#GeoEdChat 1: Putting geography at the centre of your school. A think piece by David Rogers.
February 5, 2013
The inaugural poll has closed. The first #GeoEdChat on the 6th February will discuss how geography can be at the centre of your school. The purpose of these 'think pieces is to provide some food for thought and a context on which to centre our discussions. Feel free to add comments below. This post is here to provoke reaction, generate discussion and get your goat up!
Join us tomorrow night for the first ever #GeoEdChat.
Inspired by the news that 30-50% of all food in the world is wasted, we decided to give away 50 copies of Mission:Explore Food. The competition was simple. Write a blog post about the book and we could, in return, give you 50 copies of the book for your local library service. The competition was open to over 60 million people across the UK and out of everyone the winner is…. There’s something about Mill Road in Cambridge.
Here is the winning blog post all about Mission:Explore Food.
Curated and written by Alison Power, we’re delighted that Alison will be distributing copies of the book to libraries in schools, charities and other organisations in the her local area. It just so happens that this is very close to where Tom Morgan-Jones (the illustrator of Mission:Explore) lives.. and so there will be a lovely and local exchange of the £1,000 worth of books.
Congratulations Alison, Mill Road and Cambridge! We’ll be contacting you.
1 of 100 #Urban100 pictures taken in Bangkok by @TheRealMrRoo
Last week I asked a few people on Urban Earth and Twitter if they would be interested in taking part in #Urban100, a project that I’m calling an open expedition because it’s going to last a year and anyone can join in. The idea is simple, to collaboratively explore urban places by taking 100 photographs over a 500 metre walk. Using the same stop-motion approach that I used in the Urban Earth films we’ll be able to create films that zoom through the urban landscapes, creating a unique representation of our urban habitats.
#Urban100 is open for students of all ages to join and creates opportunities to discuss place (where will your #Urban100 be and why?), representation (what will and will not be shown of your #Urban100 location?), globalisation and localisation (what connects the #Urban100 locations) and much more. This article on the Geographical Association website includes lots of ideas for using Urban Earth in and outside school/university.
This is a chance to take part in an international, collaborative, open, crowd-based urban expedition. To find out more and to join in visit the Urban Earth website and the #Urban100 Flickr Group. If you’ve any questions do feel free to Tweet me @RavenEllison.
50% of all food wasted? Win 50 copies of #MissionExploreFood for your local library service.
January 10, 2013
We’ve got £1,000 worth of Mission:Explore Books to give to a local library service.
With the shocking news that 30-50% of all food around the world is wasted, we’re doing what we can to help educate young people about food waste. Our radical and alternative cookbook includes 159 illustrated challenges, 21 of which focus on waste. Each mission activity encourages young people and families to (re)think about their relationships with food. They’re playfully serious and create fantastic opportunities to learn.
Mission:Explore Food has been praised by a wide range of food experts including Prof. Ian Cook who said that it’s probably the only book I will ever recommend to undergrads, buy for my kids & use as a plate.” Food blogger Home Baked recently reviewed the book saying that “In my opinion, Mission:Explore Food is the answer to just about everything that is wrong with state school food education and I recommend it wholeheartedly” and Emma Freud said “Oh blimey this book is brilliant! Every school in the country should have a copy”.
We can’t afford to give a hard copy to every school in the country, but we can make it available for free to download. Until the end of January you can get your free eBook copy on Amazon and from iBooks.
We’ve also got 50 hardback copies to give away to any library service in the UK. We’ll have to think of a creative way of covering the postage, but all 50 copies with an RRP of £1,000 will to the library of your choice. To be in for a chance just follow these steps:
1. Write a blog post that mentions the free Mission:Explore Food eBook. It Feel free to take pictures from this website and words from this press release.
2. Comment on this post including a link to your blog post and the name of the library service/network that you would give the books to. We’ll give you a personal copy too.. so it’s 51 copies really.
3. On February 1st we’ll randomly pick one winner from everyone that’s done steps 1+2. The name of the winner will be blogged on this website and as a comment on this post.
Good luck!
We’d like to have a #GeoEdChat with you…
January 4, 2013
We are geography education innovators and are excited about 2013. Our latest initiative is #GeoEdChat, a new experimental service to change the way geography educators communicate. Using the new GeoEdChat.com website as a hub, #GeoEdChat(s) will take place every Wednesday starting in February.
Being ambitious geographers we’ve taken a risk. #GeoEdChat will take place at 8pm, but the time zone it’s in will shift each week. Our hope is that this will create more opportunity for participation, but we’re yet to see if this will work. We’ll see.
Anyone who is interested in geography education can join in and it’s our aim to bridge some of the gaps between ‘physical’ and ‘human’, pre-school and academic as well as ‘professional’ and non/un-professional geographers. Who knows what new ideas, thinking, projects, networks, friendships and plans will come from such a wide and open network? We don’t, but we’re looking forward to finding out.
Please do take a moment to visit the website and join the #GeoEdChat.
A Christmas Gift > #MissionExploreFood, 159 illustrated food activities for kids. Get the book for free..
December 20, 2012
For a very limited time you can download Mission:Explore Food to your iDevice or Kindle Fire (or app) for free. All of the 6 chapters and 159 illustrated missions are included. Discover challenge based learning activities that explore growing, harvesting, cooking, eating, waste and soil in what is possibly the most controversial, radical and creative cookbook on 2012.
Get the gift of Mission:Explore Food today!
Want your own MasterChef? Parenting and food bloggers unite in their praise for Mission:Explore Food. Get your copy this Christmas!
December 15, 2012
Mission:Explore Food is about to enjoy its first Christmas. Since we launched the book we’ve loved reading reviews about the book, especially from expert food and parenting bloggers. Below are just a few of the comments that we’ve received.
We think Mission:Explore Food makes a fantastic Christmas gift for any young family and especially children aged 8-14. The book is currently in stock on Amazon, The Guardian and in good bookshops.
“It’s truly a work of genius.” The Botanical Baker
“You can use it to build up your relationship together whilst helping them to build a healthy relationship for food” Kelloggsville
“we rate this book very highly and think it is a great resource for the whole family” Cooking, Cakes & Children
“Calling all parents of fussy eaters, here’s the children’s cook book you’ve been waiting for Mission:Explore Food.” Mari’s World
“It teaches kids to build a good healthy relationship with food.” The Syders
“puts your child in control of their learning” Purplemum
“I’m lucky to own a bookcase full of cookbooks; many of them designed for children. All of them, I love dearly for their own reasons but Mission:Explore Food has to be my new-found favourite; simply because it is more, so incredibly more than just another cookbook – it’s also a guide, a field book, and ‘atlas’ to what we grow, eat, and inevitably poo back out again.
I wholeheartedly recommend this fantastically revolting, riveting, hilarious, random, fascinating, exciting and totally cool ‘alternative’ children’s cookbook to all. If there was ever a big children’s book I’d recommend for Christmas, it certainly would be this one.” White Lily Green
