Placing Places:
What, Where and Why?
Professor Simon Catling
Oxford Brookes University
Geographical Association Annual Conference
Crossing Boundaries
University of Surrey
Wednesday April 16th, 2014
Wall maps, floor maps – having fun!
You need a good size world floor map, shower curtain map or
sturdy wall map, which children can crawl over or you can lay
on several tables. Have a globe and atlases to use with it.
• Use name cards to locate continents/oceans, countries,
cities, mountain ranges, major rivers, deserts, etc.
• Use toy ships to make ocean/sea journeys between ports.
• Drive toy vehicles across countries and continents.
• Use toy aeroplanes to make journeys – compare with the
globe: shortest routes, great circles
• Use miniature buildings to represent cities.
• Use photographs of features to lay over where they are in
the World.
• Relate the globe to the map; find places in the atlas maps.
Locational knowledge – restated
Key stage 2
• Name and locate (using globes/
Aim
• Locate significant places
• Contextualise places:
physical and human
characteristics
Key stage 1
• Name and locate (using
globes/atlases/maps)
– 7 continents, 5 oceans
– UK: 4 countries and
capital cities,
surrounding seas
• Identify their
characteristics
atlases/maps, including on computers)
– Europe (with Russia and UK), North
America, South America
• countries, major cities,
environmental/geographical regions
• human and physical characteristics
– UK:
• key topographical features: hills,
mountains, rivers; coasts
• Land-use patterns
• Aspects of change over time
• Identify the position and significance
(using globes/atlases/maps) of
– Latitude: Equator, Tropics of Cancer &
Capricorn, Arctic & Antarctic Circles
– Longitude: Prime/Greenwich Meridian,
Time zones (with day & night)
– Northern & Southern Hemispheres
Why teach/learn about where places are?
Do your reasons include any of these?
• Having a basic sense of the plant on which we live – Earth: its shape
and key features – a sense of the World as a whole;
• Being able to place yourself in locally, nationally and globally;
• Knowing where the places you study or encounter are in the World;
• Enabling building an essential personal mental map of the World;
• Helping to understand the proximity or distance of places that you know
and hear about – developing a sense of global scale;
• Recognising the relevance of the rest of the World to yourself and
others;
• Appreciating diversity and variations in and across the World;
• Using key resources – globes, maps, atlases – to find out where places
are and gain some information about what might be there;
• Understanding how global positioning systems function;
• Building fascination through extending personal interests in and
curiosity about ‘elsewhere’ – going beyond where and who you are;
• Helping in challenging ignorance, partiality and stereotyping;
• Realising you do not know where everywhere or everything is!
Place knowledge through children’s stories
• There are various stories which refer to features or
places in the World.
• Stories are motivating, so are a stimulus to finding
features and places using globes, atlases and maps.
• Use an atlas to find places mentioned. You might need
a good quality atlas, something a school should have!
• Picture story books will give a sense of a feature or
place, though this might be the public ‘image’ and quite
stereotypical – a good basis for further investigation.
• Use a wall map to locate these places: a flag or post-it.
• Create a book of story locations, reviewing the books.
• Encourage children to make their own stories using real
places and to include a map showing where they are.
Consider these terms in the key stages
• What are and where are globally significant places?
– In the World and in the UK?
• Do you know your topographical features?
• What are physical and human characteristics?
– Are they geographical characteristics?
– Which ones are those to note?
– Where might children find them?
• What is an environmental/geographical region?
– Which ones are they (World and UK)?
– Where might children find them?
• What about ‘zones’ and ‘belts’?
– Global climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts
What sort of information is in an atlas?
Some indications:
• Maps of the world, continents, global regions, nations.
• Maps of the British Isles and the UK and regions of UK.
• Maps showing physical features: high and low land, rivers,
lakes, seas, oceans, ice areas….
• Maps showing human (political) features: countries, cities,
railways, roads….
• Thematic maps: industry, agriculture, tourism, population….
• Including: latitude, longitude, The 5 ‘great circles’ (Equator,
tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic
Circles), Prime (Greenwich) Meridian, International Date
Line, time zones.
CHECK ATLASES YOU USE: THAT THEIR CONTENT IS
APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR CHILDREN’S TOPICS.
