Geography Ambassadors Scheme

The prestigious Geography Ambassador scheme runs across the UK each year. This is a unique opportunity for students to take part in while gaining excellent employability skills.

Outline of Activity

Students initially receive training from the RGS and subsequently promote Geography to school pupils across Northern Ireland. Geography Ambassadors must arrange a visit to a school with a teacher and then make at least 5 school visits during the academic year (September - June) with each visit lasting approximately 1 hour. Ideally, students should visit more than one school during the scheme. School visits can take many forms but are designed to be interactive, fun and informative.

Learning Outcomes

• To complete Royal Geographical Society Geography Ambassador Scheme training;
• To design and deliver a range of Geographical activities for use with school pupils;
• To critically reflect on the process and identify ways by which future sessions could be improved;
• To demonstrate improved levels of confidence and competence along with improved verbal and written communication skills;
• To prioritise and manage their time and commitments.

Assessment Details

1. 100% attendance of full training programme with the Royal Geographical Society (5 hours).
2. Arrange and attend 5 school events/visits between September and June (minimum of 5 hours).
3. Maintain a log book that includes teaching materials, feedback, details of school visits and a short reflection (500 words) on each visit (minimum of 10 hours).

Level of Commitment

You must be fully trained by the RGS Geography Ambassador Scheme staff. If you have not attended the full training session you will not be able to take part in the scheme.

After training, you must arrange and attend 5 visits over the course of the academic year.

Each visit is anticipated to last between 45 and 60 minutes.

You must arrange a visit with the school teacher and you will need to fit in with both the school timetable and your own university timetable. You also must be well prepared for each class.

It is advisable to organise the visits as soon as you possibly can so that you do not have to cram events around the end of semester when there may be multiple assessment deadlines

Contact

Dr Paul McKenzie

Senior Lecturer

School of Geog & Environmental Scs

Coleraine

Room: G160

+44 28 7012 4628

sjp.mckenzie@ulster.ac.uk

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Dr Paul McKenzie

Education

• BSc Geography, Ulster University, 2001
• PGCE (Primary), Ulster University, 2002
• MSc Geographic Information Systems, Ulster University, 2003
• PhD Remote Sensing, Ulster University, 2008

Teaching interests

Paul teaches on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules on the geography and environmental science degree programmes.

He has acted as the Course Director for several postgraduate courses and is currently the Academic Lead for Education in the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences.

Paul is a Chartered Geographer (GIS) and a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society (FRGS).

Research interests

Paul is interested in the use of GIS and Remote Sensing to answer a wide range of geographical issues. His research focuses on the development of risk models for poverty mapping across large spatial scales.

Other interests include the use of remotely sensed data to map and monitor the environment and the fusion of remotely sensed datasets to extract features in urban and agricultural landscapes.

Paul has also a keen interest in developing the use of GIS in Schools. This work has received a range of national and European awards and Paul leads the “digital earth Centre of Excellence” at Ulster University.

Paul’s research uses spatial data and GIS to build area-based models that can be used to identify vulnerable communities.

He is currently working on the FAIR (Fuel and trAnsport poverty In the UK’s energy tRansition) project funded by CREDS.

The project examines the intersections between fuel and transport poverty, and low carbon energy transitions, in the UK.