Viewing archives for Geography

Old Elizabethan Makoto Takahashi, a global expert on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan, gave a group of current sixth-formers a special invitation to an exhibition he has curated.

Featuring photography and a number of essays, the exhibition, which marks the tenth anniversary of the nuclear disaster and the earthquake and tsunami that precipitated it, is being held at the Royal Geographical Society in London. The earthquake and tsunami killed more than 15,000 and triggered a triple meltdown at the power station, forcing 200,000 people from their homes.

Makoto (OE 2003-2010) treated the 13 Art & Design and Geography A-level students to a lecture and a personal tour.

Head of Art Craig Wheatley said: “The exhibition explores the lingering legacy of the 2011 disaster. There is a sophisticated and diverse range of photography that challenged the boys’ appreciation of both the aesthetic and conceptual. Having Makoto’s insight was invaluable; his willingness to explain and unpack the work was matched by the boys’ enthusiasm and desire to learn more.”

“In his QE days, Makoto was himself a talented A-level artist and geographer,” Mr Wheatley said.

He is a lecturer at the Technical University of Munich and will be returning to the Harvard Kennedy School of Governance as a Fulbright-Lloyd’s Fellow in early 2022.

He began work on the Fukushima Daiichi disaster ten years ago, soon after it happened. He received his BA, MPhil and PhD from Cambridge University and was a visiting fellow at Waseda University in Tokyo.

His thesis, which examined how claims to expert authority are made in conditions of low public trust, received the American Association of Geographers’ Jacques May Thesis Prize.

The exhibition, entitled Picturing the Invisible, sees his research interests coming together with his longstanding engagement with the London art scene: while in the Sixth Form at QE, he took part in in the Royal Academy’s attRAct programme and in the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Program; he has also been an Event Manager at the OPEN Ealing community art gallery.

Expressing his gratitude to Makoto, Mr Wheatley added: “As a cross curricular trip between the Art and Geography departments, this was a fabulous opportunity for learning.  It combined detailed analysis of visual language with geological narrative of the ‘worst crisis Japan has faced since World War II’.”

The exhibition is on until 23^rd December.

Boys studying Geography headed off to both city and country as field trips returned to their pre-pandemic ‘normal’ for the first time.

On their Human Geography trip, A-level students investigated gentrification in Wandsworth, where they met residents only too willing to share their views on how their area had changed.

On their more rural trip, pictured, Year 11 geographers encountered some locals, too ­– deer in Epping Forest ­­– while also having to face the challenge of understanding why the results of their practical investigation did not line up with classroom theory.

Head of Geography Emily Parry said: “We took 159 boys on field trips ­– 131 Year 11 pupils to Epping Forest over two days and 28 from Year 12 and Year 13 to Northcote ward in Wandsworth.

“It was great to be able to get out again, as so many trips had to be cancelled last year. Fieldwork is a very valuable part of Geography, as it gives the students real-world experience of what they have been studying in the classroom – helping both to consolidate and extend their learning. It also helps them develop skills which are difficult to develop in the classroom alone, such as teamwork and dynamic problem-solving in a changing environment.”

The Year 11 Physical Geography fieldwork in Epping Forest involved answering the question: How do river characteristics change with distance downstream along Loughton Brook? The boys went to three sites along the river and investigated its width, depth, velocity and sediment size & roundness. The fieldwork was led by staff from Epping Forest Field Studies Centre and was part of the AQA GCSE Geography course.

The field trip helped to consolidate boys’ understanding of rivers, which they had previously studied in a unit titled Physical Landscapes of the UK.

“We were lucky to have dry weather on both days and fortunate to see the deer,” Miss Parry added.

“We found that the width, depth and velocity did change downstream as predicted by the Bradshaw model, but there wasn’t a clear trend in terms of sediment size and roundness. This was in part due to human error during data collection, and in part due to the fact that this is a seasonal river and that, because of the lack of rainfall recently, water levels were low.”

“This was a valuable learning opportunity, as it enabled pupils to better understand the ‘messiness’ of ‘geographical reality’,” said Miss Parry.

For their Human Geography studies, boys made a short visit in the summer to investigate the question: To what extent is Barnet High Street a successful high street?

More recently, this month’s visit by Year 12 and 13 pupils to south London had as its goal exploration of the question: To what extent has Northcote ward undergone the process of gentrification? The visit was for part of a unit of study for the Edexcel A-level course entitled Regenerating Places, under which the sixth-formers are looking at the London boroughs of Wandsworth and Newham.

The fieldwork study allowed them to gain first-hand experience of how the borough of Wandsworth has changed. They completed a range of fieldwork techniques, including environmental quality surveys, land-use mapping and questionnaires.

