A2 Geographers first week- an introduction to culture-

So the year 13's are back and as enthusiastic as ever (well most of them are!).
Ready to learn and interested just the tonic for the new term (if you ask me!).  We are teaching the unit 4 research unit alongside the topic based unit 3 side by side for the first time this year, due to the removal of January exams, so let's see how it goes.

We began by defining culture from a range of sources and the students were encouraged to look at a variety of definitions from a range of sources before using them to come up with their own definition of what culture is.


This video has a definition of culture and goes on to describe the elements of culture which is the second topic we looked at in lesson 1.

The students were asked to rank the elements and we then discussed their justifications, needless to say were did not reach a unanimous conclusion as was expected due to the complex nature of the term.  Most seemed to enjoy the discussion and the room was above with youngsters passionately explaining their reasoning for their ranks.

Having completed these tasks students were then asked to design their own models of culture- really to explain their idea of culture so that they could have a model to explain it in their 70 mark exam report.  We looked at some models like the cultural iceberg idea to give them some inspiration- for those who do not remember here it is 

 

 

 

We then went on to look at cultural change and how some cultures change due to new cultures entering the dominant, and how we get assimilation form some cultures in some nations.

We then went on to look at cultural landscapes; modern and traditional.

We found a pattern emerging where traditional cultures had more natural landscapes less changed over time, like the Native Americans and Inuit cultures and the nation of Bhutan, whereas big cities and 'scapes' landscapes; ethnoscapes, technoscapes, financescapes, commodityscapes, etc, tend to look the same whichever nation you are in.

Pupils were set the task of comparing a traditional and modern culture and landscape for their very first research task- now it's a wait and see till Thursday to see what they have produced.
This coming week we are moving on to threatened and vulnerable cultures- which is one of my favourite things of all to teach- must remember not to talk too much!!!!!!