Exploring Children’s Personal Geographies

Sharon Witt June 2010

• “As they explore their surroundings children construct private geographies which meet

their physical and emotional needs “• Scoffham,2004,p.17

Why explore personal geographies?

• To provide real, relevant , meaningful learning experiences for children;

• To ensure participative, inclusive opportunities within the geography curriculum ;

• To explore children’s individual knowledge and understanding of localities including emotional responses and attachment to place:

• To value the insights, backgrounds, experiences of the children within the class;

• To find out what the children already know .

The “essence of building a motivating and effective primary geography curriculum” is one that focuses on working with

children" not on behalf of them or to them nor ignoring them” (Catling, 2005,p.340)

Exploring children’s personal geographies

Aim: • To recognise and celebrate children’s personal

geographies;• To explore children’s individual responses and

attachment to local places;

Martin calls for the use of children’s everyday experiences or “personal geographies” as a basis for curriculum development

“The pupils in your classrooms will all have their own experiences to draw upon and it is important to elicit these for use as starting points”

Martin, F. ( 2006) Everyday Geography Primary Geographer Autumn 2006,p.7.

Guess this place? To provide children with the opportunity to talk about local places

Geographical learning objectives • To ask geographical questions• To use appropriate geographical vocabulary• To identify and describe what places are like• To describe where places are

Resources needed:• Photographs of local places the children will know and visit in envelopes

Children work in pairs. One child takes the photograph out of the envelope without looking at it and place it on their head so that their partner can see. Then asks questions to see if they can work out where the place is?

Nested Hierarchies Geographical learning objectives • To communicate in appropriate ways • To use appropriate geographical vocabulary • To recognise how places fit within a wider

geographical context

Zoom – Istvan Banyai http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyla9p-pteU

• Could you make your own version of ‘Zoom’ related to your local area?

• Google Earth could be helpful to model the activity.

Nested Hierarchies

Geographical learning objectives • To communicate in appropriate ways • To use appropriate geographical vocabulary • To recognise how places fit within a wider geographical context • To identify and describe what places are like.

Acknowledge children’s prior experiences :– Make a personal geographies key ring; – Record personal geographies on concentric circles; – What places do children know? Local, Regional, National, Global

What places are you connected to ?

Past

Friends

Holidays Activities

Places visited with school or other groups

Places visited with family

Make those links!Paper Chain Geography Exploring children’s geographies- local to global / Past, present and future

Think about a place that is special to you ?

A happy spot !

Make a scrap book page about your happy spot !

Make a scrap book page for your happy spot !

What could you include on your scrap book page?

• Pictures; • Photographs; • Colour palette/wheel;• Symbols;• Maps; • Rubbings/ textures; • Words to reflect feelings/ sensory experiences

Why scrapbooking? • Authentic

• To explore the use of children’s ‘everyday geographies’ within the classroom drawing on experiences which are “directly relevant to them, their lives and concerns about the world” (Martin, 2006,p.4);

• Celebrating the joy of places

• Making children “connoisseurs” of their own personal geographies

“This is Ben Cruachan and there is a lovely view of Ben Cruachan from my Gran’s house and she only lives a few miles away from the mountain .I like to watch the clouds move over the top of the mountain – it is very calming.”

Child’s commentary

What the teachers say?

Giving children a free rein to

express themselves often

leads to surprising,

impressive and ultimately very

creative outcomes.

This was ‘therapeutic’, and

the idea that there was no

‘right or wrong’ outcome began to

really appeal.

With thanks to Jo Sudbury

This provided an opportunity to view

children’s unique way of seeing the

world and to formally recognise

children’s immediate sensory

encounters with places.

Why did you choose this happy spot to scrap book ?

A sense of documenting for the future – a personal legacy

It was private and it was mine . It wasn’t anyone else’s to have and it was different. It would always be there on paper that I had been there with my cousins. I had been there and it was so nice there and it really was just great !”

What the children say?

Children themselves value the opportunity to share their private geographies

It was nice to have a chance to talk

about … my secret happy spot which

is not secret anymore!

What the children say?

It was really fun because you could create it how you wanted it and how you like it and choose your colours .

Enjoyable, motivating and a sense of ownership!

Geographical learning objectives for scrapbooking

• To identify and describe what places are like?• To ask geographical questions • To collect and record evidence (if part of an

enquiry approach) • To communicate in appropriate ways • To use appropriate geographical vocabulary • To use secondary sources of information

Scrapbooking as a tool to record children’s personal geographies can

be: Creative Active Independent Fun Captivating Thought ProvokingChallenging Stimulating Child-Centred Relevant Varied Interesting

Enjoyable Purposeful Meaningful Personal

Flexible Empowering Involving Question Raising Inspiring EquippingChild-Led Collaborative

Exploratory

More ideas!• Scrapbooking –

• places in the school grounds, • places in the local area,• Places in different seasons • Journeys • Share your local place with a school from a different

locality • Feelings towards a place

• Journaling – recording offsite visits • Digital scrapbooking – blogs, digital

photographs, digital sound files , videos etc .

Bibliography

• Banyai, I . (1995) Zoom, New York: Viking;• Catling, S. (2005) Children's personal geographies and the

English primary school geography curriculum, Children’s Geographies, Volume 3, December 2005,Issue 3 December 2005, pages 325- 344;

• Martin, F.( 2006) “Everyday Geography” in Primary Geographer, Autumn 2006, pp.4-7;

• Scoffham, S. (2004) Primary Geography Handbook, Sheffield: Geographical Association;

• Sudbury. J (2009)”A sense of place at Bishop’s Waltham Junior school”, Hampshire Arts News 20, Autumn / Spring 2010 Winchester: Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service.