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Geography at a distance
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Pupils undertake Virtual Field Work With the school closure forcing the cancellation of all school trips, one casualty was the planned Geography field trips, often the highlight of the year and the culmination of much of the work studied in previous terms. Third Form pupils were still able to experience some of the joys of field work by taking part in a virtual field trip to Las Vegas. The term’s lessons helped the students answer the question ‘Is Las Vegas a great place?’, learn about the climate and the development and sustainability issues of building a city in a desert. They looked at the ways the city has been presented through media and music, such as the iconic Viva Las Vegas by Elvis Presley. They also delved into the underworld by learning about the Mole People: the homeless population who live in the flood relief channels under the city but for whom life is a constant challenge as they live in fear of the next storm. The students were then able to bring this together by using Google Earth to visit three locations within the city: the famous Strip full of gargantuan hotels and casinos, and two contrasting residential areas. In each area they used the ‘street view’ function to collect data on flood risk, environmental quality and lived space before writing the experience up as a piece of assessed coursework. The closure of the school enabled the study of this unique place, albeit virtually. It doesn’t beat the real experience, and we look forward to running our field trips for real again soon!
‘The World beyond my Window’ The Royal Geographical Society’s Young Geographer of the Year competition was readily entered by our pupils this term. With a global lockdown-inspired theme, students were asked to create an A3 poster outlining some of the interesting geography on their doorsteps. The College ran its own competition before sending the top entries in to the national competition. Fourth Form geographer Alex Badcock won the Lancing competition. After a detailed investigation looking at the social, economic and environmental benefits and disadvantages of the proposed Arundel Bypass, Alex provided a COVID-19 lockdown-inspired solution, asking the Government to encourage more working from home, negating the need for a bypass, saving an estimated £250m and preserving the environment for future generations.
A number of excellent entries were received and Third Form students Alex Mawhinney, Iyana Parmar, Sophie Wong and Tiffany Yu all deserve a special mention for their efforts.
The Lancing Geographer
In the Summer Term we published the first edition of The Lancing Geographer academic journal. This was edited by a team of three students, Lower Sixth Formers Amélie Rohan and Ryan Leung and Fifth Former Ben Millward-Sadler, who worked remotely with Dr Bustin. The edition of the journal contains 10 original pieces of geographical writing on a variety of topics. Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 features heavily, with Ryan Leung’s geopolitical article arguing that understanding the pandemic shows a failure of international cooperation. Amélie Rohan interviews three leading geographers about their take on how geography can both help us to understand and respond to the pandemic. Other articles were based on work that students in the Upper Sixth completed for their A Level coursework. Initially worth 20% of their A Levels, the standard of the projects this year was very high, and some of these have been converted to articles which can now reach a wider audience. Rosie Holt investigates a sense of place in Singapore; Emily Speirs looks at the rebranding of Bordon; Sam Meaker explores whether or not Lancing needs rebranding; Freddie Maude assesses the success of Shoreham-bySea’s coastal defences, and Ben Davies asks if Hove really is better than Brighton. In addition, Abby Hunt shares her experiences of being caught up in a flood in India, and Ben Millward-Sadler investigates the geography of Star Wars. This edition also contains some of the entries for the Young Geographer of the Year competition run by the Royal Geographical Society, with entries from students in the Third and Fourth Forms.
All writers and editors worked hard to produce the journal and look forward to starting work on the second edition next year.