Knowing about places, not just where they
are….
[topographical features and geographical characteristics]
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What is there? What features does the atlas show? How?
Is it a country, a city, or a natural physical feature?
What are seas and oceans like?
Is it well inland or at/near the coast? (Consider scale.)
Is it by a river or in an upland/mountainous area? How do
you know?
Is it an island or a lake? What are these?
Is it in a hot, temperate or cold place? Your reasons?
Might it be grassy, forested, or hot or cold desert? On what
grounds?
Do many or few or no people live there? Why?
Might there be agriculture there? Of what sorts?
What is a city, a port, a capital? What do people do there?
Global trampolining
15 quick-fire world mapping activities
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Globe tossing.
Roll-a-globe.
Atlas hunt-the-place.
Find a name in the atlas that
amazes you.
Locate 2/3 in different cities
or countries with the same
or similar names.
Name a place anagrams –
but where is it in the atlas?
3-5 clues to a place to find.
Choose a place on a globe
or in an atlas – say what
you can about it.
Point in the direction of….
• Write your address – from
home to the World.
• Where is in the News
today? Locate it!
• Ask who has been where (in
the World, Europe, the UK)
and pin a flag on a wall map
(BI/Europe/world).
• Find the continent or country
shape in an atlas.
• No looking! Draw the shape
of the (continent/ country).
Globe/atlas check it!
• ‘Oranges’ are from… locate
in the atlas/globe.
SEE: Placing Places for more.
Places I know, places I like… but where
should we all know?
An activity you can return to on several occasions:
• How many places should you know? Which ones? Why?
Do not tell children which places to know and locate.
Have them research this in teams and offer their conclusions.
They must give their reasons for their selection.
Set the challenge of creating a class list of places they should
all know, drawing on what the teams have done.
Now include the penultimate task:
• Where are you in this?
Have them check/revise their list to ensure they are included.
Then they create an appropriate map to show these places.
6 placing places messages!
• Always have a globe, world and British Isles wall maps and
an atlas visible in class. Encourage looking at them.
• Use globes and atlases in all geographical studies.
• Whenever you encounter new places in the BI or World, in
whichever subject or topic, use an atlas to find and locate
them.
• To settle children or as a change activity, use a whiteboard
world or BI map, a globe and/or atlases to locate places and
say something about where they are, even what they might
be like.
• Occasionally set children place challenges to find out about
places, to write about what they are like, using photographs
too, and to provide a map to show where they are.
• Have a good quality atlas and atlas sets available.
Some Resources
Catling, S. (2002) Placing Places. Geographical Association.
Catling, S. (2013) Knowing where places are: Developing locational knowledge.
http://geognc.wordpress.com.
Catling, S. (2014) Where is it? What is it? Why does it matter? Locational knowledge
in geography teaching. GA Notes & Queries.
Catling, S. & Baker, P. (2011) Wish you were here? Exploring postcard maps. Primary
Geography, 75.
Chave, C. (2011) Mapping the British Isles with heart and head. Primary Geography,
75.
McGregor, S. (2012) Wishing for Gold around the World. Primary Geography, 77.
Scoffham, S (ed.) (2013) Teaching Geography Creatively. Routledge (Ch. 5).
Wiegand, P. (206) Learning and Teaching with Maps. Routledge.
Oxfam Mapping our World. www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/mappingourworld.
Google maps. www.maps.google.co.uk.
Digimap for Schools. www.digimapforschools.edina.ac.uk.
OS Mapzone. www.mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone.
Where can you access useful maps?
Enter into Google phrases such as:
• World map
• British Isles/United Kingdom
• Any continent or ocean
• Any country
• Ask for different types of and themes for maps, eg
physical, countries, climate zones, airports, world at
night, agriculture…
Look along the top row above the website titles and press
‘IMAGES’ or ‘MAPS’.
You will be amazed at the variety and choices which
appear! Find and copy those you want to show or use
with your children. Remember many are copyright!
What is a significant place?
[Significant to or for whom?]
Some criteria you might use for place significance:
• Does it help you identify the key features of planet Earth
from space?
• Does it give you a sense of your country and continent?
• Is it mentioned often in the News media?
• Is it a place which other people know about?
• Is it somewhere you are studying or have studied?
