Skip to Content

Our Changing Environment

Harnessing the Power of Maps and People

Image with the event title and two maps of Somerset Levels, asking viewers to compare the differences between the maps.

Our digital lives theme

What’s on offer?

The More than Maps project aims to inspire secondary school children of the power and importance of finding out more about our changing environment. We welcome you to join us in the Geography computer lab and lecture theatre to better understand local floods in Southampton and Somerset Levels. We will be using open access and free materials in our teaching. A team of geography researchers will be on hand to support the workshop and learn from attending geography teachers how we can further improve the materials to support you! 

The event is free to attend, with refreshments provided. 

What’s it about?

In 2014, record levels of rainfall were added to an already wet winter in one of England’s lowest lying land areas: the Somerset Levels. This workshop will showcase the variety of research methods that physical and human geographers use to study flood disasters such the 2014 flooding at Somerset Levels, and reflect on flood challenges local to Southampton. The activities will be tailored to provide a GCSE level case study of the flood event, examining its cause and impacts, and the physical and social drivers of these. We will spend the first hour in the brand-new geography computer lab, with remote sensing researchers leading the students through a flood mapping exercise. The second half of the session we will move to a lecture theatre to focus on human factors, exploring who is affected by flooding and why.

Who’s leading the event?

The event will be hosted and promoted by Southampton Geospatial with Dr Sien van der Plank leading the workshop. 

Open to

Young people aged 11-17 years and their teachers 

Of particular interest to

Of particular interest to GSCE Geography students. We are designing the workshop materials so that the content can hopefully be used as a case study. Students should also be able to use the simple mapping and stakeholder analysis tools for any further research and data analysis activities. 

Event Booking details

Please email Sarah Ryles at sarah.ryles@soton.ac.uk for more information or to sign-up your GCSE students. 

Event booking deadline

Booking will close if/when capacity is reached. Deadline: 20th October