GoGeo

The Beginner's Guide to UK Geography is a simple tour of the main territorial units used in National Statistics work.

Use the guide to obtain basic facts on each type of area, as well as more specialist information on topics such as boundary change.

Many pages provide access to area names and codes listings, and there is also a separate maps menu.

Whether you want to know the difference between a ward and a parish, how many Westminster constituencies there are in the UK, or simply the name of the longest river in Wales, the Beginner's Guide to UK Geography is your ideal reference source.

Note: The maps in the Beginner's Guide are in pdf format. Most users already have the Acrobat Reader software required to view pdf files. If you do not have it, you can download it from the Adobe website.

What are GeoPods?
GeoPods are short instructional videos that can be used to complement formal teaching, or as a useful revision resource. The podcasts provide comprehensive instructions on how to use common pieces of field equipment and explanations of appropriate field techniques.

Who can use the GeoPods?
The GeoPods were initially set up by Dr Claire Jarvis of The University of Leicester as an internal learning resource, but are now being made available to the wider scientific community.

How do I use the GeoPods?
The GeoPods are available in a number of formats and full instructions on how to download and use them can be found HERE.

To have a look at some of the geopods available click the format you want from the tables below and save the file to your computer or open it to view it straight away.

Field Technique - Atmospheric Variables

How to measure air temperature and relative humidity using a whirling hygrometer	MP4	WMV
How to measure wind-speed using different types of anemometers	MP4	WMV
Using TinyTag Extra temperature and relative humidity data logging sensors	MP4	WMV

Field Technique - Soil Properties

How to use the portable water conductivity and soil activity meter	MP4	WMV
How to measure dry bulk density	MP4	WMV
How to measure gravimetric and volumetric soil moisture	MP4	WMV
How to measure the infiltration capacity of soil	MP4	WMV
How to measure the organic matter content of soil	MP4	WMV
How to use a schmidt hammer	MP4	WMV
How to measure soil shear strength	MP4
How to determine soil texture: Finger assessment	MP4	WMV

Field Technique - Water Quality

How to measure the iron content of water	MP4	WMV
How to use the portable water conductivity and soil activity meter	MP4	WMV
How to measure the ammonia content of water	MP4	WMV

Survey Technique

Taking a direct height reading using the ClinoMaster	MP4	WMV
How to use a tilting level for surveying	MP4	WMV
How to use an abney level to measure the height of an object	MP4	WMV
How to use a vernier scale	MP4	WMV
How to set up and operate a tilting level	MP4	WMV
How to use an abney level to measure the angle of a slope	MP4	WMV
How to survey using a Total Station	MP4	WMV

Have you got any Podcasts you would like to share?
GoGeo! is setting up a GeoPod library. If you have any interesting content that you would to share then drop the GoGeo! team a message.

Who produced these GeoPods?
These GeoPods were produced by Dr. Claire Jarvis and Dr Jen Dickie of the Department of Geography at the University of Leicester. They were funded by the University of Leicester Teaching Enhancement Forum, and constructed in association with the JISC-GEES Impala 2 project and SPLINT (Spatial Literacy in Teaching & Learning) CETL.

The "Virtual Walkabout" archives contain a series of still, 2-dimensional photographic images that collectively try to express the experience of walking round an archaeological site or monument. The images are presented in their Virtual order from a given point of departure, and are connected by a series of moves, forwards, backwards, pan left, pan right, step left or step right. The user of a walkabout archive can replicate walking around an archaeological landscape: walking up an avenue, around a carved stone or from one site to another. In this way it is possible to use simple 2 dimensional images to imitate the experience of visiting an archaeological site.

Though based on a site, monument or landscape, the walkabout could also be used to express any series of relationships between images that exist on a single 2 dimensional plane, such as might be taken of buildings, artefacts or artwork.

Each walkabout consists of 3 sets of images at different resolutions: a small "thumbnail" image, a medium sized view and a full sized master copy.

In addition, the Virtual Walkabout includes a generator tool which can be used to generate walkabouts from any archaeological site, provided the images are arranged, processed and indexed as appropriate. The Walkabout Generator is supported by a short tutorial which is intended to encourage students to undertake their own simple fieldwork project and presents many of the common problems that fieldworkers face but which students often overlook.

This document is designed specifically to provide guidance for individuals and organisations involved in the creation, maintenance, use and long-term preservation of GIS-based digital resources.

It should be noted that although the overall emphasis is upon archaeological data, the information presented has much wider disciplinary implications.

The remote sensing resources on this site focus on practical aspects of accessing, visualising, and processing remotely sensed data. Sufficient links are provided for those interested in pursuing details of the science and technology of remote sensing. Information available on this site, however, is written for those who are interested in learning about working with satellite imagery. Although documents focus on issues of biodiversity conservation, they are applicable to a broad range of applications.

The CSISS offer several video clips produced from Dr. Sara Fabrikant's workshop, Map Making and Visualization of Spatial Data. The summer course introduced spatial information design and geographic visualization for the Social Sciences. Sessions covered principles of scientific visualization, graphic design and thematic mapping.

The CSISS also offer here several video clips produced from Dr. Art Getis' workshop, Spatial Pattern Analysis in a GIS Environment. The summer course introduced concepts of GIS and spatial pattern analysis in the Social Sciences. Sessions covered autocorrelation statistics, geostatistics and exploratory spatial pattern analysis.

Online learning and teaching materials are being developed on the e-MapScholar web pages. These will include a range of learning materials with interactive tools that will allow users to develop skills in the use of digital map data and knowledge of geo-spatial concepts under three areas: working with digital map data, data integration and data visualisation.

Case studies are available in Archaeology, Built Environment, Civil Engineering, Environmental Studies, Forestry, Geography and Geology.

ESRI have produced a virtual training campus which provides GIS-related training and education. Some free training courses are available.

An introductory guide to Geographical Information Systems for Publicc Health teams. This course was designed for the North West Primary Care Trust Public Health teams but could be adapted for other teams around the country.

This online course covers the basics of GIS, creating projects, adding data to a map, creating new data and generating an output, which will inform rather than confuse, users.

The course is based on ArcGIS.

Project Brief

The Geo-Refer project (University of Southampton) involves the creation and deployment of a digital library of learning resources targeted at social scientists whose primary discipline is not geography, but whose research requires them to use and link geographically referenced data. Geographical location provides a key mechanism for linkage between sources, for example between individual-level survey responses or health records and existing secondary data such as that provided by the census of population.

Further examples include sets of data for incompatible areal units and primary data collection using the global positioning system.

Methodologies

The online learning resources that we are developing will be highly modular and organized into four levels: principles, methodology, data and exemplar applications. These will be designed to be reusable, updatable, and will conform to the main educational technology interoperability standards. They will be delivered through the project's learning site in such a way that users can profile their own learning needs to obtain customised tutorial sequences through the principles, methods and datasets relevant to their own work, accompanied by relevant case study examples. In addition to authoring these materials the project team will be running geographical referencing workshops and will seek to assist researchers from a range of disciplines who can contribute to the pool of application examples.