Tag: Geography

My Geography teacher

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Who was your most influential teacher? Why?

My geography teacher influenced me a great deal. I can’t remember his name and I gave up geography when I had to choose my subjects for my exams. I couldn’t carry on because the lessons clashed with art which was always going to be my main subject.

The reason for the influential effect was the thoughtfulness of the teacher. We learnt a broad range of things from the crops some countries grew, to vulcanism, plate tectonics, details of maps, and lots of other information. The lessons were interesting, the teacher got our attention. He explained things clearly, he was patient and understanding. We got an insight into the geo politics of the world.

I wish I could remember his name but despite my poor memory I think he was most influential.

Great teachers..

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What makes a teacher great?

Great teachers make you think. They are enthusiastic, they listen. Great teachers give you an idea you can work with and help you to understand concepts.

I had a great English teacher who once bought a pack of tarot cards into a lesson to explain there were other ideas about mythology than the normal or ordinary histories. I can’t remember much about the class but the artwork on the cards got my imagination working.

We had a great Geography teacher, who really explained clearly about all sorts of concepts, like isotherms, synclines and anticlines, geological fault lines. He made it really interesting.

And I’ve had several great Art teachers, in school and at college. The great ones gave me confidence with the work I was doing. One at school entered my art into a competition and I had a painting exhibited in our twin town in Germany. Another at college said my work had a bit of something about it.

The point is that Great teachers get us to go further and do more than we would otherwise do. Learning is dependent on you making an effort, and by having a great teacher you can be encouraged to try harder. I’m glad I had some.

So long ago?

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Who was your most influential teacher? Why?

My most influential teacher taught Geography. He was very good at explaining the subject, but he was also very humane. He would put information in context, and talk about how the world was changing. I think he talked about the population explosion. How people were being exploited, and how countries were growing cash crops despite their populations needed food for themselves. So as well as learning about oxbow lakes and contours on maps we learnt a lot about the world. I don’t think we would have been taught like that today.

Country View

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Over there, beyond the houses, that’s how close the countryside is to this city. Wooded hills and farmers fields, the river Trent lies in that valley. Its the beginning of a great river that eventually empties out on the East Side of England near the mouth of the Humber after meandering through Nottinghamshire and I think Lincolnshire.

Our city does not sit in a conurbation. Its not surrounded by other towns in a massive urban sprawl. Yes there are towns nearby, but the gaps between them have not been filled in by housing and industrial development yet.

No great mountains or rolling plains nearby, but a gentle green land eventually leading to Welsh hills in one direction, or the flat lands of the East. The industrial Midlands South of us and the Peaks of Derbyshire in the North East and the Lancashire coast to the North West. A small geography lesson.

Philatelly

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First, apologies to Google for using this image. If I’m in trouble I will delete it.

There was a question of Facebook which had an image of a mountainous island and a palm tree. Below it, it said ST Lucia W. I.

I had to think, I jokingly said Women’s Institute. I had an inkling of what I thought WI meant, but didn’t want to say….

Someone said West Indies, which makes perfect sense. But my guess was Windward Isles. So I Googled it…

I don’t know why I  knew it. But I think it was because I collected stamps when I was a child. It’s amazing what memories you can retain over decades. NoytyaCCCCP, Magyar Posta, are a couple of names if places I also remember (may not be the correct spelling).

I wanted to do Geography when I was at school. I was persuaded to do a language instead which I failed abysmally. Maybe I should have done it.

X

How to tell the earth is a sphere…

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So how can you tell the Earth is a sphere? The ancient Greeks worked it out ( I don’t remember the name of the person who did).

The experiment was to put a stick in the sand at or near the equator, so it would have a tiny shadow directly underneath the it at mid day as the Sun was directly overhead.

If you place a stick upright, at 90° to the Eaths surface either North or South of the equator, the stick casts a shadow at mid day. (Look at the hands of a clock the hands move round in the same way). Say the equator is 3pm and the Sun is overhead, you would get no shadow, then as you go further away from the stick at the equator you get increasing angles (see diagram). Eventually at the poles the shadows would be at their longest.

So how can you tell its a sphere? The angles add up. You can calculate the curvature of the planet from these simple experiments. The ancient Greeks got very close to calculating the circumference of the Earth. Their calculations were only a small percentage out on their measurement.

 

Sunrise, Sunset.

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I’ve looked at maps all my life, but never noticed that it gets dark earlier in the South East in summer than in the North West. Of course I know the Earth is tipped at an angle, something like 22° and I know that at the equator day and night are about the same length and that sunrise and sunset are about 6pm. But I hadn’t noticed the angle that the terminator of day and night is at.

As we are on the Greenwich longitude line I assumed the shadow would run straight up and down the globe. But of course it can’t be if the Earth is tipped. That also explains why we have seasons in the North and South hemispheres.