Communicating Geography...

A blog post which started off with Twitter and then turned into something more useful...

Started with me following the RGS's Geographical Journal twitter feed by following what someone else had said about it...
Scrolled down and noticed a link to an article / editorial written by Nick Middleton, who has been supportive of our Mission:Explore books (and was also going to be involved in a bid that we made for the Go Beyond bursary a few years back...)

Nick Middleton works at the School of Geography, University of Oxford. In the article, he starts by saying:

Geography is a slippery fish. Some like to make a distinction between the subject matter and the academic discipline, a division that others consider unnecessary. Within academe, geographers have become so specialised in their research and teaching interests that many have closer links with other disciplines than with some of their supposed colleagues. This fragmentation has made it gradually more difficult to attain a synoptic view of geography as a discipline, a particular irony to those who see their subject as one with a focus on synthesis. Indeed, the talk now is increasingly not about geography at all, but about geographies.

Article mentioned a guide to Researchers which I followed up (produced by the RGS-IBG) and had some useful sections on the links that could be developed between academic geographers and teachers

This Saturday, Simon Renshaw hosted a seminar as part of an ESRC funded series on Engaging Geography. I went to a previous event in the series, and it was a pity to miss meeting up with some of the people who were involved in this one... Good to see that Young People's Geographies was included in the programme for the event.

So, the message is that teachers can make use of the work that is being done in universities, and should be looking to make any possible links with the nearest institution, or perhaps one that is slightly further away, but to which several students from the school have perhaps secured places in the past....

Comments