“It was concluded that the Northcote ward area has been gentrified. This was evidenced through the range of boutique and high-end shops found along Northcote Road, the quality of the housing and built environment, plus the changing demographics of the area.

“The boys met some local residents who had lived in the area a long time and were keen to share their views on how the area has changed dramatically in recent decades – some sharing a view that people were being priced out of the area.”

The trip also included one further discovery of note, Miss Parry added: “The Year 12 & 13 boys were very happy to find out there was a Nando’s on Northcote Road where they could have their lunch!”

Experts have been helping QE A-level students see the exciting topical applications of their subjects in the real world in a series of lectures streamed into the School.

Sixth-formers have already enjoyed stimulating day-long sessions on Medicine in Action, Chemistry in Action, Product Design in Action and Geography in Action, with a similar event for Biology due to take place in December.

The training days are run by The Training Partnership, the leading provider of external educational study days in the UK, and would normally be held in London, but are this year being conducted remotely because of Covid-19.

QE’s Head of Technology, Michael Noonan, said that the Product Design A-level students, and even a couple of “enthusiastic non-subject specialists”, enjoyed a “superb day” of lectures. “Favourite amongst the talks attended by students was Pioneering aeronautical innovation by Sam Rogers – an aeronautical engineer working in product development for Gravity Industries, a company who are currently developing a jetpack suit.”

One of the pupils attending, Paul Ofordu, of Year 12, said: “It was amazing to see the application of prototyping, testing and iterative design in such a high-end product development project.”

The Resourcefulness and design lecture, delivered by Kingston University Senior Lecturer Pascal Anson, stimulated a practical activity, pictured. “Here we see some examples of structures which were resourcefully developed by the students using VEX IQ and EDR Robotics game elements – great thinking on their feet!” added Mr Noonan.

Chemistry students gathered in the Main School Hall to hear engaging contributions from speakers who ranged from Andrea Sella, a synthetic chemist and broadcaster, talking about mercury – “the most beautiful element in the periodic table and the most reviled” – to marine engineer Hayley Loren exploring whether nuclear fusion could provide the solution to the world’s energy issues.

Julia Lister, QE’s Head of Chemistry, said: “The engaging Chemistry in Action lectures covered an array of topics. Streaming these lectures took students from key concepts to cutting-edge science and future directions across many applications of the subject.”

The Geography lectures were similarly wide-ranging. One talk, entitled Lessons in sustainability: An explorer’s tale, was by Jason Lewis, the first person to circumnavigate the earth without using motors or sails. Another featured academic Martin Evans, from the University of Manchester, speaking on Landscape Systems in the Anthropocene. And Emily Parry, Head of Geography, highlighted lectures on water insecurity and on how COVID-19 has impacted the Pacific Islands.

“The boys enjoyed the talks, which both built up content covered in their A-level course and extended their knowledge on a range of issues facing the planet,” she said.

“Each lecture was followed with a Q&A session in which the boys could send in questions to the lecturer. Often questions focused around what young people themselves could do to help address some of the issues explored such as climate change, river pollution and how we choose a sustainable future.”

Head of Biology Gillian Ridge said that after the forthcoming Biology in Action day, boys who attend will be invited to give a series of lunchtime presentations to the rest of their year based on the talks.

Year 8 geographers have been getting creative as they grapple with the possible future effects of unchecked climate change.

The boys spent the first half of this term studying the topic, with many entering a QE competition challenging them to compose a poem or short story describing the world in the year 2100, when the world has warmed by 2 degrees.

The Geography department teamed up with Head of English Robert Hyland to judge the entries. Keon Robert has now been announced as the winner in the short story category, while Shreyas Chandrasekar was adjudged to have submitted the best poem.

Emily Parry, Head of Geography, said: ‘I was very impressed with the standard of submissions and the boys’ awareness of the potential impacts of climate change. The creative poems and stories clearly highlight the threat that climate change poses for all of us.”

The competition results were announced as the British Government unveiled its plan for a “green industrial revolution”, bringing forward a ban on petrol and diesel cars and announcing other measures, such as an expansion of offshore wind, hydrogen and nuclear power generation.

In his story, entitled Our Planet is on Fire, Keon imagined a dystopian future in a polluted city of 3 billion souls, its population swelled by immigrants from other countries seeking refuge from the effects of climate change.

There is no respite from the gloom: the story ends with the protagonist attending a meeting at his factory which, as he suspected, is to be closed down, as the authorities  try desperately – “too little, too late” – to deal with the crisis.

He reflects ruefully on the missed opportunities to deal with climate change that had brought the world to this point: “We knew it was going to happen, but we never did anything about it. In the end, it strikes us when we least expect it.”

