What it’s all about

London 2012 is over, but how might we continue to teach themes related to the Olympic Games, asks Alan Parkinson.

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London is closed for at least a year, as venues are dismantled and the athletes’ village is converted to housing. This will be followed by “regeneration” until 2030, so the park could remain a relevant issue for case studies on sustainability, carbon reduction, as well as waste and water management for decades to come.

The housing areas are designed to be as energy efficient and environmentally sustainable as possible. Students could be challenged to design their own eco-friendly houses, and see if they have included all the planned features of these neighbourhoods.

Google Earth has 3D renderings of the main Olympics venues. Collect the Olympic stories of colleagues and students and add them to annotated placemarks.

Lots of data were generated about the relative successes of countries’ athletes compared with statistics such as gross domestic product and population. The Royal Geographical Society produced a unit looking at the geography of medals.

Look at the Ordnance Survey’s medal maps for 2012. Is there a local medal- winner who could be invited into school? And remember there are always the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.

What else?

See Google’s TES Resources profile for mapping activities and more. bit.lyGoogleTES

TES partner Ordnance Survey shares more activities to get students excited about maps. bit.lyOrdnanceSurveyTES

See Ordnance Survey’s medallist maps. bit.lyOlympicsMedalMap and the one for Paralympics champions: bit.lyParalympicsMedalMap.