Twenty things you can do right now to energise your Geography Class

Here are some suggestions that you can do right now to add some fun to your geography. And the kids are going to love you for it.

Tell stories

There are so many stories to tell.  So instead of diving into coastal processes, why not show some fantastic images or footage of waves?  Better still, why not talk about that impossibly glamourous and ever so soulful sport of surfing – a sport that has essentially refused to succumb to the over-commercialisation which other sports have been subject to.  Wherever there is a break in the world, remote island or otherwise, you will find a hippie surfer at one with the ocean.  No camera, no crowds, no sponsorship.  But there are also those who pursue the holy grail of surfing – to ride the biggest waves, and some of the most beautiful are to be found at Jaws in Hawaii, whilst the most powerful break is to be found at Teahupoo (CH-PO) in Tahiti and for shear height and power go look at the waves which pound the coast at St Nazaire in Portugal. 

Impossibly dramatic, but now is your chance to talk about wave length, fetch, coral reefs, wave cut platforms, swash and backwash, refraction and so the list goes on.

The point being is that a story will give you the lead into the topic for your students, so think about that angle before you start to introduce the technical stuff into the lesson.

Teahupoo, the World's Heaviest Wave. SurferToday.com

Use Real World Examples

Teaching of geography relies at times too much on the theory before introducing the examples.  Think inversion and talk about the examples first.  Today’s subject might be river channel processes, so why not go and find an amazing example to discuss such as Victoria Falls or Iguassu Falls, or Niagara for that matter.  The Smoke that Thunders – Mosi-ao-Tunya-Victoria Falls - perhaps ticks all the boxes when it comes to a waterfall – if one can call it that.  And throw in some stories of David Livingstone and his exploration of Africa, or the river guides who daily ride the white waters below this most powerful cataract on Earth.  Then seize your chance to jump in and talk about cavitation, load transport, gorges, bluffs and erosion.

Victoria Falls

Introduce Real Life Characters into Your Teaching.

We have already met Dr Livingstone when we talked about Victoria Falls, but there are a host of other explorers who ventured out into the world in the quest for fame and fortune.  Scott and Amundsen bring stories alive when talking about polar regions and global warming.  Similarly for Shackleton and his amazing journey across the Southern Ocean in a desperate voyage to save his men.  Tintin and Captain Haddock took us on grand adventures to Tibet, Peru and the Land of Black Gold.  Even Asterix and Obelix can help when it comes to geography.  I know I know, I said real life characters.  Hillary and Norgay and the assault on Mount Everest are also a way of piquing interest in the formation of fold mountains which is of course the result of plate tectonics. 

Alfred Wegener - the man who came up with the theory of Continental Drift

Reach Out to Professionals In Your Community. 

There will be environmentalists, geologists, hydrologists and the like living in your town, or working at the local research establishment, and they are often more than willing to devote an afternoon to your class to talk about things geographical or environmental.  There is always so much to be learned from these lovely people, and they may well inspire your students to pursue similar careers.  So send that email, of pick up that phone and beg, bribe or cajole them to come and spend time with you.

Geologists in a Tunnel

Think Outside the Box

Museums are obvious places to visit, but think a little bit out of the box.  Many universities have civil engineering departments, with flumes and models of fluvial channels in which they carry out experiments on structures within the river channels.  Try and organise a day there so that you can experiment with channel hydraulics and sediment transport. Similarly, you could reach out to the local geological survey office, the local municipality and their technical department, or the local agricultural college who may have some amazing stuff that can be used to demonstrate portions of your syllabus.

Trinity College Library.  Worth a visit

Build a Rock Collection

Igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary.  And while you are about it, collect some minerals too.  That boring looking boulder in the rockery will have a story to tell – it may have formed in the tectonic mill of a mountain belt, or in a deep sedimentary basin once teeming with Ordovician jawless fish – so bring home the rocks, and then find a geologist to help interpret them. 

Okay, okay, this one is a mineral, but an important one as it is found in basalts, which are the most important rocks on Earth.

Install a Weather Station

Even better, make one.  Crowd fund with your pupils if you have to, or get local businesses to donate.  Then be sure to record and graph atmospheric pressure, temperature, dew point, wind speed and direction.  Taking it up another level, reach out to other schools elsewhere in the country and hey, maybe even abroad, and get them to do the same, and allow them to check in on a daily basis.  Before you know it, everyone will be tracking the progress of that low-pressure system across the country. 

An all in one weather station to measure wind direction and speed, air temperature and humidity, pressure and rainfall.

Go and see a Local Geomorphological Feature.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know too much about it.  When scientists and geographers venture out into new territory, they don’t know much about the new place either.  They don’t feel a need to know.  Sure, they will dig out the geological map and get some idea of the local conditions, but they are not constrained by this.  And you shouldn’t be too.  So go and look, take the pics, walk the site, and then come back to the classroom and discuss things.  This will stimulate discussion, open up lines of inquiry, get the kids out into the fresh air, and it will be the best fun ever and great for team building.  If you can get a local expert to come along, so much the better.