Most of Shreyas’s poem is equally bleak – “none of us will survive” – and he adds anger into the mix:

Throw your wrath, your fury, your ire
To those who destroyed our Earth

But his work, entitled Every Little Helped, ends with just a hint of optimism, the voice from the future warning us that all may not yet be lost:

It’s time to act, to change, to make a better choice,
Or there will be no Earth left at all.

Riyan Siyani, who took second place in the poetry category, imagines how his grandchildren’s generation might look back on the present day:

It is the year 2100,
Nothing is the same, all hope has been squandered
We look back to the year of 2020
And remember how food was aplenty.

The runner-up in the short story category was Adam Liang, who draws out the effects of climate change on nature and on different groups in society, including the young – “babies are crying constantly…children complaining that it’s too hot” – and the old – “the first to go…they wasted and wilted away, just like dead flowers in the wind”.

• Main image above by Tumisu from Pixabay

The twin importance of message and method in fighting climate change was brought to the fore in the two winning entries in the Geography department’s Earth Day competitions.

The competitions were held to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection.

With this year’s Earth Day theme being Climate Action, the winner of the writing competition emphasised the importance of using the right people to convey environmental messages, while the victor in the parallel photography competition emphasised the positive impact that even small steps could have.

Head of Geography Emily Parry said: “Well done to all of the boys who entered the competitions. It was impressive to see the boys engage with the enormous challenge of climate change and heartening to see their appreciation of the wonder of our planet and passion for it to be protected.”

The first task was to write in 500 words or less an answer in response to the question: How can we save our planet from climate change? The second was for boys to submit a photograph they had taken illustrating the impact, for good or ill, of humans on ecosystems, accompanied by a 100-word explanation.

Ananth Iyer, of Year 8, took the prize for the photography competition with his striking image of a bird feeder in his back garden. He explained his choice of subject: “It celebrates the positive impact that humans can have on our environment. It can provide food for birds and all sorts of other animals when they are finding it tough. Small things like these can have a huge impact.”

Congratulating Ananth, Miss Parry said: “We appreciated the simplicity of Ananth’s photograph and how it showed that it is possible for anyone to take a small action which can have a positive impact upon ecosystems.”

First prize for the writing competition went to Rahul Doshi, of Year 10, who submitted an argument that insufficient numbers of people are aware of the threat of climate change.

“Rahul creatively answered the question How can we save our planet from climate change? by recognising that it is first necessary for everyone to accept that climate change is actually a threat! He draws attention to the importance of having messengers, such as David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg, to effectively communicate climate science to people of all ages and backgrounds,” said Miss Parry.

Rahul proposed the use of respected messengers to increase recognition. He wrote: “With over 46% of UK citizens believing that the threat is overstated and 10% completely denying that humans are to blame for climate change, it is clear that not enough people currently are aware of the threat climate change poses to our planet. There needs to be a big push to get messengers – people who we all relate to – to get this message across. If we do not, this planet faces a grave future.”

The competitions were launched on Earth Day on 22 April through eQE and were accompanied by tips and links to websites with suggestions for background reading material. These ranged from National Geographic’s suggestions for lightening our ecological load to an Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) article about how to build a bug house.

Year 12 geographers on a field trip to Suffolk and Essex tested out in real life the theories they had learned in the classroom – while staying in a field centre that forms one of the most famous scenes in world art.

Despite freezing temperatures outside, the boys completed their fieldwork successfully during their stay at the historic Flatford Mill Studies Centre (FSC) at East Bergholt, Suffolk, on the River Stour, last month.

A cottage in the grounds of the mill features in John Constable’s iconic painting, The Hay Wain, which shows a farm cart crossing the river.

Deputy Head Anne Macdonald said: “I am really proud of them; they behaved impeccably and were a credit to the School. They were complimented on their positive attitudes, excellent work ethic and manners by the FSC staff and teachers from other visiting schools.”

The 14-strong group stayed in the centre’s Valley Farm, a 600-year-old Grade I-listed building.

An outing to the coastal town of Walton-on-the-Naze across the river in Essex enabled the boys to look at the different social, economic and environmental thinking behind the variety of coastal management approaches.

They also saw how coastal management affects the processes and landforms, as well as the impact of coastal erosion and mass movement on a rapidly retreating coastline.

“It was a hugely successful trip to a beautiful stretch of coastline,” added Mrs Macdonald.

“This is a very hard-working group of students who not only enjoyed the fieldwork day, but particularly the hunt for fossilised shark teeth on the beaches!”

The fieldwork completed by the boys is examined as part of the AS examination.

They were also able to acquire techniques and skills to support the completion of independent fieldwork for the non-examined assessment that they will take in Year 13.

Several fieldwork techniques were used in different exercises – cost-benefit analysis, an environmental impact assessment, beach profiles, and infiltration rate and sediment studies. Graphical, cartographic and statistical tests that had been covered in the classroom were also revised.