Kirsten Somerville
PhD Candidate in Education
k.somerville.1@research.gla.ac.uk
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6927-518X
Research title: Earth Writing: Creative Pedagogies in Geographical and Environmental Education
Research Summary
My research explores the development of creative pedagogies in geographical and environmental education, through a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of educational journal and magazine articles published between 1972 and 2022. I am particularly interested in how literature, creative writing and other forms of storytelling have been used to support learning about the Earth in different times, places, and disciplines, and the implications for educational practice in an age of planetary crisis.
Supervisors
Grants
School of Education Conference Support [£500], University of Glasgow, 2024
Visualise Your Thesis Competition, First Place Travel Grant [£1000], University of Glasgow, 2024
Digital Humanities Summer School Bursary [£174], Royal Holloway, University of London, 2023
Three Minute Thesis Competition, Second Place Travel Grant [£500], University of Glasgow, 2022
SGSSS 3.25 Doctoral Studentship, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), 2021-2024
Conference
Somerville, K. (2024, August 24-29). Poetic pedagogies in geographical and environmental education [Paper presentation]. International Geographical Congress (IGC), Dublin, Ireland.
Somerville, K. (2024, August 7-9). 50 years of environmental storytelling in education [Paper presentation]. Asia-Norway Environmental Storytelling (ANEST) Network Conference, Stavanger, Norway.
Somerville, K. (2023, December 5-7). Ocean literacy in Scotland [Paper presentation]. Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Annual Science Meeting (MASTS ASM), Glasgow, UK.
Somerville, K. (2023, July 13-14). Ecopedagogy, geopoetics, and critical-creative praxis: Elisée Reclus' radical geography [Paper presentation]. Ecologies in Practice Conference, London, UK.
Teaching
Widening Participation
- Top-Up Programme
- Summer School (Geography and Earth Science)
Student Learning Development
- Writing and study advice (Arts, Social Sciences, International)
- [X]position (disciplinary and interdisciplinary mentoring)
- Let's Talk About [X] (interdisciplinary mentoring)
- Transition to Glasgow (Understanding the Human-Nature Relationship)
Additional Information
Qualifications
- MRes Human Geography, University of Glasgow, 2017
- MA French and Geography, University of Glasgow, 2014
Professional Recognition
- Recognising Excellence in Teaching, Associate Fellow (RET AF)
Professional Memberships
- Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (UK and Ireland), Member
- British Society for Literature and Science, Member
- National Association for Environmental Education, Student Member
- Royal Geographical Society, Associate Fellow
- Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Student Member
- Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society, Post Graduate Member
- Scottish Association of Geography Teachers, Student Member
- Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, Member
Engagement Activities
- Winner of University of Glasgow Visualise Your Thesis competition, 2024
- Co-organiser of Creative Methods in Education for Sustainability reading group, 2023-
- Presenter at University of Glasgow This PhD Life symposium, 2022-23
- Speaker at Scottish Centre for Geopoetics Conversation on Education and Geopoetics, 2022
- Runner Up of University of Glasgow Three Minute Thesis competition, 2022
- Contributor to University of Glasgow PGR Blog, 2022-
Peer Review
Exclamat!on: An Interdisciplinary Journal