Teaching Geography: What Geography?Author(s): Andrew KirbySource: Area, Vol. 12, No. 1 (1980), pp. 85-86Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20001562 .

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Annual Conference 85

Resource management The Lancaster conference proved to be a most productive one for those interested in resource management. In many papers in a variety of sessions resource management issues were discussed. The two modules specifically devoted to the subject were not especially well attended, if only because of strong counter-attractions elsewhere. The first module had three papers on a theme of water quality management and the second

was a discussion of some of the problems of teaching resource management. In the first of the three papers, J. Ellis (Middlesex Polytechnic) discussed some of the conflicts in managing urban catchments. Although usually under the control of a single authority, urban catchments see a sharp conflict between water quality objectives and those of ensuring rapid surface water runoff. Two solutions were discussed, but the implication has to be drawn that water quality will always take second place to runoff as a manage ment objective in urban areas. An upland catchment developed for urban water supply was the setting for a paper by D. Kay (Lampeter) and A. MacDonald (Leeds). Theirs was an examination of rates of bacteria concentration and decay as an index of water quality. Their findings, which cast doubts on the accuracy of much previous work, suggested that decay was slower than expected. This would either reinforce the policy of excluding public access and resti ictions on agriculture in such catchments or encourage the provision of purification and development of multiple land and water use in catchments. The final paper by J. Coppock (Edinburgh) was an overview of the evolution and currently distinctive nature of the water industry in Scotland. The local control of water in Scotland appears to be neither better nor worse than the all purpose authorities in England and Wales but serves to remind us of the dangers of generalizing and including Scotland with England and Wales.

The main conclusions from the discussion on teaching resource management were the very varied nature of the subject and the number of different courses that contained resource management components. Specific courses in resource management appear to be commoner in polytechnics and colleges of higher education. For the future, it

was decided that further resource management sessions should be organized, but reflecting the richness of this year's conference, in conjunction with other study groups rather than independently.

John Bradbeer Portsmouth Polytechnic

Teaching geography-what geography? There was a certain symmetry to this session; it took as its theme a question, and the speakers all emphasized the importance of inquiry within the educational process. Of the five speakers, G. Olsson stated this argument most forcibly. Amidst his philosophi cal statements he urged that students should undergo what amounts to almost a ' delearning' experience, with questions replacing answers as the most valued vehicle

of teaching. As always his paper ranged widely across art and science, leaving one with the unusual frustration of having witnessed a speaker who possesses extraordinary power, yet whose thoughts are so complex that only detailed study and re-reading would do them justice. This problem was compounded by an explicit refusal to provide examples to flesh out his thesis; instead the audience were exhorted to enact his views-by asking questions.

The nature of inquiry resurfaced regularly throughout the morning. J. Silk and S. Bowlby examined different perspectives that can be incorporated into social and behavioural geography, stressing the phenomonological approach, and criticisms of the latter such as the Marxist critique. Some of those within the audience were critical of the individual student's ability to cope with alternative models and epistemologies; they foresaw that courses which required participants to question a particular model of the world might result in confusion rather than edification. Similar criticisms were levelled at J. Lewis, following his outline of various courses dealing with economic

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86 Annual Conference

development. Some in the audience were upset at his lack of enthusiasm for geographi cal texts, and a preference for African and Latin American novelists: some were also critical of the speaker's belief that on the one hand third-year students are capable of differentiating between different models of underdevelopment, and on the other that courses can proceed on an individual basis (via reading) rather than in a group (via lectures and instruction).

The overwhelming conservatism of the geographical community is revealed clearly at meetings such as this, a point stressed by A. Blowers, who questioned the ability of a subject like geography to survive in the coming decade. He also underlined the importance of inquiry, but notably in the context of interdisciplinary study and a far greater commitment to the basic principles of education as they are demonstrated in institutions such as his own (the Open University).

The limitations of the departmental system in a time of falling student numbers and increasing social tension may well be thrown into increasingly sharper relief. Nonethe less, the existing limitations to educational aspirations were well revealed during this session: Lewis in particular identified the ways in which departmental policies and commitments (to regions, joint courses, lectures or tutorials, and particular examina tion systems) ride roughshod over pedagogic intentions. To some degree, this is the challenge facing geography (and higher education in general) at present-not simply what is taught, but rather the existence of some particular commitment to education as an activity. This session was not well attended: comments from the floor were often trite and unthinking. Although the Institute has a primary interest in research, it is unfortunate that attempts to think about (and even to research into) the teaching process receive so little general support.

Andrew Kirby University of Reading

Geography and energy At a Conference where both the Presidential Address and the distinguished guest's lecture emphasized the need for geographers to re-establish their concern with resources in general and with energy resources in particular, it was ironic that the modules devoted to Geography and Energy were among the most sparsely attended. An earlier interest by British geographers in energy questions appears to have declined even faster than the decline of the country's coalfields and the relevance of energy variables to location and regional development issues in the period of easy and cheap energy supplies in the twenty years prior to 1973. In this period, however, geographers behaved little differently from other social scientists for whom energy questions also became unworthy of serious study. Yet, in the last six years under the stimulus both of the changed world order in respect of energy and of a major SSRC initiative in the funding of energy research, there has been a significant revival of academic interest in energy questions-except amongst geographers who have failed to seek any of the energy research funds made available by the SSRC as a high priority, because of the national and international issues involving the role of energy in the future of the world's economic, political and social system.

It is thus hardly surprising that the call for papers in the energy sessions was so dismal. Only three papers were offered and all these were concerned with the impact of energy developments on the environment-in terms of their ecological and planning impacts. As they were not concerned per se with the energy issues of North Sea oil and gas or the north-east Leicestershire coalfield or with nuclear power, they could just as easily have been presented in one or other of the existing IBG study group sessions.

In the absence of the offers of any papers on energy as such, the remaining module was devoted to a discussion of geography and energy. G. Manners (UCL) in opening the discussion, suggested that attention be given to consumption and demand issues on which he thought the energy industries would be more willing to co-operate and

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