Humanities through the Olympics Aspects of geography to explore through the stimulus of the London 2012 Olympic Games Simon Catling Oxford Brooks University

Where are the Olympic Games 2012? It helps to know where places, features and events you are investigating take place – and what goes on there. Geography involves knowing what is at locations. Some approaches to use: Children use websites to identify the events, places and locations around the UK where the Olympic and Para- Olympic events are happening. Children are given a list of the events and venues to locate and use London maps, road atlases and British isles/UK wall maps or atlas maps. Children are given the challenge to find out, perhaps as homework or as a weeks’ challenge, about the variety of events and where in the UK they are occurring.

London Olympic Games Venues

Where are the London 2012 Olympics being held?

Olympic 2012 event sites in the UK

The Olympic Torch travels the UK [Announced ] Follow the route over 70 days before the Games. Where are the most northerly, westerly, southerly and eastern places visited? How does it travel the country? Why is it taken around the UK? Where will it be nearest to you?

Where is the Olympic Torch coming Locally? [Announced on ] Where is the Olympic torch being carried around the UK? Monday 9 July, 2012 Milton Keynes Bletchley Buckingham Winslow Whitchurch Aylesbury Stoke Mandeville Aylesbury Waddesdon Bicester Kirtlington Woodstock Kidlington Oxford (Evening celebration) Oxford Tuesday 10 July, 2012 Oxford Oxford Abingdon Wallingford Crowmarsh Gifford Nettlebed Henley-on-Thames Bisham (Bisham Abbey) Maidenhead Slough Windsor Egham Ascot Bracknell Reading (Evening celebration) Reading

Developing map reading skills Use the Olympic and Para-Olympic Games to help children develop their map reading knowledge and skills. Children can use a variety of maps from the British Isles and UK map – a wall map or an atlas maps – to London maps to maps of Stratford and of the Olympic Park. They can also use road atlas maps, street maps, and event and tourism maps, as well as London Underground and national rail maps, bus route maps and Ordnance Survey maps. Activities to develop map skills should cover: Seeing and appreciating how places are shown (symbols) and how to locate them (grid references); Understanding directions between places (using compass points); Measuring distances between sites, in the Park, London and nationally (using scale bars); Comparing how places are shown, grid, directions and scales on large scale and small scale maps, from the Olympic Park to the World map; Making their own maps of events and sites using these skills various scales.

Map scales and types: Olympic 2012 Venues: UK and London

Olympic Park mapping: what is where?

What are other venues like? – Weymouth: Sailing Maps and photographs can be used to find out about the different venues. What is there? What are they like? What else goes on there? If I went where could I stay? How would I get there from home? What else could I do there? How have they been developed as Games sites? Use questions like these to enquire into several venues. eg, Google ‘Weymouth’ to find websites and images which provide information.

What is Weymouth like?

Investigating change and development How has the area in Stratford, east London, changed and been regenerated because of the decision to site the Olympic Park on a decaying industrial estate along the River Lee?

Explore change and development locally What might be improved in your own local area? Use the development of the Olympic site to investigate locally how you might improve an area near school. Jeannie Baker’s book Belonging offers a view of an inner urban area undergoing regeneration. This could be a stimulus to investigating local sites for development.

Where else have Olympic Games been held?

What has become of past Olympic venues? Olympic cities are in the World and national news for a while before and during the Games. What happens to the sites after the Games have finished? Two examples are Barcelona (1992) and Athens (2004).

The United Kingdom

The World