Geography Teaching Today

Using the school grounds as a resource

Personal geographies help to shape our perception of place. Your school grounds provide a valuable resource with which we can investigate our local environment.

1. With the students in small groups, ask them to go round the school and its grounds with audio recording equipment and digital cameras, taking photos and recording of aspects of the school that they feel represent their time in the establishment. Ask them to include:
   
   
• places where they feel safe and enjoy spending time
• places which they do not like
• areas that they think summarise the school image. 
2. Once the images and audio has been collected, ask the small groups of students to use Movie Maker to create a short film about the school and their perceptions of it.
   
   
3. Ask the groups to show the films to the rest of the class on completion. This can not only give the students a sense of pride and achievement, but will also provide an audience for them to share their views with.
   
   
4. On completion of this activity, it may be appropriate to give the students the opportunity to talk. Either in small groups or as a whole class, the students and teachers can discuss the areas of commonality and difference in the videos, and the possible reasons for the varying opinions.

This activity can be used with students as an opening to local studies or local environmental issues. Giving students the tools they require to communicate their feelings and opinions on themes and issues can help them to engage with more difficult topics later on, and can also help them to appreciate the importance of understanding more than one opinion or viewpoint when making decisions.

Now do Activity 4