Go visit a geomorphological feature somewhere near you

Bring Some Levity and Humour to the Classroom

Tintin and Captain Haddock were always fun to read and a lot can be learned from their adventures to amazing places. Destination Moon, the Land of Black Gold and The Seven Crystal Balls are all fine examples of travelling to exotic places, and the Thompson Twins add another dimension to the journey.  Indiana Jones is also great fun – swashbuckling adventure with a Capital A.

The Adventures of Tintin are great for learning geography

Plaster of Paris is your Friend

Plaster, Plasticine, cardboard, egg cartons, glue and paint are your friends.  Get the kids to make models of landscapes and geomorphological features, and in doing so they will get a firm grip on the subject matter.  I promise.

Plaster of Paris lets you model anything you want.  From eroding teeth to eroding landscapes.  Encyclopedia Britannica 

Go Mapping

Set up a model landscape and map it.  Go Google Plane Table Mapping.  Then go out and map the school grounds or the meadow next door.  This will introduce the kids to the requirements of scale and how to represent the larger in the smaller. It will also be useful in discussing grid references, ‘north’ and those kinds of things.  Your map does not have to conform to global latitudes and longitudes, nor to True North.  It could be Middle Earth which you are mapping, with its own global constraints.  It will be fun.  Talking of scale, it might be useful bringing a few Airfix models into the classroom and get the kids to build them – a ship, a plane, a car.  This will also challenge their thinking in terms of scale.  I promise you; the kids will not be anywhere else but in your classroom during lunch break, and will probably be there after school too, building those models. 

The World's first geological map

Make a Movie

YouTube is wonderful.  But we are all consumers – or most of us anyway.  Bring a camera to class, get some basic film editing software, and make your own movies, create your own channel, record your geographical adventures, share, engage, innovate, and have fun.

Nature Tables Are Great

Any true-blooded geologist has a pile of rocks in her house or back yard, and why don’t you do the same.  Build a rock collection out back, label the rocks, and have it there as a ready reference for your class and for kids in years to come.  It is a wonderful thing to be able to say that that granite gneiss is 1.1 billion years old and comes out of the roots of an ancient mountain range.

Wild fig in a beautiful fig forest

Make a Sand Collection

A beautiful glass jar filled with variously coloured and graded sand can be a talking point and a way of talking about sediments and weathering.  Beach sand is different to river sand which is different to dune sand which is different to desert sand.  Exchange samples with schools elsewhere, nationally and internationally, which also has the added advantages of understanding how communication networks work, modern distribution systems and insights into the geography of other localities.  New friends will be made too.

Collect sand from all over and display in glass jars or build up layers of different coloured sands in a large jar.  Hopefully a pretty one.

Make A Sundial

Then calibrate it for your immediate locality, and compare the time shown with the ‘official’ time.

A sundial

Plant A Coconut Palm

Or a coffee tree/tea bush/rubber tree/olive tree/palm oil tree/corn in a well-tended pot, obviously climate dependent, and watch it grow.  In the interim, talk about agriculture, natural commodities, and communities who grow these crops, fair trade, and how these commodities contribute to the world’s economy.  Also discuss environmental and social impacts. Make tea/coffee/cocoa/popcorn at the end of the session. 

Coconuts - a source of fibre, food, shade, and no tropical holiday destination would dare to go without a coconut palm fringed beach

Subscribe to National Geographic magazine

Get either the electronic version or the printed version and have fun.  Nat Geo has been around for decades and they have consistently been addressing geographical issues for all this time.  Discuss the various topics in the class.

Make a model of a volcano

Use some foam, card and plaster of Paris.  Paint the crater rim black and red to make it look suitably volcanic. Paint the lower slopes green, and ring the island with blue tropical seas and a coral reef.  Dig out recesses in the slopes, push in cotton wool, put in some bird seed, add water, and watch your volcano turn into a verdant tropical paradise.  Discuss island arcs, subduction zones, volcanism and plate tectonics afterwards.

Volcanoes are beautiful, fascinating and destructive.  Make your own in the classroom.

Make a Glacier

Partially fill a bucket with water.  Throw in some stones and sand and put into a freezer.  Once frozen, add some more gravel and sand and some more (chilled) water, and refreeze.  Keep on building until you have a bucket full of hard, blue ice.  Tip it out and marvel at this lump of solid ice and its sediment load, and consider the erosive power of a glacier several hundred metres thick, gouging and plucking its way down a valley.  As it melts, take note of the outwash of glacial moraines and the development of erratics.

Ice is a powerful agent of erosion.  Make your own glacier and see what you can do with it

Build a Tribe

Invite teachers, current pupils in all the grades, past pupils, local professionals, and schools elsewhere to be part of it. Allow members to contribute, engage and learn.  Facebook will be your friend, and allow you to share all your ideas and experiences.  The YouTube channel you make will also be a great way to collaborate.

Tribes unite people all going in the same direction and trying to achieve the same things.  

You are limited only by your imagination, so go out there and make your own list, or tweak mine to suit your local circumstances.  Very little money is required, and you are going to reap the benefits.  In the interim, I am going to do my bit to make all sorts of interesting and relevant material for teaching because that is what I do.  So watch out for sediment transport in a flume, explanation of rocks and minerals, journeys to landscapes, how to read a geological map, and so forth.  Stay tuned for more on all things geographical.

So looking forward to adventuring with you