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Investigating Geography
Margaret Roberts
Annual Conference of the Geographical Association
Manchester 2009
Investigating geography
• What questions does geography investigate?
• How can pupils investigate geography?
• How can we investigate the teaching and learning of geography?
Geography
The value of an academic subject depends on the extent to which it answers questions we are interested in…
Questions
• Why does the landscape vary?• How are Nungua and Teshi affected by Ghana’s
5 year development plan? • Why are the people of District 6 in Cape Town
being moved?• What experiences do Y7 students have of
Sheffield, the UK and the world?• Why is Southern Italy represented as it is?• Should the UK develop more nuclear power?
How are Labadi and Teshi affected by Ghana’s 5 year development
plan?
Labadi
Teshi
Nungua
Fishing
Agriculture
Why were people being moved from District Six?
Everyone in the District died a little when it was pulled down…they had taken away our past and left the rubble…they had destroyed our community and left dust and memories’ Richard Rive
Extract from letter:
“We believed that this land was ours forever. We have made our homes here, developed the land, built schools … Now the South African Government wants us to move away. We love this land of ours…we own tractors, we plough maize and beans and often sell our surplus. We also own large herds of cattle…”
A resettlement area in the ‘homeland’ of KaNgwane
As geographers we have a special role – a trulycreative and revolutionary one – that of helping toreveal the spatial malfunctionings and injustices,and contributing to the design of a spatial order ofsociety in which people can be really free to fulfilthemselves in a secure social setting where therights of all are respected. This, surely, would be‘progress in geography’ (1973, Smith, An introduction to Welfare Geography)
Some states of affairs are bad, and should be struggledagainst and changed. Such was apartheid in SouthAfrica.(Smith, 2000)
Questions after apartheid: the land issue
80% of population
13% of land
How is the South of Italy represented in textbooks?
“Farming is at subsistence level”
Copyright photograph, headed ‘Farming in the South’ from Waugh, D and Bushell, T, (2008) New Interactions, Nelson Thornes
Copyright photograph, headed ‘Disadvantages of farming in the South’ from Waugh, D. and Bushell, T. (2008) New Interactions, Nelson Thornes
In this enquiry you work for theNew Cassa per il Mezzogiorno orfund for the south organisation.You have been given the task ofseeking funds for the improvementschemes and have been asked togive a presentation to the EU andWorld Bank.
• Draw a star diagram to show the main problems of the south
• Show how life in rural areas may be improved?
• What schemes do you think would bring most benefit?
Copyright illustration to accompany the ‘enquiry’ , from Waugh, D. and Bushell, T. (2008) New Interactions, Nelson Thornes
Copyright photographs of tomato production in Campania, vines in Puglia and orange production in Sicily. Copyright map of agricultural products of Puglia.
All in an atlas produced for primary school children in Italy:
De Agostini. (2006) Atlante Geografico di Base, per la scuola primaria, Instituto Geografico D’Agostini
Factors affecting agriculture (in atlas)
Campania• ‘The Romans called it ‘happy Campania’
because of the fertility of its plains and the gentleness of its climate.’
Puglia• ‘Blessed with a good Mediterranean climate and
characterised by a landscape almost without hills’
Extracts from: De Agostini. (2006) Atlante Geografico di Base, per la scuola primaria, Instituto Geografico D’Agostini
Representing the other
Ways in which ‘othering’ is achieved:
• Naming and treating a place as an undifferentiated entity
• Stereotyping: simplifying and exaggerating a few characteristics; omission; fixing
• Representing the other in developmental terms
• Marginalising: presenting as peripheral
Why a negative geographical imagination?
• Mountjoy (1973) Problem Regions of Europe: The Mezzogiorno
• ‘Europe ends at Naples and ends badly, Calabria, Sicily and all the rest belong to Africa’ Creuze de Lesser, 1806
• AC Milan: Welcome to Europe
Investigating the subject: summary
• The range of questions geographers ask has changed.
• The questions are influenced by changing conceptual frameworks.
• There are different ways of constructing geography and different ways of seeing the world
Investigating geography
• What questions does geography investigate?
• How can pupils investigate geography?
• How can we investigate the teaching and learning of geography?
A framework for learning through enquiry
• Creating a need to know
• Using data
• Making sense of data
• Reflecting on learning
Creating a need to know: stance
Copyright photograph of birds migrating – from Google images
Creating a need to know: Stimulus and speculation
Map of Antarctica from: 7summits.com/vinson/maps.php
Plus photograph of Michael Palin
Creating a need to know: Press conference
Types of data
• Reports• Newspaper articles• Advertisements• Brochures• Photographs• Paintings• Film• Cartoons
• Google Earth• Google Street View• Atlas maps• OS maps• Weather Maps• Statistics• Graphs• Personal knowledge• Artefacts
Earthquake in L’Aquila
www.bbc.co.uk
The Atlas of the Real World
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,370,000 for Italian earthquake L'Aquila.
Three newspaper clippings showing diagrams of the Boscastle floods – removed for copyright reasons
Making sense
Making senseCopyright photograph of Patriot Hills
Copyright photograph of Mozambique floods
Public Meeting role play
• Should a new incinerator be built in Sheffield?• Which energy sources should the UK
government encourage?• Where to locate a new hi-tech industry?• How should the area of waste land opposite the
school in Barnsley be developed?• How should the Brazilian Government respond
to conflicting land claims in Amazonia?
Reflecting on learning
Copyright photographs of Antarctica
Investigating geography
• What questions does geography investigate?
• How can pupils investigate geography?
• How can we investigate the teaching and learning of geography?
Closed Framed Negotiated
Qu
estion
s
Questions not explicit Questions explicit Pupils decide questions, guided by teacher
Data
Data selected by teachers, presented as authoritative evidence
Variety of data provided by teacher, presented as information to be interpreted
Pupils helped to find their own data from sources in and out of school
Makin
g sen
se
Activities devised by teacher to achieve pre-determined objectives. Students follow instructions
Methods of interpretation are open to discussion and choice – guided by conceptual frameworks
Pupils decide how to analyse and interpret in consultation with teacher
Reflectio
n
Predictable outcomes Students discuss what they have learnt; different outcomes
Pupils reach own conclusions and evaluate them critically
Classroom talk
Dialogues of learning
The most powerful determinant of children’s
learning, the difference that makes the
difference, is how teachers scaffold the
learning process
Scaffolding: the complex set of interactions
through which adults guide and promote
children’s thinking.
The Guided Construction of Knowledge (Mercer)
The meeting of minds (Bruner)
The Co-construction of knowledge (futurelab: Enquiring Minds)
Copyright world map,
Copyright photograph of earth from space
Copyright photograph of school globe
Extracts from learning logs or journals
• Chi calculations/degrees of freedom – freedom from what? This is too mathematical for me I do it without fully understanding it.
•The need for profit is important, but so is where and in what conditions people live. The people in the Government have no worries about their housing and they don’t have severe money problems. The people on The Manor do and if the people in the government can’t see this and the problems then it is obvious that the power is in the wrong hands
The construction of knowledge
Construction
Re-construction
Co-construction
Different ways of seeing
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