Two annual RGS competitions were launched earlier today.
The Young Geographer of the Year is the Royal Geographical Society's annual geography competition for students, recognising the outstanding work of the next generation of geographers.
With its age ranges spanning the primary years to A Level, the competition encourages thoughtful and creative responses to a new theme each year.
Schools are encouraged to run their own in-house competitions before submitting their top 10 entries to the international competition. The
Young Geographer of the Year Award has been running for over 20 years, and each year thousands of children from across the world take part.
The Rex Walford Award is a more recent award.The
Rex Walford Award is for trainees or teachers in the first six years of their career, including students enrolled on a PGCE, SCITT, Teach First and School Direct, alongside ECTs and other colleagues in early career stages.
The award was named after Rex Walford. Rex was a teacher, a natural enthusiast, a leading international name in geography education, a long-serving Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and one of the first group of Chartered Geographers. He supported the Royal Geographical Society in many ways over more than 25 years and was also a former President of the Geographical Association.
Reflecting the late Rex Walford’s passion for training new geography teachers to inspire their students in their subject, it is awarded for the best set of teaching resources and lesson plans developed on the same theme as the
Young Geographer of the Year competition.
The theme for both of this year’s competitions is:
From Source to Sea.Let’s explore the world’s river systems
If you want to have your students enter the YGOTY, here are the details:
Rivers are the lifeblood of our planet, carrying water, nutrients and energy across vast distances. They sustain communities, support wildlife, and shape the landscapes we depend on to live. From the smallest stream to the widest river, these flowing waters connect mountains to oceans and people to nature.
They remind us that a sustainable and thriving environment is not just a resource, but a responsibility that we all share. As we learn more about the world’s rivers, we also understand that it is our duty to protect them for future generations.
As they transport freshwater across continents, sustaining ecosystems, wildlife, and the billions of people who rely on them for drinking water, rivers also shape our landscapes through erosion and deposition.
Carving valleys, forming striking features, creating fertile floodplains ideal for farming and influencing settlement, rivers provide physical boundaries between places and have also facilitated the growth of many of the urban areas we inhabit today.
Rivers play a key role in the global water cycle, carrying rainfall from source to sea and helping to regulate climate. They provide transportation opportunities, trade routes, tourism, recreation and sustain the lives of a wide range of species, supporting fish, birds, mammals, and countless aquatic organisms.
But rivers can also be a source of conflict: where water is a shared commodity ‘water wars’ can be common. When flood management or hydroelectric power produced by dams happens upstream, dire consequences can fall on countries located downstream.
And who owns this water? Industry and the misuse of rivers can lead to pollution and the degradation of river ecosystems, threatening both wildlife and the communities that depend on rivers to live.
Flooding is a big issue, and the management of rivers to predict, mitigate and prevent the impacts of flooding is essential for protecting communities, safeguarding ecosystems, and reducing long‑term environmental and economic damage.
Show us what you know about rivers
We invite you to create a poster (or Esri StoryMap for KS5) that explores rivers, showcasing the processes that shape them, the features they create, and the many ways they are used by both people and nature.
We are looking for eye-catching, creative and informative posters and StoryMaps that delve into topics such as energy production, conflict, ecosystems, sustainability, trade and more.
We want to see you demonstrate your understanding of why our rivers are so important.
Your posters and StoryMaps should think about themes across human and physical geography.
For those teachers wanting to enter the Rex Walford Award, here are the details:
Remember that the Rex Walford Award is for trainees or teachers in the first six years of their career, including students enrolled on a PGCE, SCITT, Teach First and School Direct, alongside ECTs and other colleagues in early career stages.
We are interested to see lesson plans and accompanying resources that link directly to the curriculum and encourage students to think about any of the following:
- A range of named rivers, showcasing the processes that shape them, the features they create, and the many ways they are used by both people and nature.
- Curriculum topics such as energy production, conflict, ecosystems, sustainability, trade and more – we want to see how your resources help young people to understand why our rivers are so important.
- Themes across human and physical geography.
- At least two lesson plans
- Resources to accompany those lessons
Check the website for all the information by following the links....
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