Martin Pluss

Hi all,

This year I have had the opportunity to go on a number of field trips. In the past I did this a lot as I was mainly a Geography teacher, though more recently I have been a bit school bound with the different ICT duties. I have been to Camp Kedron on the edge of Ku-ring-gai National Park, Dee Why and Collaroy Beach, Norton Street Auburn Mosque, Penrith Lakes/Warragamba Dam and Eastwood for a community study.

Recently I was on a Year 9 Fieldtrip to Eastwood. The focus was on the changing community. We started the day off listening to a residential real estate agent from Ray White Eastwood speaking about the changes in housing in the area and finished the day listening to a commercial agent now retired from the area.

All this was quite interesting. However, I found myself looking at other things and took a few photos. Eastwood is prone to severe flooding and a lot has been done to try and fix things but the suburb has three local councils Ryde, Parramatta and Hornsby so you can imagine how difficult it would be to get any sort of cohesive plan operational. While looking at the changes in housing I was looking at where the water went. I took three pictures of the same waterway at different points of Eastwood.

There is so much to see and learn if you can get out. How do we get children to investigate things around them without taking them on a field trip? Now and then I see my own children @11g and @15b being curious and looking at things in the world but they don’t see the themes, overarching concepts and patterns – let alone the historical dimension of the changes even in a few years.

Explore the Natural Geographer in you.

cheers Martin

Hi all,

We headed to Norton Street to get the story of the Italian integration.  The area still ahs a strong Italian feel about it though (using realestate.com.au figures) most Italians live in  Fivedock and Haberfield.  We visited the only original remaining Italian butchers, watch maker and an original cake  shop.

We had a good tour of the white elephant known as The Forum -  5 empty shops, and empty cultural centre and only a couple of Italian shop owners.  Now the shops are owned by  Russians and Greeks who employ Asians to work in them – true cultural integration. 

I am still trying to work out how the hour hour clock in The Forum works – any ideas?.

After a nice lunch in The Forum we headed to Auburn and walked through the main street and then to the Mosque.  The following picture summarises best the make up of the area.

…and then to the Mosque for a presentation  by a higher  articulate university educated Muslim women who had some fascinating storys on the religion and her experience of integration even though she has spent her whole life here. 

 Great day.

cheers  Martin

Hi all,
In amongst teaching today I met Sarah, Reggie and Cameron from Melbourne University to get things rolling for the lesson they filmed today. The gear that have is really compact and the technology has three cameras in the room on me , two students and the rest of the class.

At the end of the lesson they put me in front of a computer and let me look at the lesson. The screen has three frames on it where they can see me the the two students and the rest fo the class. So I can actually see what the rest of the class was doing when I was working with the students in another part of the room.

Generally I felt it went well and it will provide some useful fodder for the focus groups that analyse it for teaching standards (with ten other filmed teachers I was told). For me personally it was and is ( more tomorrow) a great professional development experience for me on how I could do things better. The lesson took 45 minutes then they spent an hour recording me and my comments on different parts of my lesson as I watched it on the screen.

As for tomorrow there are 4 student interviews another lesson and a post lesson interview for me. Maybe later I will post up the actual lesson material.

In the meantime I raced to Sydney University this evening for a meeting though managed to have a light meal at Ottos in Glebe which I was pleased to note now has free wireless access. – beauty.

Hi all,

Just recently I took Year 10 to Long Reef and Collaroy Beach to study coastal management.

Pre Fieldwork Activities.

Students are introduced to the area through Google Maps and other relevant information on the web.

The school intranet is use to give access to documents ready for students to use. One of them is a template on the Research Action Plan. We use the fieldwork to show how research can be carried out in the field.

Fieldwork Day

The students have a standard sheet to fill out while they undertake primary research. Also without encouragement photos are taken of the key coastal processes and management. The aim is to highlight the natural ecosystem at Long Reef and the mainly human modified ecosystem at Collaroy Beach.

Post Fieldwork Activities

Two main activities are the focus. Students are to write a report of one section of the fieldwork using the template. The goal of this activity is to:

1. Consolidate learning about coastal management

2. Introduce the concept of original research which is the basis of the Research Action Plan which is the basis of the next unit of work.

Well how can we make use of Web 2.0 Tools? My sole goal was to introduce the students to online picture galleries to store more academic photos for their learning. This involved introducing them to a variety on places to store pictures online. Of particular importance was to encourage them to take photos of scenes rather than their peers in the photos for privacy reasons.

Down the track I would like to develop a database of the student work over the years and see the changes in the area as successive students undertake the research.

Now to the Geography

Long Reef is essentially a natural ecosystem compared to Collaroy which is more built up.

It has a natural dune system compared to one overtaken by the built environment.

In addition the contrast in storm water outlets was evident.

Anyway just some thoughts.

Cheers Martin

Hi All,

I am just doing some random searches on edublogs to see what  comes up for Geography.  As more  edubloggers come online I expect these to change.

Larry Ferlazz0’s Weblinks

Recent sites added to the 7,000 links on Mr. Ferlazzo’s English Website assisting English Language Learners (and younger native speakers). There is a category for Geography.
Miss Thomsons Blog
This blog has been designed to help Miss Thomson’s Geography and Modern Studies classes.

 Miss K’s Blog
A Primary blog with some Geography

Social Studies Meets ICT 
A Middle School Adventure Hosted by Ms. C and Ms. N

JDMcsD Blog 
A space to reflect on geography, education and the world about us.

 ICT in the Secondary Curriculum
Initiative to develop and share resources to increase ICT use across the curriculum.

Ms. Clesi’s World Geography Classes 
A teacher from Westside High School

 Thompson’s Blog of Geography and reading
Let’s go around the world

Now I am going to to stall here because there is not a lot of substance after these ones.  Happy to be proven wrong.  Where are the academic Geographers?

I have sat on this for a month – need more geographers on edublogs.

cheers Martin