Wednesday 23 September 2009

Yr11

Thank you to those of you who had drafts of your Aims and Location sections ready for today. I will have a look at them and get them back to you for Monday. Those of you who didn't have them with you today need to get them to me as soon as possible... It is for your benefit, not mine!!

Drafts of your Method need to be completed ready for Monday - make sure that you have your folders with you please!

Yr10 VEl Homework

A reminder that your homework for this week is to watch one of the Urban Earth videos from an LEDC city (and perhaps re-watch the London one), and to write a comparison between the city you choose and London, as seen in the videos.... What are the similarities? What are the differences? Make a note of anything particularly interesting you notice too. That's to be done in your books for Tuesday p1.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

Urban Earth

Having spent time last week looking at functions of settlements and the settlement hierarchy, my Yr10 group started this morning's lesson with Dan Raven-Ellison's Urban Earth: London video...

This is Dan's explanation of the Urban Earth project, taken from the website:

"URBAN EARTH is is a project to (re)present our urban habitat through a series of walks. At its heart URBAN EARTH is a story of adventure. Not the kind of adventure that is untouchable, but one that we can step into as soon as we step out of our front doors. URBAN EARTH is about exploring the spaces in which we live.

Starting and ending in fields, the rules of the URBAN EARTH are to start and end in green countryside. The route is not decided by places of fickle and biased interest, but up hidden ridges of inequality and through the most densley populated and urban of city space(s). "

If you want to watch the London video again, or have a look at some of the other videos, they are available at www.urbanearth.co.uk, and you can find many of the photos from the walks on Urban Earth's Flickr page.

Will you be the first person to leave a comment telling me where in the world this picture was taken?!

Photo credit: Urban Earth, via Flickr

Thursday 17 September 2009

The winning facts...

Well done Year 10, for coming up with some excellent facts....

The ones I particularly liked were Jake's, about the Mississippi flowing backwards, and Grace's, about the longest place name in the world...

According to Grace's source,
Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihi-
maungahoronuku pokaiwhenuaakitanarahu
, a hill in New Zealand, is the place with the longest name, and at 85 letters it is certainly a pretty good contender. I've just found another website, however, which reckons that Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayama-
hadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasath
arn
amornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit in Thailand is actually the winner....

Either way, they both put Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch to shame!!


Wednesday 9 September 2009

Year 10 Homework

The first part of your homework is to cover your book with a geographical theme.

The second part of your homework is to leave a comment on the blog, with an interesting geographical fact. Do your best to tell me something I don't know already... There might be a prize for the most interesting fact!

To leave a comment, you need to click on the "Comments" button at the bottom of this post. Type your comment, and then enter the "captcha". You should not need to have a Google account to leave a comment (although it is useful to have one anyway). Your comment will not appear straightaway, as they come to me to be moderated first, but I will make sure I check regularly and publish them as soon as I can. Please make sure that you are writing in "proper" English (ie nt txt spk), and also, put your FIRST NAME (not your surname, although if there are two people in your group with the same name, the initial of your surname as well would be helpful), and if you are in my group VEl and for Miss Bradford's group LBa in your comment.

Year 11 - Burbage

A few reminders about Monday:

- You need to be ready to leave the layby at 9.00am.
- We should be back at school by 4.30pm.

- You will need: pencils, a packed lunch, water, waterproofs, suncream...
- A camera will be useful.

- You need to be prepared for all weathers, and be aware that the weather in Swanwick could be very different to the weather in the Burbage Valley! You will need walking boots or similar as we will be walking a reasonable distance .

Make sure you know who is in your group, and that you are clear about what you are measuring.

If you haven't brought your money and permission slip back yet (you know who you are!) I need it as a matter of urgency.

If you want to find out more about Burbage before we go, have a look at this post from last year, which has a map showing you where we're going and also has a couple of useful websites.

If you have questions about Monday, come and see me tomorrow or Friday, or email.

Welcome/welcome back!

Welcome back to my new Year 11 group, and welcome to the two new Year 10 groups.

It would be a very good idea to make sure that you visit the blog regularly, as summaries of lessons, useful websites, news stories and some of your homework tasks will be posted here.

Your first interesting website is one that I have only just discovered... Earth Snapshot describes itself as "A daily view of the planet" and has some great satellite images... I particularly like this one of Hurricane Fred from yesterday: