#502: Digimap CPD on mapping local wildlife and biodiversity

A free Digimap for Schools Webinar to help you explore biodiversity and local wildlife habitats. 

This sort of CPD will be valuable for those who have aspirations to teach the new specification.

Sign up here - it’s free.

#461: Top 100 largest parks in Britain

The Ordnance Survey's mapping team have created a range of maps over the years. Back in 2023, they produced a list of 100 large parks.

This website suggests some of the largest parks in Britain.

#190: 'Local'

Out in January 2024, the latest book from Al Humphreys will be published.

After years of expeditions all over the world, adventurer Alastair Humphreys spends a year exploring the detailed local map around his home.

Can this unassuming landscape, marked by the glow of city lights and the hum of busy roads, hold any surprises for the world traveller or satisfy his wanderlust? Could a single map provide a lifetime of exploration?

Discovering more about the natural world than in all his years in remote environments, he learns the value of truly getting to know his neighbourhood.

An ode to slowing down, Local is a celebration of curiosity and time spent outdoors, as well as a rallying cry to protect the wild places on our doorstep.

This sounds like it might have some good connections with the ideas in the GCSE Natural History.

Why not get out your own local OS sheet?

Mine is OS Explorer 238. 

There's certainly plenty of interest on that map sheet alone that could keep you going. An Explorer sheet covers an area of hundreds of square kilometres which would certainly take more than a year to thoroughly explore.

Available from Al's own website.

You can find out about Al's methodology and thinking around his local exploration here.

This is an area I may return to myself.

I have my copy and can confirm it's a really good read and have already made a few notes and downloaded a few apps that Al recomments, some of which will appear on this blog.

#183: Ordnance Survey survey on mapping and GIS

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.

For many years Ordnance Survey has delivered support for education to encourage the awareness and use of high-quality geospatial data in the education sector and since 2020 this has been through an Education Plan, funded through the UK Government's Geospatial Commission (GC).
They are keen to gather evidence about how this has so far supported the work of teachers and consider what more they could be doing in this area. 

They would also like to understand what other training tools geography teachers currently access and the barriers that may be in place when using geographic information systems (GIS).

They are asking for 15 minutes (or so) of your time to complete a short survey. 

The survey is open to all geography teachers until Friday 8 December and the findings from it will help them to consider how to develop the Education Plan.

Complete the survey on this link.

#103: National GetOutside Day

 The best way to see some natural history is to Get Outside!

 

I hope you have something planned for today!

Between 2018 and 2020 I worked as a GetOutside Champion for the Ordnance Survey: part of a team of people in various locations around the country encouraging people to get outside in different ways. Some of them were athletes, bloggers, Instagrammers, runners, paralympians and TV personalities. I was just a geography teacher using my blogging and role to encourage fieldwork and other outdoor activities in the curriculum. 

We added a Fieldwork Week to my GA Presidential year, with thanks to Paula Richardson for her efforts there, and expanded it to a Fieldwork Fortnight last year.

There is plenty of advice on the Ordnance Survey's page for this day when people are encouraged to spend time outdoors.

And don't forget to follow the Countryside Code.

#79: The Language of Landscape

I contributed a piece to the Ordnance Survey's 'Mapping News' when it was still distributed to schools - at the time of the free OS maps for Year 7 students programme. It was called the 'Language of Landscape'

This led to me creating a booklet for Natural England.

It can be accessed via the National Archives - code NE201.

I came across this quote in a book I read last year.

It is about the value of landscape. Landscape according to Anne Whiston Spirn was our original language. She explains the powerful idea that:

“landscapes were the first human texts, read before the invention of other signs and symbols… a person literate in landscape sees significance where an illiterate person notes nothing.”

I then found a copy of the book in a second hand bookshop a few days later coincidentally. 

Reference

Spirn, A. W.: ‘Language of Landscape’ – Yale University Press; Revised Edition, 2000

The Languge of Landscape: 

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20140304113507/http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/50009?category=10005