Geography is all around us — in both our physical and human worlds.
As part of the Irish Secondary School Geography curriculum, students have to engage in two classroom-based assessments (CBAs).
The first of these — in 2nd Year, where students are aged 13-14 — is a Structured Inquiry titled: Geography in the News.
Geography in the News gives students an opportunity to engage with the world around them.
This learning experience takes place during class time over three weeks, and students then submit their final project.
It is a wonderful opportunity for students to focus on a Geographical event that interests them and create a project in a format that best highlights their understanding of it.
I designed this journal, for use with Pages for iPad, to assist students as they engage with their structured inquiry.
They are encouraged to use the journal to suit the chosen format of their final project.
It is flexible by design, and can be used as a planning guide, interactive journal, or as a portfolio.
They can delete pages they don’t need and can add extra template pages by tapping ‘+’ in the bottom left of the screen.
First, they research and draw conclusions about a real-life geographical event, as reported in the media.
To do this, students focus on these key geographical questions:
Who, what, where, when, how, and why?
They can submit their completed structured inquiry in any format or in a mixture of formats. This could include video, photo, maps, artwork, text, graphic design, infographics, animation, a podcast, music and more!
This provides students with lots of choice, allowing them to personalise the format of their chosen project.
Students can use pinboard pages to gather their research and ideas, and then use mind map template pages as they interpret and evaluate their data.
Inspired by the title, ‘Geography in the News’, the journal has a news and media theme. There are icons and template pages based on newspapers, radio, TV news shows, and podcasts.
Some of these pages include media placeholders, making it even easier for students to add images, screenshots, and videos to their project.
Once they have researched and gathered all their data, it's time for students to get creative as they present the information in their final project. They can showcase their chosen topic in any format or in a mixture of formats. This could include video, photo, maps, artwork, text, graphic design, infographics, animation, a podcast, music, and more!
Although I designed this journal for use with the Irish Secondary School Geography curriculum, it could easily be adapted to suit any context. Feel free to edit, add and delete pages or content to suit your classroom and your students. (To edit, tap the elements on each page and then tap ‘Unlock’.)
The Pages journal is attached below for download.
And, you can also download it here.
Or, maybe it will spark some ideas and inspiration for you to create your own learning journal with Pages for iPad.
I hope it’s helpful!
January 09, 2023
Eoin, I love the flexibility of this inquiry, it is such a creative way to assess student knowledge! Your guide and instructions for students is so helpful. And wonderful students are given a variety choices of media to show what they know.
Such a good model for assessment. Appreciate the Pages journal download!
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