Geography PGCE Ordnance Survey workshop

In the first 3 weeks, prior to going on placement, trainees studying our (Secondary) Geography PGCE take part in a variety of enrichment activities, including workshops with guest speakers and field trips to ensure they are fully prepared for teaching.

To help trainees understand how children learn geographically, they recently attended a workshop with Darren Bailey from Ordnance Survey where they learned how to use a geographical information system (GIS) with pupils in a classroom.

Digimap for Schools is an award-winning online mapping service supporting cross-curricular teaching of geography, math, literacy, and history – enabling teachers and pupils to gain critical digital and data skills.

It is designed to engage pupils and inspire them to be curious and fascinated about the world, providing students and teachers with digital access to modern-day and historical maps and detailed aerial imagery to enable the teaching of Geography – and so much more.

The workshop involved using and analysing historical maps to show how places have changed over time e.g. coastal erosion, collecting noise data and mapping the results, developing new maps to support their teaching related to urbanisation and economic development. Showing tectonic data on maps e.g. the most recent earthquakes.

Course leader, Sharon Reilly said, “trainees develop their geographical knowledge through these subject-specific activities which is really important in ensuring they feel confident about what they are going to teach and how before they embark on their first placement”