support and reinforce knowledge, skills and concepts explored in the classroom. Memorable experiences support longterm learning and recall. Good fieldwork encourages geographical enquiry and frequently can lead to higher-order thinking and learning.

What? 5 W’s and How Where? Why? When? How? Who?

Putting Yourself in the Picture What do you see, hear, smell and feel? Created by Wendy North – wnorth@wakefield. gov. u k Wakefield Advisory Service

Conversation between Characters

What do you know for certain? What would you like to happen in the future? What reasonable guesses can you make?

What can’t you tell from a photograph? What questions would you like to ask?

A new dawn? (or just the same old stuff) GIS and NEW TECHNOLOGIES Qualitative Primary Quantitative Secondary RESEARCH

20 th Century Fieldwork? STYLES 21 st Century Fieldwork? LOCATIONS

Examples of types of new fieldwork Studentification Use and missuse of green spaces Mobility pathways Clone towns Re-branding the 24 hr city Place checklists Sustainable transport Eco/carbon footprints Stakeholder views Energy audits Food miles Right to roam Activity patterns Exciting new opportunities Weatherwatch Shoreline management Flood-risk determination Catchment management Ecological value Roof hydrographs Lifestyle analysis Sustainable communities Tourism profiles Exclusion by gender / age Impression maps Think maps Place profiles

How to make the most of the new changes? Less need to measure in minute detail. Holistic and topical studies. Greater opportunity for ‘qualitative’ approaches. Greater relevance of topics to everyday situations.

Becoming a geographical researcher Find data Select and Sort Synthesise and Analyse Record and Report

Books – including standard A’Level texts Lots of choice

Articles – the ‘big 6’ Geo. File online Geo. Factsheet Guardian & Independent Range of articles newspapers Geo. News Review Geographical ‘dossier’ Geography Review

Further Journals Remember to use their websites

Getting additional help Try the exam boards

The World Wide Web

Probably the best geography websites CENSUS

Probably the best geography websites: Fieldwork OTHERS Google Books Search http: //books. google. com/ Google Scholar http: //scholar. google. com/

Blogs and forums (also newspapers / editorials)

‘Miro’ – video search and saving software (freeware)

On the web…always consider Who published the information Who wrote the information ◦ Organisation/Agency/Individual ◦ Expert or interested individual? The age of the material Why the material exists ◦ Academic research/Special interest groups

Web evaluation checklist?

Library vs internet Library • Has helpful staff to help you find things. Organised! • Provides free access to print and paper copies of items, e. g. journals • Archived information available • Doesn’t always have what you want • Not always up to date copies • Closes after hours • Cant always take out reference copies • Nearly all in written form Internet • Open all hours • Provides access to global resources, e. g. newspaper from India • Complete multimedia experience • Updated information • Two way communication • No universal system of cataloguing and organising resources • Anyone can publish things • May have to pay for internet time • May have to pay for some resources

Some of our ideas Ideas from a housing estate Introduction • Pupils consider the characteristic features of the houses. – Style, age and layout of the area? – What age are the buildings? – Why did people come here? • Do we all like the same things? – How do we personalise our homes? Task • Pupils investigate, by observation, the ways in which houses basically similar in design, are given an individual ‘makeover’

Some of our ideas Cloning of a High Street Introduction • Based upon research undertaken by New Economics Foundation (www. neweconomics. org) into the observation that British ‘High Streets’ are becoming clones of each other by offering the same range of services through national chain stores to the detriment of local independent stores. Task • Repeat NEF original survey • Where in the High Street independent and chain stores are located? • Are independent stores located in particular areas? • Through questionnaires, what attracts people to chain/independent retailers? • How do independent retailers differentiate themselves from chain stores? Do they ‘market’ their independent status? • http: //www. neweconomics. org/press-releases/clone-town-britain-survey-launched-discover-if-britain-losing-its-identity

Supporting Your SMT § How ‘quality’ LOTC can support §SEF §School Improvement Plans

Fieldwork – is it worth the effort?

Importance of Fieldwork

Teacher-led activities (passive) Pupil-centred approaches (active) Educational visits that engage Emphasis on imparting knowledge Emphasis on effective learning

Pupil-centred approaches (active) x Empathy Investigation x Environmental Poetry x Questionnaire x Street Survey Teacher-led activities (passive) x Urban Building Survey Traffic Count x Emphasis on imparting knowledge x x Plan an audio-tour Draw a sketch map x Activity Trail x Environmental Assessment Emphasis on effective learning

Criticisms of hypothesis testing. . . “How often do we take students to interesting places, perhaps areas far removed from their normal range of experience, and then get them to spend most of their time looking at a clip board or measuring instrument? ” Taylor (2004)

Studying Places “Place is security. Space is freedom” Yi Fu Tuan

“If you want (pupils) to plan their own enquiries and be capable of ‘creating new interpretations of place’, then they must be given opportunities to plan their own sequences of work and to reflect on existing interpretations of places rather than relying on the teacher for these. ” Rawling, E. (2007) Planning your Key Stage 3 Geography Curriculum Sheffield: The Geographical Association

“The majority of students, especially at Key Stage 3 in the weaker schools, had poorly developed core knowledge in geography. Their mental images of places and the world around them were often confused and lacked spatial coherence. ” Ofsted (2011) Geography: learning to make a world of difference

Humanistic geographers A view of geographic knowledge that stresses the specificity of meaning and the personal understanding of places Relph (1976) argues that a sense of place is important for an individual identity and that his sense of place has been lost or degraded in the modern world ‘To be human is to live in a world that is filled with significant places: to be human is to have and to know your place’

“Place and sense of place do not lend themselves to scientific analysis for they are inextricably bound up with all the hopes, frustrations, and confusions of life. . . ” (Relph, 1976) Where am I. . . ?

Exploring Ethnographic Opportunity A picture tells a 1000 words? All about participant observation: “people writing”

Ethnographic fieldwork Oral Histories Direct participant observation (movements and flows) – covert or overt? Focus groups Personal video (extended) interviews Diary of an event, e. g. city food festival Keep personal observations in a field note book / diary

“The futurists predict that in the 21 st century the world will become a 'placeless society' where we can be everywhere at anytime through fibre-optic communications”

Pupils need small scale examples of people and places to relate to There is no substitute for the study of real places, and the lives of real people Everything that we study in geography should be located

‘. . . as individuals we look at the world through lenses constructed in a complex web , influenced by several external forces (cultures, media, religions, education, and upbringing), internal forces (personality, reactions, conflicts) and encounters and relationships. The image these lenses project represent our knowledge of ourselves and of the world. . . they have a history and their validity needs to be acknowledged within the space. As our lenses are constructed in specific contexts, we lack the knowledge constructed in other different contexts and therefore we need to listen to different perspectives in order to see/imagine beyond the boundaries of our own lenses. Questioning is not an attempt to break the lenses (to destroy or de-legitimise perspectives), but to sharpen and broaden the vision. ’ http: //www. osdemethodology. org. uk/groundrules. html