The Young Geographer of the Year competition

The competition

As an annual competition, the Young Geographer of the Year was created by the Society to recognise the outstanding work of the next generation of geographers. It has been running for over 20 years and in 2020 over 10,000 young people took part!

Open to pupils from primary to A Level, the competition encourages thoughtful and creative answers to the competition’s theme which is set each year.

As our Education Account Manager, Darren Bailey said: “The Young Geographer of the Year is a fantastic competition to inspire the next generation of geographers. It's great to see so many outstanding ideas using mapping and OS is delighted to support the Society in delivering this exciting competition”.

Remapping our lives

As proud supporters here at OS, we can't wait to see this year's entries. With the deadline having been extended due to Covid-19, all entries have to be submitted by 1 October 2021.

For 2021's Young Geographer of the Year competition, the Society asked young people to create an annotated map which reveals how their lives have been shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic.

As described on their website, the Society is looking for maps which illustrate and describe:

• Which local human and physical features they and their family used during the pandemic
• Why some places were especially important to young people
• The places they couldn’t visit and why
• If the pandemic has led to them experiencing any new places in their local area
• How the pandemic changed their geographical understanding of their local area
• Any links which ‘stretch’ their maps to other places which were also important to them during the pandemic

The competition has four categories.

• Key Stage 2 (pupils aged 7-11)
• Key Stage 3 (pupils aged 11-14)
• Key Stage 4 or GCSE (pupils aged 14-16)
• Key Stage 5 or A Level (pupils aged 16-18)

Interested in learning more? Take a closer look at the competition on the Society’s website.