Geography

Peak conditions for Snowdonia trip

Lower Sixth geographers visited Snowdonia and central Birmingham in preparation for their A level coursework projects.

In Birmingham, students looked at how the city centre has changed in recent years, taking a tour of the new library building and exploring the skyline from the rooftop gardens.

A walk along the canals allowed students to compare historic photographs with the current buildings and usage of the area, as they observed the most distinctive changes. The sun was shining in Snowdonia and students explored the glacial valley of Nant Ffrancon. They visited a distinctive roche moutonnée and walked up to the shores of Cwm Idwal. Students were awed by the scale of the glacial features and were able to clearly see the key geological elements of the case study.

The forests around Betws-y-Coed allowed students to practise their techniques to measure carbon in trees and calculate infiltration rates of soil.

Human rights competition honours for Perse students

Izzy Bevens and Joely Harrison (both Lower Sixth) enjoyed success in the HART Prize for Human Rights.

The competition, held by the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), challenged young people to examine and engage critically with human rights issues related to any of the countries in which the organisation works. She said she discovered HART from reading influential feminist geography book Half the Sky: How to Change the World by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

A regular actor in Perse productions, Izzy said: “I saw they had a creative competition, so I thought I could incorporate drama into it.

Izzy came third in the intermediate category (for ages 15-18) of the creative competition, while Joely was highly commended in the same section of the essay prize.

For her entry, Izzy filmed a short monologue contrasting the treatment and attitudes towards HIV carriers in Uganda and the UK from the firstperson perspective of a young woman with the virus in each country. “I had the idea after watching Rent and Tick, Tick… Boom!, which both have themes around HIV.

“It’s a hard-hitting subject and you can see how attitudes have changed in countries like the USA and the UK since the 1980s and 1990s. However, I did some research on what’s it’s like now for a person in Uganda with HIV and there is still a lot of discrimination and stigma around it. “I wrote a script and although I used some facts and figures, I wanted to talk as if I was a real person with HIV living in Uganda and then London.”

On coming third, she said: “I just didn’t expect it. I entered for the sake of gaining more knowledge in that area and I wanted to show that young people are interested and do care about issues that are happening thousands of miles away.”

Meanwhile, Joely focused on the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya people in Myanmar for her project.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh in 2017 following a crackdown by the government of the predominantly Buddhist country.

Joely’s entry took the form of a letter appealing to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to intervene in the situation.

She said: “I felt like this issue wasn’t in the news enough. No-one was noticing what was happening to these people and their schools have even been bombed by the Myanmar army.

“I just feel the UK has a responsibility to get involved, even though Myanmar isn’t part of the British Empire or Commonwealth anymore, because it’s such a horrible situation.”

Joely enjoyed carrying out the research and was pleased her work had been acknowledged by the competition judges.

She said: “I really like writing essays and going outside my subject, so it was nice to hear I’d been highly commended.

“I want to be a lawyer, especially involved in human rights and climate change, as I just think these are important issues we face at the moment.”

Fossil collection showcased at museum exhibition

An array of fossils found by Maito Shiode (Year 7) went on show at the University of Cambridge’s Sedgwick Museum.

Fourteen of Maito’s favourite fossils were on display in a special exhibition at Cambridge’s renowned earth sciences museum, including sponges, belemnites, a sea lily, a sea urchin, iguanodon and turtle bones Maito has found and collected over the years.

The exhibition highlighted the Sedgwick’s Gravel Hunters initiative, which aimed to show how gravel can be a treasure trove for small fossils. Maito recently visited the museum and met with curator Dr Rob Theodore, who helped him arrange his section of the display.

Maito has amassed a collection of around 1,000 artefacts in the last four years, largely found in gravel in his garden and at the Upper and the Prep, as well as the coasts of Norfolk, Isle of Wight and French Riviera.

He said: “I just find fossils very beautiful. I’m fascinated by their natural beauty, because no two fossils are the same. They are unique. Having these fossils makes me feel like I’ve got my own mini museum.”

Geography up for debate

This year’s Perse geography debating competition was the biggest to date with a whopping 36 teams and 100 students from Year 11 to Upper Sixth involved.

For the first time two teams of Year 11 students made it through to the semi-finals, dispatching a number of Sixth Form teams en route.

The final debate - ‘This house believes colonial superpowers should pay reparations for the damage they have inflicted’ - was won by Dominic O’Loughlin, Danny Petkov and Eduard Baroyan (all Lower Sixth).

GeogMeet presentations

Two groups of Perse students presented their findings on a range of material related to the A level curriculum at the Cambridge and District Geographical Association’s annual GeogMeet.

Students put proposals to the Geographical Association, which were accepted, refined with the assistance of experts from the University of Cambridge, and shaped into easily digestible presentations for a wider audience.

Peter Santarius and Edward de Ferrars Green (both Lower Sixth) explained how dendrochronology (the study of tree rings) can be used as a climate proxy, while Joely Harrison and Evelyn Marshall (both Lower Sixth) gave an overview of how bilateral flows of people cause interdependence between Laos and Thailand.