Sunday, August 3, 2014

Geogstories on film: Geography at the movies

Related links to Spatialworlds  
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
GeogSpace

Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
manning@chariot.net.au    

Where am I??  

Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'


Geography at the movies



Geography At The Movies (http://www.gatm.org.uk) is a great site from some teachers in the UK who have developed a website for the posting of videos of geographical interest. It is a free, non-profit making site run on a voluntary basis. Although many of the videos are produced by students, they are very useful to model the potential of video for student engagement and learning. With the ease of making a movie with digital cameras and iPad's using simple editing programs such as Movie Maker (PC) and iMovie (Apple), the making of a video in a geography classroom on a geographic topic is becoming more and more common. The listing of the videos under the geographic topics is also extremely useful for referencing purposes i.e. Tourism, Industry, Settlement, Climate Change, Weather etc 
The more recent videos can be downloaded to your computer and the archived can be viewed conveniently if you have Flash on your computer.
The website managers invite teachers to upload their movies and as a result I am sure this site will grow and grow as a useful resource for the geography classroom.

* True Tube: great videos to support lessons on geography and society and culture

Cinema movies for geography

As a consequence of the breadth of knowledge and themes in geography, the potential to use movies to support learning is great. Whether studying disasters, cultural geography, globalisation, regional geography, social geography, political geography, agricultural geography or economic geography there is a film that could be of use comes to mind. The hyperlinked blog posting gives a great list of potential full-length movies that can be used with supporting scaffolding in the geography classroom. 

From another site here is a top 10 list of geography films:
  • Slumdog Millionaire – life in within the shanty towns of Mumbai
  • Brassed Off – industrial decline in the UK
  • The Day After Tomorrow – climate change has never been this traumatic!
  • City of God – the daily lives of young people in the favelas of Rio
  • Twister – the formation and impact of a twister
  • There Will Be Blood – industrial growth of a more economically developed country
  • Dante’s Peak – shows most of the features of a volcano
  • Lawrence of Arabia – illustrates desert features
  • Kes – life in 1960s Britain
  • The Full Monty – industrial decline within the UK
I would say the list is limitless when one considers the nature of geography!!!  What is important is how the teacher builds the geographical learning around the movie.


No comments: