A blog providing ideas and resources for those teachers hoping to teach the new GCSE Specification, first announced in April 2022. Draft subject content released for consultation in June 2026 - for first teaching from 2028 or 2029.
Andy Funnell has done a great job of collating a whole range of GIS tools into one place "for busy teachers" - and others.
It's called QuickGIS and is a Wordpress site that he has put together for the benefit of everyone.
Maps are shown in a series of categories.
A quick browse reveals some useful ones for teachers of all key stages. The 'Environment and Resources' tab for example takes you to various viewers and maps to explore ecosystems.
This ecoregions map is new to me, for example.
Data is at the heart of the conservation decisions we make to protect butterflies and moths and we believe good data is key to their future survival 💚
— Butterfly Conservation (@savebutterflies) October 18, 2023
That’s why we have made over 46 million UK records publicly available online on the @NBNAtlas 👉 https://t.co/hssENVr7Mj pic.twitter.com/JC9AA24swt
Check out the atlas here for all things butterfly...
Thanks to Hannah Steel for the link to this useful visualisation tool.
Biomeviewer displays a range of information in a visual way.
It's really useful for identifying biomes in a general way, and rotating the globe to see where they are located and identifying their characteristics.
There are accompanying resources in a folder, student worksheet and apparently an iOS app too.
The worksheet takes students through the various features which are built into the app.
You can also explore anthromes: anthropogenic biomes. These are where the majority of humanity lives.
A classification proposed by E.C. Ellis, October 25, 2005 lists them. Minimum mapping scale greater than or equal to one square kilometer.
The new Living England 2022-23 habitat map is now live! Download freely from https://t.co/rR1gT2IaPl (coming soon on Magic). It’s more reliable & user-friendly than ever - providing essential habitat data for natural capital monitoring across England. pic.twitter.com/5PmDIHjeli
— NE Chief Scientist (@NEChiefSci) November 12, 2024
Visit the link, and see the details in the technical report.
An interesting piece in Geographical magazine looked at the vital role that saltmarshes will play in mitigating sea level rise caused by Climate change.
I am fortunate to live in Norfolk and can be at a salt marsh within 25 minutes of leaving my home. They are wonderful places and last month came into bloom with sea lavender and other plants cloaking them in colour.
Image: Flowering plants on salt marsh in Norfolk, by Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license.
MAGiC is an interactive map. It is produced by DEFRA with a range of other organisations.
The GI stands for Geography Information - it's a GIS.
There are a series of layers of information which can be added to the base map.
Here's a map made by turning on the Habitats > Coastal > Saltmarshes layer, for example. This is very easy to do and students could be asked to explore the map themselves or be given a step by step guide. It would make sense
This map shows the locations of saltmarshes around the Wash.
Similar maps can be created for a whole range of habitats by changing the overlays.
Hedges were in the news with a report on the BBC News website by Helen Briggs saying that the length of the UK's hedgerows would go round the world ten times. It's based on some CEH data here.
Of course it used to be many times more, but miles of hedgerows have been lost - grubbed up to make more space, or to make larger fields to make farming more 'efficient'. Hopefully some protections are now put in place, and other new hedgerows can be planted - I noticed some going in on the edge of my Norfolk village last weekend.
The news article was picked up by a few Twitter accounts.
About half of Britain's hedgerows were lost 1940s-1990s, mostly in England - intensive farming & development.
— Rachael Unsworth (@LeedsTours) January 30, 2024
Loss has slowed since 1990s, but neglect, damage & removal remain big threats.
Government promised in 2023 to create/restore 72,000km of hedgerows by 2050. https://t.co/8pXmqgQiRv
There are plenty of overlaps with the potential content of the GCSE Natural History specification. Hedges are a linear habitat. Their existence reveals landscape change and links to the past, including enclosure. They are important for biodiversity, and vary in form in different counties.
Hedgelink has also shared the link to the mapping which has been done by CEH.Amazing hedgerow mapping from @UK_CEH 🌳 Hedgerow height and length has been mapped across England to build up a picture of the state of the nation's hedges. Click here for the data: https://t.co/UFDOQFz22w https://t.co/qlGi5iNDV5
— Hedgelink (@Hedgelink_UK) January 30, 2024
A comment on hedges from Robert MacFarlane to end this post. We will certainly be coming back to consider how we can create a resource related to the changing history of hedges. They need to be conserved and cherished according to this FT piece.
I like the description here by Robert of hedges:
He asked for contributions on the theme of hedges, and here is one that caught the eye, and is worth returning to:Hedgerows are miraculous habitats: skinny wildwoods, bird-larders, carbon stores, species shelters.
— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) January 30, 2024
Now first full (LIDAR) map of England's vast hedge-network is out.
Laid end to end they'd girdle the Earth ten times.
Let's celebrate hedges! Pics, stories?https://t.co/5Dx8UspiVq
"A bewitched curtain"...
— CeasefireNow (@lucyinnarnia) January 30, 2024
here is the full poem, The Hedge, by @ZaffarKunial from "England's Green" (Faber) pic.twitter.com/Vdwb1sfwmI
Update
Hedgerow schemes were featured on the BBC's Countyfile programme. There are some lovely quotes about the value of hedges in this feature on hedgerow restoration.
The piece explores what makes a good hedge.
They have been part of our landscape since the Bronze Age, but more than half have been lost since the Second World War. Watch from 27 minutes in.
Ronald Good was an eminent Dorset botanist and author of A Geographical Handbook of the Dorset Flora (1948).
The Flora was the result of an extensive botanical survey carried out between the years 1931 and 1939.
Professor Good collected plant lists from over 7,500 stands and recorded over a quarter million plant records.
From these he mapped the distribution of some 600 of the 1,300 flowering plants in Dorset. His book was heralded in Nature (No. 4152, May 28, 1949) as an original and valuable contribution to plant geography, and a signpost to new pastures for the field botanist.
The Good Archive is a website which is part of the Dorset Environment Research Centre's website.
The data has been added to the new Dorset Explorer. Add layers and explore the data.
One of a number of regional and county-based directories that probably exist; the results of a lifetime of study saved for others to interrogate and use.
My hope would be that the new specification will involve an expectation of a deal of mapwork using the Ordnance Survey's mapping, plus ESRI GIS mapping and Survey123 for the collection and visualisation of fieldwork data. They may also need to use the MAGIC map, maps of National Landscapes etc and ensure that location and description of context is an important part when considering the range of habitats and how the landscape and Natural History of the UK has changed over the centuries.
I've been involved with the OS in numerous ways over the years: as a GetOutside Champion, author of support resources for Digimap for Schools and Digimap for Colleges / Mapstream. Also as an author of articles for Mapping News and other support for various campaigns and activities.
A cross posting from my Geo Library blog project - what do you mean you haven't visited? There's over 700 books that would be of in...
