Alex Lyne Fieldwork Award

In 2009, Alex Lyne, Scotch Old Boy and Founding President of the Geography Teachers’ Association of Victoria (GTAV) delivered an inspirational speech to members at a huge gathering which celebrated the 50^th Birthday of the Association. Alex was 99 years old.

In 2010, Alex Lyne was awarded the Distinguished Fellowship from the Institute of Australian Geographers for his contribution to Geography teaching in Victoria. In 2011 a new award was launched by the GTAV to honour our founding father and his enormous passion for Geograph.

Alex Lyne commenced teaching at Scotch in 1942 – how lucky for the boys that Alex abhorred the traditional method of underlining important facts in a textbook as the basis for studying Geography. Fieldwork in the local area and beyond was the central pivot of the teaching methodology employed by Alex and the boys loved it. As a classic exponent of the utilisation of fieldwork, Alex stands unrivalled. Careful preliminary research and preparation, practical guided execution and detailed supervised reportage were the essentials he identified for success.

It was the GTAV’ s intent to recognise its founding father by nature of an award given in his name – Alex chose to have an award which recognised excellence in the development of fieldwork in Geography. Primary and secondary teachers of Geography are invited annually to submit fieldwork tasks for the “Alex Lyne Fieldwork Award” which reflects “best practice” geography teaching and are appropriate and challenging for the target class or year level.

The Alex Lyne award recognises the importance of fieldwork in the school Geography curriculum. It is in the field that students learn skills and consolidate knowledge learnt in the Geography classroom. For many students, fieldwork is the highlight of their study of Geography.

It was with great pleasure that Alex Lyne was able to attend the 45^th GTAV Annual Conference to present the inaugural Alex Lyne Award to Sharon Jones from Distance Education Centre Victoria.

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Alex Lyne Fieldwork Award - Application Criteria

Available:	To all Geography educators.
Awarded:	Annually (assuming applicants meet criteria).
Awarded to whom:	A subcommitte, appointed by the Committee, reviews entries and recommends a winner to the full Committee for approval.
Focus of award:	Fieldwork created by educators, which provides students with challenging and creative field experiences. Submission will be required in digital/scanned and must include: the applicable year level and unit name an overview of the instructions and assessment criteria/rubric given to the students (no more than one page) a student's completed fieldwork report, if one is available.
Assessment criteria:	A panel of GTAV Committee members will assess each submission against the following criteria: best practice Geography teaching range of primary data collection techniques appropriate and challenging to the target year level.
Publication:	Publication of the fieldwork report may occur in Interaction Journal, online at the GTAV website and other GTAV publications.
Presentation:	The winner/s will be presented on stage at the Annual Conference with a framed certificate/plaque.

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