Week 1-2 Factors contributing to the character of places Endogenous factors Exogenous factors Use of key subject specific and technical terminology. Online research. Evaluating and presenting findings from research. Core and ICT skills. Students will be able to detail a range of human and physical factors which contribute to the character of place. Students will be able to define the terms endogenous and exogenous. Small group discussions followed by feedback – what factors contribute to a place’s unique character? Could refer to languages, dialect, belief systems, rituals, clothing, products, services, etc. Using a local map (1:25000 OS map), get students to look at the physical geography of the local area: relief, height, aspect, drainage etc. Discuss how these have affected the development and character of the place and then consider the impact of humans. Compare old and new maps. How has the area changed? Why? Show YouTube clip parody of ‘New York state of mind’ based on Newport, South Wales. Students could write a parody for their local place. What kind of factors affect place? Globalization and localization: follow the example of Doreen Massey and take a walk down your local high street. Does it have chain stores or independent shops? Are there signs of different cultures and languages? Produce an annotated photographic display. Is it a ‘clone town’ or is it holding on to its own identity? Short exam question practice, eg distinguish between endogenous and exogenous factors. Focus on command word and key terms here. The UK Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) which ran from 1999 to 2011, highlighted the importance of architecture in defining place. It also promoted a orientation to learning and produced lots of resources for schools. These archived resources can be found at . A variety of maps from the past can be viewed at shows how the country has changed over time. In the book, Space, Place and Gender, (1994), Doreen Massey uses her own local area (Kilburn High Street, London) to illustrate that place is influenced by constantly changing elements of a wider world.
Extended exam question practice with opportunity for peer assessment here Extension/cross-disciplinary: Think of places associated with Shakespeare’s plays. How did Shakespeare know of these places (he was rumoured to have travelled little)? Why were they set here? How has his work affected these places today (eg Verona: Romeo and Juliet)? Week 5 - 6 The impact of relationships and connections on people and place with a focus on: Changing demographic and cultural characteristics and Economic Change and social inequalities. How the demographic, and cultural characteristics of places are shaped by shifting flows of people, resources, money and investment. Local place study (ongoing). Start to research distant place study. Collect, analyse and interpret information from a range of secondary sources – including factual, numerical and spatial data. Online research. Evaluating and presenting findings from research. Core and ICT skills. Students will appreciate that places are dynamic and they are always changing. Students will be able to discuss the impacts of globalisation on place. Students will be able to discuss how places are shaped by factors such as migration, employment opportunities and investment. Students will recognize that different places have responded to these changes in different ways. How and why does migration affect different places? Identify places have experienced mass immigration and research the impacts of this. Students could produce a mind map here. This is also a good opportunity to use the census to produce geospatial data. You could use the example of East London here. It has experienced significant change in recent years as a result of migration and regeneration. There is also a wealth of quantitative and qualitative information to be found about the area. Use local and national newspaper sources to research the different attitudes towards gentrification and regeneration in East London. There were some interesting editorials after the anti-gentrification protests For census data and social and economic characteristics of places in the UK, go to For interactive visualization of 2011 census data, go to the . You can also use the website to explore different areas. An internet search on East London Olympics regeneration will many interesting resources. The RGS website also has some useful links. Time Out article ’ . Follow who writes about life in and around Spitalfields and Brick Lane in East London. Articles such as (of London) can be found in The Guardian.
