Teach17

A collection of hands-on demos, maps and challenges to bring the geography department to life at the open morning. Pick a handful to run brilliantly rather than spreading thin across all of them.

1. Build a river channel – a sand or gravel tray with running water so visitors carve their own valley and watch erosion, transport and deposition happen in front of them, no explanation needed.
2. Earthquake shake table – a simple platform visitors shake by hand under a model building, testing which designs survive and which collapse, then rebuilding to try and beat it.
3. Volcano eruption demo – a baking soda and vinegar model erupting on a loop at the table, with a thirty-second chat about real magma types and why some eruptions are gentle and others explosive.
4. Giant floor map challenge – a large map of the world or UK taped to the floor where visitors race the clock to place country or city cards in the right spot.
5. Weather station corner – a working anemometer, rain gauge and barometer visitors read for themselves and compare against the actual conditions outside the window.
6. Plate tectonics puzzle – a jigsaw of the continents visitors piece together to see how they once fitted as Pangaea, then split apart to show how it happened.
7. Make your own contour model – layers of card or foam stacked up to match a real contour map, turning flat lines on paper into a 3D landscape visitors can hold.
8. Ecological footprint quiz – a short interactive quiz working out how many planets visitors’ lifestyles would need, a simple hook into a bigger conversation about sustainability.
9. Sediment sorting jar – sand, gravel and water shaken in a sealed jar and left to settle, showing visually how rivers and coasts naturally sort material by size and weight.
10. Satellite spot-the-place – recent satellite imagery on a screen where visitors guess the location, mixing famous landmarks with the local area for a nice surprise.
11. Coastal erosion tray – a sand and water tray where visitors test different groyne or sea wall designs against wave action, seeing which coastline holds up.
12. Geography trivia leaderboard – a live high score chart running all morning, giving people a reason to swing back past the stand and try to beat their score.
13. Student fieldwork and project showcase – posters or screens of the strongest student investigations, with the students themselves on hand to talk visitors through them.
14. Extreme weather and climate wall – real images and data from hurricanes, droughts and flooding events, each with a short explanation of the geography driving it.
15. Population pyramid building – blocks or magnetic pieces visitors stack to build population pyramids for different countries, comparing the shapes and what they reveal about a nation.
16. Careers wall with real pathways – actual alumni stories showing the route from GCSE or A-level geography into apprenticeships, degrees or jobs, ideally with a QR code linking to short video clips.
17. Build a glacier station – ice blocks with grit frozen inside, dragged across a soft surface so visitors see exactly how a glacier scratches and carves the land beneath it.