Westminster Institute of Education EXPLORING GEOGRAPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE Liz Taylor & Simon Catling

Westminster Institute of Education Significance in the geography curriculum In the KS2/3 PoS: The location of places they study, places and environments in the news and other significant places and environments Selection of examples of significant places and environments on B.I., Europe and World maps Is there anything significant in or about the geography curriculum requirements?

Westminster Institute of Education What is geographically significant to you? Are there places/environments that are significant to you? What makes them significant? Do others choose the same, similar or different types of significant places/environments? How are they geographically significant? What do/might we mean by geography? Significant: important, of consequence, full of meaning, indicative, worth considering, not by chance

Westminster Institute of Education Historical significance A well-established second order concept Significance is ascribed by others to people, events, changes, etc About making/considering judgements Counsells 5 Rs for exploring significance: Revealing of the past Remarked upon at the time Remembered through the collective memory Resonant across time to others Resulting in change, consequential for the future

Westminster Institute of Education Judging something to be geographically significant An event might cause ripples which make recognised changes to people and/or environments over space (eg Krakatoa, 9/11) A landform or a place might be revealing through its representation of how a group think about place or space in general (eg Himalayas, New York) A process might be required for systems, at a given scale, to function (eg water cycle) and be recognised as causing a major disruption to those systems (eg deforestation)

Westminster Institute of Education Connecting with geographical ideas? How and why is location of consequence? How, why and what extent is scale important? How, why and in what ways does meaning associated with people, places and environments affect us? How do places and environments function and what is their impact through change? What types and levels of impact do people, places, environments and changes have across each other?

Westminster Institute of Education Involving pupils in thinking about geographical significance Picture ranking, exploring scale and connections to self and others, and selecting a picture and explaining its geographical significance Study the use of the local area and consider why personal and shared experience, views about and sense of place might be significant Create your own list of significant places and environments and explain why At the end of a topic/year pupils identify what has been important to them in their geographical learning, and explain why

Westminster Institute of Education Why think about geographical significance? Involves thinking about geography Connects the strands of geography About being geographers Useful for selecting examples for teaching Enables getting to grips with big concepts in geography