Track Santa

Using Google Earth is great, and now thanks to some super clever people at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) they can track Santa on his yearly mission to please all the good children on the planet...none of you lot then.

Check out the promo video to find out more...



If this doesn't play (think it is a youtube vid) here is a screen shot explaining more, visit http://www.noradsanta.org/en/how.html on Christmas Eve to track Santa.

Merry Christmas

Mr. J.

Don't stop believing!

christmas decorations, a photo by seaside.girl48 on Flickr.

Merry Christmas to everyone from the geography department, and we will see you all in 2013. That year already doesn't sound as good as 2012!

For those that still believe, track Santa as he sets off on Christmas Eve. Watch him visit every corner of the globe live online, check later for information on how to do this...

Living Geography: Chasing Ice...

Living Geography: Chasing Ice...: Chasing Ice is a film I've been following the progress of for several months now. There was an early trailer which I blogged about, and the story of the film is interesting. A series of cameras were placed in remote locations overlooking areas of ice, and the time-lapse footage they captured shows the rapid rate at which some of the world's ice masses are disappearing. It all started in Iceland...

The filmmakers traveled all over the world and left the cameras secured in some of the world's harshest environments. The cameras were left in place for 3 years, with a picture taken every hour during the hours of daylight. It also seems that it has been shortlisted for an Oscar.
I'm going to try to get tickets for the showing at the Cambridge Arts Cinema. I used to go to the cinema often when I was younger, as I was a real film buff through my twenties and thirties... I mostly get to see cartoons these days...

You can download some useful STILLS for use in the classroom too....
Watch a trailer for the film below to get a taster:

ICELAND acceptance letters

To those of you who have received an acceptance letter onto the trip this weekend, please please please return the consent form at the bottom of the letter asap.  This confirms to me that you still wish to go and that your flight can be confirmed, exciting times!

I will assume that those students who have not returned the tear off slip by Thursday of this week (20th Dec) are no longer interested and the place will be re-allocated to a student on the reserve list in the new year.

See me if there's any concerns or you need/want to check anything.

Miss Whetstone

Y9 Climate and Change......

The presentations have started....

Please read the summary below and leave a comment about each others presentations.

Hopefully my Year 9 class will have completed their presentations by P1 on Monday morning. The task was to research future problems faced by the UK (and indeed the rest of the world) and design solutions to such problems. The first 4 groups who presented today set a high standard, drawing on current Geo-engineering methods and demonstrating excellent innovative thinking.

1. Emma and Bryony kicked off proceedings with a superb business pitch looking at a new "product" called e-tunnels. They would use excess floodwater to drive turbines and create clean energy, using our increased extreme rainfall in the UK to tackle the very problem that has caused such frequent heavy downpours (climate change). However if such a system did work, to end flooding, it would leave the giant turbines underground redundant! They also created a working model and placed a huge emphasis on the background facts about how much industry pollutes our world:

 "40% of the worlds pollution is created by factories..."

Therefore Bryony and Emma identified a market for their product, a great start girls, but will it be enough?

2. Next up was Brianna, Isobel, Pia and Saira who started the presentation with a clever cartoon depicting the globe as a melting ice cream cone! They started by introducing us to the global issues and highlighting the issues by quoting that:

"the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997"

So how did they suggest solving this problem? By relying on more renewable energy as part of our energy mix and also using bio-fuel to power our cars. They also wanted to preserve our "global lungs," by protecting the worlds forests. 

One controversial method was to replicate a volcano and how the ash released during an eruption can lower global temperatures. However as pointed out by someone in the crowd this would be very expensive and high risk!

Secondly they suggested using a system of mirrors floating in our atmosphere to reflect back the solar radiation. Some pupils questioned the strength of the mirror and the microscopic thickness. However the most exciting solution was to pump water into the atmosphere to generate more cloud cover to build upon the natural albedo effect that also reflects back energy. This would involve giant floating water pumps to spay at high pressure moisture into the atmosphere, an interesting concept...

3. Finally Emily and Bryony. M, suggested the most right wing approach: ban the sale of a second car to homeowners, thereby reducing CO2 emissions by half. They also promoted the use of car sharing lanes and would invest heavily in public transport networks to get people off the roads and onto rail services. This had everyone up in arms, yet the girls dealt with the questions well!

What did you think? Leave a message below and click on the comment icon....

Thanks for a great lesson...
Mr. J!

Letters to Home - Iceland Trip 2013

Hello all, letters have been posted out today confirming if you have a place on the trip... fingers crossed and believe us it took a long time to decide (we would love to take you all!)

