Silver GA Award for 'Reading Our Landscapes' geography resource

The Chris Kington Publishing book Reading Our Landscapes by Charles Rawding has won the Silver GA Award, announced at the Geographical Association's Annual Conference 2008.

Reading Our Landscapes: understanding changing geographies beat off tough competition to win the prestigious award, which is given annually to 'recognise material which is likely to make a significant contribution to geography in primary schools, secondary schools or colleges, and to encourage the creative development of new materials.'
 
In making their decision the judges considered:

• the significance of the contribution that the material is likely to make to the quality of geographical education in the UK;
• the quality of the material in terms of: geographical content; design; presentation and/or production;
• the usefulness and appropriateness of the product in terms of its application in the geography classroom and/or professional development; and
• the originality of the concept or the approach on which the product is based.

Charles Rawding wrote and illustrated the book to show how approaches to the study of landscape – in its broadest sense – can reaffirm the relevance of geography to pupils' everyday lives.

The GA Silver Award citation for Reading Our Landscapes:

"This book and the accompanying CD-Rom are rich with up-to-date information, photographs and other materials that will be a valuable resource to secondary teachers planning different ways to approach the study of landscapes, both in the geography classroom and for out-of-classroom learning.

The approach taken is social constructivism – that children learn about the world by making sense of things on the basis of their own previous knowledge. The judges were impressed with the clear, coherent presentation: this will be very accessible to teachers, and will facilitate their adaptation of the approach to geographical learning.

The wealth of detailed, appropriate materials are easily used ‘off the shelf’; they could also be adapted to be directly relevant to the localities of individual schools. The activities are engaging and original. Overall, this is a package that provides teachers with a modern approach to themes such as settlement; tourism and leisure management; and industrial landscapes, to name just a few."

Click here to download pages and  to order the book