in 2015. See also RGS online lecture on gentrification. The RGS has produced Week 7 The characteristics and impacts of external forces operating at different scales including either government policies or the decisions of or the impacts of international or global institutions. How past and present connections within and beyond localities shape places and how past and present development influences the social and economic characteristics. Distant study (ongoing). Collect, analyse and interpret information from a range of secondary sources – including factual, numerical and spatial data. Online research. Evaluating and presenting findings from research. Core and ICT skills. Students will be able to describe and explain the impacts of either government policies or the decisions of or the impacts of international or global institutions on place. Students will be able to detail how past and present development influences social and economic characteristics of a place. Students to research examples of external forces on government policies such as regeneration schemes; decisions of MNCS (Tata Steel) or international or global institutions (UN, IMF, World Bank) and present findings to rest of the class. Opportunity for individual or group presentations here. Detroit is a good example of somewhere affected (both positively and negatively) by the decisions of car manufacturers (‘Motown’ nickname for Detroit). Ford have just started to redevelop large areas of Detroit – students could research this. Get students to conduct a survey or search newspaper websites to compare the views of local people with the local government and corporate bodies involved in marketing and regenerating places? The London Olympics regeneration wasn’t welcomed by everybody for example. Resources about the impacts of the London Olympics on East London are useful and plentiful. Find and discuss examples of places influenced by past development. These might include former industrial Follow the developments after Tata Steel announced plans to sell off their British steel interests. Look at Three minute clip about The Guardian website is an excellent resource for researching topical issues. Case study of Detroit: article aboutand the in Detroit
cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow or mining towns. You could make links to rebranding/reimaging here as well as to the contemporary urban environments topic looking at urban regeneration and the use of industrial or heritage quarters (Sheffield industrial quarter). Consider how industrial cities attracted migrants and the subsequent impacts of mass migration to British cities. Week 8 - 9 How external agencies, including government, corporate bodies and community or groups make attempts to influence or create specific place-meanings and shape the actions of people. Distant place study (ongoing). Use of key subject specific and technical terminology. Collect, analyze and interpret information from a range of secondary sources – including factual, numerical and spatial data. Core and ICT skills. Students understand the place-marketing, rebranding and reimaging and can provide examples of where and why these strategies have been adopted. Awareness of and big data. Discuss the meaning of the term branding and how and why it is done. Take The Guardian city logo quiz. Students could investigate a place they know or one of the following to look at the causes and consequences of rebranding (GeoFile 619 Reimaging settlements suggests some fieldwork Liverpool, Manchester, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Melbourne and Hong Kong. Crowd-sourcing and social media was used in the 2013 rebranding of Glasgow – the ‘People make Glasgow …’ campaign. This campaign is also worth looking at in terms of peoples’ lived experience of place. The Lake District National Park authority has wanted to brand the Lake District NP as the ‘adventure See See Glasgow rebranding resources at and ‘Case study of regeneration: the Jewellery quarter, Birmingham’ in GeoFile, 642, April 2011 A case study of rebranding – El Raval, Barcelona, GeoFile 635, Jan 2011 Reimaging settlements, GeoFile 619, April 2010 The has some useful resources and web links about rebranding
capital’ of the UK to attract younger visitors. What has it done and how successful has it been with this strategy? Watch BBC documentary Tales from the National Parks: Lake District. Rebranding of rural areas has been carried out – this is another area to research. groups involved in change could include residents associations, heritage associations and social media. Students could research the presence and role of these in their local area. Regenerating Liverpool: Information at Article in How being Investigating rural rebranding, GeoFile, 676, Sept 2012 Rural rebranding: a case study from Shropshire in Geograhy Review, 27:1, Sept 2013 Place studies (weeks 2 – 9) Two place studies are required: one exploring the developing character of a place local to the home or study centre and the other exploring the developing character of a contrasting and distant place. It is a good idea to start constructing the place studies before the end of the topic. Presentation, interpretation, analysis and communication of data. Retrieval and manipulation of secondary datasets. Use of geospatial technologies such as digital cartography and G.I.S. The use of different types of data allows the development of Students will be familiar with the principles of research design and ways to collect data. Students will engage with a range of quantitative and qualitative resources. Students will be able to critically evaluate data categories and approaches. Awareness of and big data. Quantitative sources by Richard Harris (2016) on the RGS website An overview of quantitative skills is provided in Holmes, D. (2016) ‘Quantitative skills for Geographers’ in Geography Review: 29, 4. Resources on the RGS website at Holmes, D. 2016 ‘Using GIS with census data’ IN Geography Review, 29:3.