I saw this story develop this morning via twitter. Andy Pag is 13,500km into the inspiring Biotruck Expedition attempting to travel around the world emitting less than 2 tonnes of CO2, and discovering how other people are cutting their footprint. I enjoy seeing his updates on twitter, then this morning his arrest in the Indian city of Ajmer unravelled live on the internet.
This fourth entry in Digital Explorer’s Google Earth gallery is where it all started with a study of urban land use in Marrakech with pupils from Eastbury Comprehensive in 2006 on the Toubkal ‘06 expedition.
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The use of Google Earth and remote blogging received an Innovative Geography Teaching Grant from the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). |
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This work is also held up as a national case study by BECTA’s Next Generation Learning project. |
Download the Google Earth tour – Marrakech Land Use
You will need Google Earth to view the tour. If you don’t have Google Earth, you can download it for free:
Contact Digital Explorer, if you would like to make a Google Earth tour for your expedition or fieldwork.
The third entry in Digital Explorer’s Google Earth gallery features educational videos made during the E-Base Goes Live Expedition. More educational resources about Antarctica can be found at 2041’s Education Site.
Download the Google Earth tour – Antarctic Education Videos
You will need Google Earth to view the tour. If you don’t have Google Earth, you can download it for free:
Contact Digital Explorer, if you would like to make a Google Earth tour for your expedition or fieldwork.
This is the second entry in a series of expedition based Google Earth tours from Digital Explorer. We will be publishing a new tour everyday for the next couple of weeks. The E-Base video story Google Earth tour allows you to follow the E-Base Goes Live Expedition day-by-day with geo-located videos, as the team work to put up wind turbines in Antarctica.
Download the Google Earth tour – E-Base Video Story
You will need Google Earth to view the tour. If you don’t have Google Earth, you can download it for free:
Contact Digital Explorer, if you would like to make a Google Earth tour for your expedition or fieldwork.
This is the first tour in the Google Earth Expedition Gallery from Digital Explorer. Follow the team from Digital Explorer, npower and 2041, as they find about life in Antarctica during their time on King George Island on the E-Base Goes Live Expedition in March 2009.
Download the Google Earth tour – Living in Antarctica
You will need Google Earth to view the tour. If you don’t have Google Earth, you can download it for free:
Contact Digital Explorer, if you would like to make a Google Earth tour for your expedition or fieldwork.
Geographical Magazine is putting together a short feature in which experienced expeditioners offer tips to those planning their first expedition in the October issue, as a run-up to the annual Explore Conference at the Royal Geographical Society.
Mine are…
What is your top tip for those planning an expedition?
Integrate your communications and education plans from the outset. You have the ability to inspire a huge range of people to make a difference.
What item do you always take with you on an expedition?
Satellite communications kit. It’s a real joy to be able to share an expedition in real-time with an audience back home.
Get the October issue or come along to Explore to find out more.
Also see the January article on Digital Explorer.
There has been a lot in the press recently about the campaign for the reactivation of the Society’s multidisciplinary research projects to greatly advance geographical science and knowledge (for more information see the Beagle Campaign’s website). The campaign has come about because the Society is perceived to be overly focused on funding other people’s research and is not taking a lead in putting its own multi-disciplinary teams in the field to reveal much needed information about our ever changing world.
So how do these two approaches fit with the exploration philosophy held by Digital Explorer. We believe that exploration, expeditions, field projects – call it what you will – should have four main steps.
Explore and go out into the world to seek new information and knowledge that is critical to advance our understanding of the world and how best humankind can enjoy and conserve the planet and its diverse peoples, species and environments.
Discover through the proper application of research methods as well as incorporating the wealth of indigenous knowledge into our understanding. Exploration is not just about travel, but a journey or field-based project with real rigour.
Share your findings with others and more widely than a narrowly read tome, gathering dust somewhere. There are so many engaging and inspiring ways of doing this. A minimum target for any expedition should be to reach 1,000 people who you didn’t know before you left.
Engage others to act. Knowledge is all very well and good, but no amount of knowledge and research alone will encourage the wider public to change behaviours and attitudes, needed for sustainable future. Without engagement we will all be better informed, and yet still unmoved.
There are expeditions that do fulfil these criteria, operating outside the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society. Expeditions that fulfil not just a need for good field science, but also seek to stir emotions and inspire change. The Society is the only British institution in a position to coordinate truly inspiring scientific journeys and projects, that have at their core a desire to find out more about our planet, and to share these discoveries through powerful stories that speak to people on a emotional level.
If facts and figures could save the world, there wouldn’t be a need to have this conversation.
The HSBC Offscreen Student Expedition 2008 is now live. Please visit the site and see the great films and artwork that the students from the Middle East have been making, including an interview with Alan Duncan MP, which you can see above.
The HSBC Offscreen Student Expedition is a project run by the Offscreen Education Programme in partnership with Digital Explorer and seeks to create greater understanding between the Middle East and the UK. Currently, 8 young Middle Eastern artists are travelling across the UK, creating an authentic portrait of the country to share with their peers in Lebanon, Oman, Bahrain and the UAE.
Earthwatch are offering the chance for science and geography educators to get out into the field and work alongside scientists to create educational resources.
From the Earthwatch website…
This year we are pleased to be able to offer 24 fully-funded educator places on a variety of different Earthwatch projects. Working alongside leading scientists for a period of between one to two weeks, small groups of five to eight educators will take part in hands-on scientific research on facilitated projects which include Dolphins of Greece and Whales and Dolphins of the Hebrides.
See their educators section for more information. The closing date is 4 May.
Ben Saunders sets off tomorrow to attempt to be the fastest person to set a new world speed record from Ward Hunt Island to the Geographic North Pole. The current record was set in 2005 by a guided team using dog sleds and numerous re-supplies in a time of 36 days 22 hours. Ben’s expedition will be solo and unsupported and on foot.
Ben will be blogging daily from the ice on his website, please follow and support him as much as possible.
Watch a short clip by Ben to show what drives him and to get a feel for what it’s like to be alone on the ice.
Ben Saunders from Ben Saunders on Vimeo.
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