Young People's Geographies

Teachers and students planning together

The nitty-gritty of YPG is teachers and students discussing and developing a changing geography curriculum together. The following are examples of different conversations, providing some insights into how the YPG approach sets about working with students in a practical way.

The geography of mobile phones

An important aspect of YPG is in enabling young people to understand how their lives are connected to the lives of others. The video clip below shows students in conversation with an academic geographer exploring together the geography behind mobile phones. Students are helped to see an ‘often-taken-for-granted’ feature of their daily lives in a more critical way.

Activity

• Review the clip showing the conversation about mobile phones.
• Read ‘Made in…? Appreciating the everyday geographies of connected lives’ by Ian Cook, James Evans, Helen Griffiths, Lucy Mayblin, Becky Payne and David Roberts in Teaching Geography, Summer 2007.
• With students consider how together you could begin to explore connections between your everyday lives and the every day lives of others.

For more on the Mobile Phone Geographies, visit the Making the Connection website created by Ian Cook, Helen Griffiths and colleagues. The site provides an overview of the project plus online and downloadable material for schools interested in adapting the project for their own use.

Planning school geography together

Here teachers and students are having a conversation where they start to identify which aspects of YPG they would like to be their focus back in school. The atmosphere is very informal as they collectively talk about their ideas raise questions and modify their thinking. Students are ready to have this conversation because they, like their teacher, now have a better understanding of the meanings of Young People’s Geographies.

Activity

View the sequence of clips of students working with their teachers planning their YPG project. Look for:

• The range of topics students want to pursue
• The role of teachers in mediating the conversation and asking questions
• The role of students in the conversation
• The working atmosphere

Back to Conversation