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Recently it has been suggested that the UK is headed for a heatwave this summer, so I’m expecting difficult working conditions and cries of ‘it’s too hot to work’. As far as I know there is no upper limit for working temperatures in the UK.

To exploit this potential weather event, I thought I would try to extract some Geography.

View How hot is your classroom? in a larger map

The idea is that colleagues record the temperature of their classroom on the Google map. The map is open collaboration, so you just need a Google account to edit it. Hopefully it will be nice to see how temperatures vary around the country, it would also be nice to see the classroom temperatures of other colleagues from different parts of the World. For students, it offers the chance to discuss how and why temperatures may vary, and proves we are not alone!

Why an inside temperature? I’m just wondering how fit for purpose our learning environments are…

I thought some standardisation is needed, therefore

• Temperatures should be taken at midday in your time zone, on any day from the start date.
• Temperatures should be taken in the shade, away from direct sunlight, computer equipment.
• Temperatures can be updated if/when your previous high has been exceeded.

Using the map,

• Place a place mark on your school location, I’m using the sun one.
• Add a photo of your classroom if you wish.
• The place mark title should include the temperature in Degrees Celsius.

I thought temperature readings could begin on Monday 1st of June, but colleagues can join in at any time. In the mean time, please place your classroom marker in preparation.

The map project can be followed by RSS feed. A KML file can also be downloaded and use in Google Earth.

Please feel free to contact me for help.

A couple of ideas for online gaming in the geography classroom, please free feel to contribute suggestions and share via your learning networks.

Now updated. For the past two years (2007 and 2008), I’ve been considering geographical bias in the voting of the Eurovision Song Contest with students, I’ve now updated the resource. ready for our win tonight. (441 kb Word doc) For the update on Sunday, please subscribe via RSS feed or email.

I’ve also produced a new resource (600 kb pdf) to consider whether there is a geographical pattern to previous winners and whether there has been a shift in winners over the past four decades, is the Eastern Bloc more powerful? I’ve afraid this resource is in pdf format, because making it compatible with Word 2003 causes the graphics to shift considerably. I’ve happy to email people a copy of the 2007 Word document if they wish to edit it.

Both might also be useful for a summer cover lesson… Do let me know if you use these resources or develop them.

From Noel Jenkins at Digital Geography,

I’ve created a Google Docs presentation to generate some ideas for using GIS in the classroom. Please get in touch if you’d like to help out. You’ll need to create a Google account first. I’m looking for ideas for both primary and secondary classrooms. Inspiration of course comes from Tom Barrett’s ‘Interesting Ways to..’ series of presentations, while more generic ideas are being collated in Tony Cassidy’s 101 creatively simple ways to teach Geography.

In response to a post on the SLN Geography forum, I’ve started this collaborative presentation. Hopefully others will contribute to the document development.

The nice thing about Google Docs is they can be downloaded as a pdf and ppt. Please email/pm/twitter dm me with your email address, so I can add you to the collaborators and you can edit the document. Very easy to do, just like PowerPoint, but you will have to sign up for a free Google account. With a bit of selfless collaboration it should make a useful document.

The next meeting of Geography FM will take place on Wednesday 6th of May- 8 p.m. – 9 p.m. . Please note the temporary change of date.

All teachers of geography are welcome, irrespective of age, experience or responsibility, so please feel free to join us at the next meeting. To register an interest, please request access to edit the Wiki, when permission is received, add your name to the attendees for the next meeting. If you feel brave and want to speak about a resource, topic or issue, please add to the agenda; alternatively add future meeting suggestions.

You can watch a replay of the last meeting here. Resources and links discussed during the meeting are archived on the Wiki.