Miss Whetstone and Mr Johnson

Iceland here we come...

Found this just to get people excited about the trip of a lifetime....



Hopefully this will inspire the lucky explorers to think about ways in which we will record our journey whilst there. We are looking for creative ideas, if you want to suggest anything that you think we should do to create a way of remembering those amazing landscapes, please drop in to speak to any of us in the department.

Mr J.

Humanities uniting....

Following a quick read of Friday's free digital edition of metro, I stumbled upon this article about a new mapping website looking at where the German bombs landed during the blitz. It is a clear combination of both History and Geography... who said there was a divide? It's amazing to see just the scale of the aerial attacks, lest we forget.....

Taken from bombsite.org, an interactive GIS map highlighting where all the German WWII bombs landed, can you guess this city?

The Geography Camp Dec '12

The Geography Camp Dec '12, a set on Flickr.

Mr J's Photos

The Problem Solving Equation...

Y8; into next year Miss Whetstone launches her Geography Challenge which is a superb chance to solve current issues within the world. This year we will encourage you to solve problems using this equation;

Just have a think about this for now, and try to come up with some geographical issues that you and your peers could solve with a little thought...

The Geography Collective 1

Thanks Alan Parkinson for this review below:

I worked my way up through the southern edge of the Peak District, and then crunched my way through the ice to Gradbach, which was just below Flash: the highest village in Britain, and home to the famous primary school where there was an apocryphal story about the height of the school meaning that staff members would need a mountain leadership certificate to supervise the playground.

We had the whole of the mill to ourselves, so I got settled into my room and set up some of the communal spaces. We had around 30 people booked in, and I welcomed the first arrivals and we got settled in for a weekend of exploration. Dan's arrival with all the food for the weekend, and a packed car load full of props and equipment sparked a few hours of activity as we set up the creative spaces, and put up the calendar for the main days. There were boxes of Mission:Explore Food books - a copy was included in the fee for the weekend, costumes and wigs, board games, mustaches, inky pens and stamps and various other geography goodness.

Menah started on the soups for the evening meal, and the venue filled up. Conversations were starting quickly, and it was clear that we had assembled a wonderfully varied mix of people: therapists, artists, geographers, teachers, educators, PhD students etc.

The venue was out of mobile phone range and there was no WiFi which helped everyone to 'switch off' and tune in to the events that were planned.

The first evening was mostly about socialising and meeting people and starting to make connections. There were some excellent soups first of all, with crusty bread, and the wine and beer was flowing nicely.

There was a classroom space with a theatre-like ambiance and we set that up for a first meeting and introductions, and a pub quiz, which my team won of course ;)

I went for a walk up the frozen hillside to find a signal to phone home, and the grass was frozen and sparkling under a full moon. Watched planes on the approach to Manchester airport, and took a few photos. Really pleased with how some of them turned out....

I then went back to the Mill to drink and chat until the early hours, before heading for my top-bunk bed...

The Geography Camp....

Well what an all round awesome weekend, full of philosophizing, debating, creating, drawing, searching, hiding, seeking, singing, dancing, painting, laughing, presenting, walking, slipping, freezing, exploring and a little bit of sleeping. For my class who thought I was "bunking off," school; this event is hopefully the first of many where geographers get together and discuss the future of the subject.

I will give you a run down on what other people thought about the event, using some pictures and general comments knocking around on the interweb. The majority of the information is from a geography hero called Alan Parkinson, Alan previously worked for the GA (Geographical Association) and he gave a presentation based on the new curriculum for KS3. This review will be pivotal for the future of the subject, and we need your comments and opinions on what you think should be taught within school. If you want to reply, feel free to write a comment below....

Mr J.

Utilise the Library

You will start hearing Humanities teachers soon becoming expert English teachers, and demanding that we work on something that is know as "SPaG," Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar. This is because the government has recently introduced new examinations with additional focus on our ability to use the written word. However it is also a whole school target, and we as staff are brushing up on "crossing our T's and dotting our I's," in order to promote literacy within all subjects.

Why is this important for Geography? Well marks are now given in all GCSE examinations and the idea of synoticity in A-Level is a key issue, therefore it should be at the forefront of all teaching and learning. Following personal experiences at school, the best way (only my opinion, others may vary) is to READ more.

Yes guys it really is as boring as that, but reading opens up the mind. Unlike lessons where you must sit and listen to us droning on and on....you can decide what to read. So put down that Nuts magazine, throw away the Hello and explore the library. One of my biggest regrets is not using the school library, and The Hayfield has one of the best in the business, especially the journals. Sometimes you find things that are not even from our subject...