• Is it a place which matters to you and/or your family?
• Is it somewhere that has captured your imagination?
• Could it be somewhere you want to visit?
• Is it somewhere other people consider you ought to be able
to locate? If so, why?
WHAT OTHER CRITERIA WOULD YOU USE?
Collect World, continental and BI/UK maps
Ask children to look out for maps of all sorts.
• If such maps can be extracted/copied make a scrapbook or
add them to a class display.
• Mount a display of maps in sources which need to be cared
for, such as old atlases, in books, as keepsakes and
collectables, postcard maps. KEEP LOOKING OUT!
• Print out and create a file of maps from websites or make a
digital file of maps which can be used in projects.
Consider:
• What information the maps show and how and why they show
it.
• How the maps are similar and different in scale, style, shape.
• What could be added to the collection to give it more variety.
Wider World Challenges!
• Latitude: equator, tropics, arctic/antarctic circles.
• Longitude: Meridian, time zones counting east/west,
day/night.
• Hemispheres N/S, E/W….
• Time zones.
• Environmental regions; geographical regions.
• Location, navigation.
• Using an atlas…
• What is in a KS1/2 atlas….a KS3 atlas….
• Why know these things?
Geographical features and characteristics
• Land and sea.
On land:
• Landforms: height of land.
• Rivers and lakes.
• Settlements: cities and towns.
• Transport: rail, roads, airports.
• Islands.
• Environments: hot desert, grasslands (tropical, temperate),
forests (tropical, temperate), tundra, cold deserts.
• Agriculture: pastoral, arable.
• Industry: quarrying/mining, fishing, manufacture.
• Commerce: shopping.
Some mapped characteristics of Earth
Matters we ought to know about:
• Latitude: a mapped E-W line north or south of the equator
(from North Pole to South Pole) – 90° north; 90° south.
• Equator: 0° latitude.
• Tropics: Cancer – 23° 26’ 14” N.; Capricorn – 23° 26’ 14” S.
• Circles: Arctic – 66° 33’ 44” N.; Antarctic – 66° 33’ 44” S.
• Hemispheres: North, South (also East, West)
• Longitude: a mapped N-S line east or west of the prime
meridian (pole to pole) – 180° west; 180° east.
• Prime (Greenwich) Meridian: 0° longitude.
• Day/night: Earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours.
• Time zones: moving West advance by 1 hour for every 15°
(but it is not that simple!).
• Compass directions: North, South, East, West.
Geography–science–maths connections
Science
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Year 1: Observe changes across the four seasons, and how the length of day
varies with the seasons.
Year 3: Find patterns in the way that the size of shadows change.
Year 5: Describe the movement of the Earth relative to the Sun, and use the idea
of the earth’s rotation to explain day and night and the apparent movement of the
Sun across the sky.
Mathematics
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Year 1: Recognise and name common 2-D shapes [eg continents]…
Year 2: Know the number of minutes in an hour…
Year 3: Read and write numbers up to 1000 in numerals… and know the number
of seconds in a minute…and identify horizontal and vertical lines.
Year 4: Describe positions on a 2-D grid as co-ordinates…
Year 5: Read, write, order and compare numbers up to 1,000,000… identify 3-D
shapes from 2-D representations…and know angles are measured in degrees…
and know there are 360° in a circle.
Year 6: Read, write, order and compare numbers up to 10,000,000…illustrate and
name parts of circles, including…circumference…describe positions on a full coordinate grid.
Biomes and vegetation zones
• Environmental region: covers biomes, vegetation belts,
climate zones; eg cold and hot deserts, tropical forest,
Mediterranean.
• Biome: an area in the world with similar climatic conditions,
which induce similarities, for instance, in soil organisms,
plant communities and animals. Analogous to eco-regions;
eg tundra, coniferous forest, savannah.
• Vegetation belt: an area of the world with similar vegetation
types and patterns; eg taiga, temperate mixed forest,
grassland (eg prairie, steppe), tropical rain forest, desert.
• Climate zone: an area of the earth with similar weather
characteristics and patterns; eg polar, temperate, arid,
Mediterranean, tropical, mountain.
NOTE THE SIMILARITIES AND VARIATIONS IN MEANINGS.