Book Review

by Paul Ganderton

Poulton P. 1997. Exploring Europe's Environment: Teachers' Notes. Earthscan. pp 129.ISBN 1 853834 42 4. £19.95.

These resources are some of the first to be produced utilising the Dobris Assessment. Those volumes (reviewed in TEGNews) are excellent sources of information but hardly accessible to the average student. Here there is an attempt to use these data and add more from the WWF. From all the material presented in the report only four areas are chosen (presumably for their immediate impact on the maximum number of school students): waters and rivers; coasts and seas; forests and urban areas. With most teachers' texts there is some structure to each part but one is presented here with a pot pourri of ideas. There are introductory activities to set the scene on the four areas. There are numerous ideas for practical work where everything has been worked out from aims to follow-up. In addition each activity is linked to the National Curriculum and to key cross-curricular themes (IT being a key one). To assist, there are some teachers' notes at the beginning of key sections to provide background information for the less confident. Photocopiable resource sheets, where needed, are included in the text. To add to this there are two data discs which allow students, using the software included, to gather and manipulate data.

This is a remarkable attempt to cover all bases from basic ecology to cross curricular thinking. Each activity would suit a range of secondary students with little modification. It should be on every teacher-training library shelf as well as in field centres and school/personal collections.