Dr Paula Owens FRGS

Pleased to announce a Silver Award from @The_GA for our book 'Teaching Primary Geography'. 🌍 #primaryteacher #geographyteacher Written with @StephenScoffham & published by wonderfully supportive @BloomsburyEd this 2nd revised edition will help you plan & teach. 🌏

If you want a practical example of why this fund is bullshit, I have one from the River Roding. The Roding has billions of litres of sewage entering it illegally every year & the EA has refused to prosecute a single one. Separately, our volunteer River charity has been campaigning to restore the channel of the river through Ilford golf course & create a wetland. A large river charity (who will remain nameless) told us they could help us get funding for the restoration: great, we thought. They were awarded tens of thousands of pounds from the water company fine fund & instead of actually restoring the river, they spent it (without consulting us) on staff time & consultant costs to produce a *report* about restoring the river. This report will then sit on a shelf somewhere and meanwhile the sewage still illegally enters the river & the river channel is still not restored. Our volunteers were forced to give up their free time & rely on local donations (a fraction of the amount spent on the report) to begin the restoration work as best we could ourselves. The system is utterly broken and our rivers are paying the price.

@BlencathraTim @FieldStudiesC @glocky9 @AireyAndy @fellranger1 @Hazel_Bank @Mounta1n_Mike @RathboneKeswick @Pastpreservers @VisitEden @SueTownsend3 @Pro_Geographer @PeteBarron2 @PaulKingstonITV @EdenSwimmer Gorgeous!

First visit up the Glenderaterra valley #LakeDistrict since I retired from @FieldStudiesC 2022 and 21 years since I went up with a school group 2005 ! Tempus fugit 😆 Forgot how peaceful it was ! @glocky9 @AireyAndy @fellranger1 @Hazel_Bank mostly on blencathratim.bsky.social 👍

@Map_Addict @GeogShanique @RobboGeog Congratulations both 🥳👏👏

So happy that @GeogShanique and I won this award as it cements our time together in Istanbul and now we are both in different countries in South America and thank you to @RobboGeog for collecting it on our behalf!

Thank you @LNER for a smooth trip into London tonight. On time. Clean and comfortable, lovely happy bubbly staff and great food. It’s certainly perked up a long travel route today.

@TPExpressTrains Thank you Chloe

If you're travelling on our Class 185 services, First Class with be located in either carriage C or carriage G, if this service was running with six carriages catering may of been located in the first three carriages. If you would like to log a formal complaint regarding this you can do so here: railhelp.co.uk/tpexpress/make… ^Chloe

@TPExpressTrains hello are you not having any snacks available on the current train to Doncaster? Just arrived Sheffield and paid extra for 1st to get food - nothing? I had to move carriages when I was all set up to get work done too - can you shed any light please?

@TPExpressTrains Manchester to Cleethorpes - I got in at Manchester last coach with a 1st class ticket but no sign of food or drink then we were asked to move to from carriages - they had food! I saw trolley get off at Sheffield - not even a cuppa.

@Primageographer Hi Paula, which service are you travelling on please? ^Chloe

It is almost unbelievable that the government is on the brink of allowing the water companies to scam the British people *once again* by letting them get away with serious criminal offences without any actual plan & commitments for fixing illegal outfalls. I will use one of the most polluting outfalls on the Roding to illustrate why this is a terrible idea. The aptly named ‘Cascades’ combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharges almost every time it rains (even lightly) for more than a few hours. It discharges more than 400 hours per year, the majority of which hours of spilling are completely illegal. Worst of all, my testing of the outfall over the past year has shown that the volume (over 80 litres a second) and concentration (up to 50ppm ammonia) means this CSO is highly damaging, effectively turning the whole river into a sewer for over half a mile downstream. What will be the effect of letting Thames Water off fines for this illegal outfall? 🧵

Fly-tipping = serious illegal offence & householders whose rubbish is tipped in this way often traced & held accountable. Surely if we pay polluting water companies to dispose of sewage & know they pollute we are complicit? Grounds to not pay for sewage bill? @Feargal_Sharkey

“Sewage pollution is at record levels, companies are staggering under debts of £60bn accrued in part to pay shareholder dividends of £78bn and infrastructure has been left to rot.” theguardian.com/environment/20…

Horrified as granddaughter may not be able to attend her leaving prom - ‘not enough points’. She’s never been excluded. This is a carrot eg attendance & stick eg using toilet in lessons. She already struggles with school & so upset. Disproportional #safeguarding @SwaleAcademies

Wonderful resource from @Natures_Voice - great for fieldwork to get children involved mapping arrivals month by month using eg Merlin App in school grounds & researching where they have likely travelled from. -#fieldwork . #geographyteacher rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wild…

A photo of Iran’s bombed schoolgirl graveyard went around the world. Was it real, or AI? (Spoiler- Ai said it was false but it was real.) Why #CriticalThinking matters more than ever in our manipulated world. #GeographyTeacher theguardian.com/global-develop…

Revealed: the world’s worst mega-leaks of methane driving global heating #climatecrisis #geographyteacher theguardian.com/environment/20…

Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from just 32 fossil fuel firms, study shows #climateCrisis #geographyteacher theguardian.com/environment/20…

Just tried to log complaint with @CCWvoice - ‘independent voice for water consumers’ - but since complaint is about dumping #sewage in sea, I can’t as it’s one of many categories of complaint that doesn’t count. 🤔#WaterScandal @Feargal_Sharkey

Teaching about #ClimateChange is tricky - not least in understanding the facts, processes & terminologies. Latest @the_GA downloadable ‘In the Know’ guide will equip you with the basics. #primaryteacher portal.geography.org.uk/shop/view/P978…

New @The_GA #geography #CPD pack with ideas to use whether you have 15 min in a staff meeting or a whole morning. #ClimateChange in your Curriculum has glossary & guidance for coherence between geography & science, citizenship Eng & maths. #primaryteacher portal.geography.org.uk/shop/index?utm…

Not only are is the UK one of the most nature depleted countries in the world (bottom 10%) public only has access to 25% of England’s woodlands? How near & accessible are woods where you are? #geographyteacher #enquiry theguardian.com/environment/20…

In all fairness @SouthernWater did come & look at their stopcock 8 months after asking them. Verdict - they couldn’t fix it but they’d be back. That was 2 months ago. So who is the criminal here? A pensioner behind with bill paying for service he doesn’t get? Or these polluters?

I know a lovely man, nearly 76, deeply upset by sewage releases on his local beach by @SouthernWater & still waiting for them to fix their stopcock to his house 10 mnths on despite requests. He’s behind with water rates & upset to get this today. @horton_official @Feargal_Sharkey