Norwich School is proud to have hosted the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in the East of England since 2019. Last year, we deepened our partnership with the launch of a new series of Youth Micro-Lectures on the theme ‘People, Planet, Partnership’, and we are excited to continue that series again this year. As before, we invited pupils in Years 10 to 13 from schools across the East of England to apply to give a short lecture on a topic of their  choice to a public audience including RGS Fellows and members. In November 2023, we were very pleased to offer six selected lectures by pupils from Diss High School, Hethersett Academy, Norwich School and Notre Dame High School. It was, as promised, a fascinating evening.

Below, pupils Nate Hockley, Julia Glason and Lucy Emms-Cossar from Notre Dame High School share their experience of the RGS Micro-Lectures.

Julia Glason
"My passion and enjoyment of Geography, and the reason it stands out to me as such an incredible subject, stems from its interconnectivity, not only to other areas of academic learning but to the day to day which allows me to fully immerse myself and delve deeper into topics beyond the classroom. This is accredited to its integrity in our modern world, its relevance in helping to understand current world a airs and its ability to better enable us to sculpt our future."

Nate Hockley
"Geography is definitely one of my favourite subjects, I find it connects really well with other subjects like chemistry when we learn about things like the water cycle, biology when we learn about food chains and forests and citizenship when we learn about things like human rights. From where our settlements are located to what gives a place its identity to our physical landscapes, geography has a significant impact on daily life, it's absolutely fascinating and that's why it's one of my favourite subjects."
 

Lucy Emms-Cossar
"For me, geography is one of the most important subjects in our globalised world: it can save lives in times of crisis or play a role in diplomatic processes before it gets to that extent. Personally what I find most engaging is the interconnection of human geography with history. We can explore past solutions to modern problems along with providing a context to the web of complicated issues that _ our earth today. School, however, is constrained by a set syllabus of things that have already happened with usually more focus on breadth over depth. The RGS Micro-lectures provided me with an opportunity to, along with friends and strangers alike, discuss current geographical issues at length and in great detail- something many of us wouldn’t be able to experience outside of University.

That is why we were so keen and excited to be able to participate in the RGS-NS micro lectures 2023 which was an amazing experience in which we were able to talk among experienced experts as well as other young people who share our love for the subject. Our topic “Indigenous Communities: Sustainability For the Future' was a really fascinating one to research and it was really interesting to delve into the lives of the Sámi people of Sápmi (Lapland) and how they were trying to tackle the erasure of their culture by the Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian governments, a subject some of us didn't personally know much about but were keen to gain more knowledge on. It also enabled us to uncover some of the challenges of moving forward with green energy, such as eco-colonisation, something rarely thought to be connected to the trend setters of counteracting global climate action; green and democratic Scandinavia"