Mr. Parkinson's new textbook is out...

Soon to arrive on a desk near you…

Prize Giving 2016

Looking forward to seeing what our prize-giving guest speaker has to say this year....

Science Department farming project

This is very exciting work by the King's Ely Science department…
Ties in with our work on Food ideally as well…

Half term

Have a restful half term everyone... but don't forget to revise if you need to....

The Perimeter walk continues

The Eden Project and St Austell Bay, Cornwall. Architect: Nicholas Grimshaw. Built 2000.#ukcoastwalk www.theperime… pic.twitter.com/NSPAgFVBsP

— Quintin Lake (@QuintinLake) May 22, 2016

Follow Quintin Lake's Perimeter project.
We're going to speak to him later in the year...

Drone filming

We're looking forward to seeing the finished product, and getting a very different view of the school site...

A shot from our recent aerial filming @Kings_Ely @Ely_Cathedral #drone #aerialimages #filmmaking pic.twitter.com/PmNqBunBkS

— Jolt Media (@joltmediauk) May 25, 2016

The story of (too much) stuff...

What could you live without?

Tropical Rainforests in Google Street View

We were exploring tropical rainforests earlier this week, and following up a speech made by Prince Charles to the WWF where he suggested that the important element that will be needed to find a way to make the forest worth more alive than dead.

Here's a StreetView links page.
Google has created a range of images and maps.

Seaside resort survey

For Year 7 in particular, but any KEJ pupil also welcome to add their ideas...

Beside the Seaside

Year 7 will be heading for Hunstanton for a joint Ecology / Geography trip in mid-June.
In advance of this, I asked people on Twitter and by e-mail to tell me their favourite resorts and why.

Thanks to all who responded with their favourite UK Seaside Resort to a vote that I added to various social media at the weekend.
The 'winner' of the popular vote from 93 people who replied was Brighton

'Runners-up' were Southwold, Cromer and Whitby.

Hopefully over half term, we'll get the chance to visit some of them.

Here's a word cloud of the reasons why they were the favourites - as voted by adults...

What about students though?

KEJ pupils who e-mail me their favourite UK Seaside Resort and a reason why will receive 2 merits.

Ocean Plastics Map

A useful map for Year 8s to explore this month, as there is a focus on this as part of your exam. This is a new map showing ocean plastics.

The scale of ocean plastics is remarkable and worrying...

What are the sources of ocean plastics?
Where do they end up?
What damage do they do?
What can we do about them?

See the map here.

Cornerways Nursery

Britain's largest greenhouse, that produces 10% of the UK's tomatoes, and just up the road from us, in Wissington...



Also features in a Wideworld article.

King's Ely Crowdfunding Page

We have just started a Crowdsourced funding project at school to raise some money to support our Outdoor Learning provision at the school.

There are more details and information on how to contribute to the project at the website page linked to HERE.

We want to take learning outdoors and create inspirational places around school for fresh air and fun as well as for work! 
Our ideas:Senior: outdoor classroom with sculpture, weather station, seating and planting; outdoor social areas. The students will be involved in creating these spaces.Junior: a wild garden in the top paddock and open air social space for Years 7-8Acremont Nursery: giant outdoor play blocks for garden activities.Open spaces are wonderful sources of inspiration and reflection, this project will enable children to make the most of outdoor areas this summer.

Where does your e-Waste go?

This Greenpeace article provides information on a project to trace e-Waste using GPS trackers.

As you can see, it's been around for a while.
Lucy Siegle on the WEEE man.

Year 9 Revision Materials

These are now available on Firefly.
Go to Pupils > Year 9 > Geography > Revision Materials 2016

The theme is ENDANGERED BIOMES.

GIS Day now fully booked

Arrangements are being made for our GIS Day as part of the GI Learner project.
More to come on this blog in the month to come...

 

My next Fairtrade Adventure

A very useful video on the benefits of Fairtrade to the farmers who are involved.
Remember Year 7 that you need to be clear on the benefits of the Fairtrade foundation.


When you go into a supermarket and buy a banana, it matters if it has a Fairtrade sticker on it or not...









My Next Fairtrade Adventure (for 7-11 yrs) Part 1 from Fairtrade Schools on Vimeo.

The Story of a Spoon

Year 8 will be looking at this story - our disposable lifestyles and the impact of plastics in the ocean...

The Story of Fish and Chips

Food and Geography combined...

Italy doubles its baby bonus

Italy is facing a decline in its population in the future.
As part of an attempt to encourage more births, the government is now increasing the payments that it makes to parents.

Just 488,00 babies were born in Italy in 2015
1.39 babies per woman, far below replacement level...

Study leave underway

Best wishes to all King's Ely Geographers (and other subjects) for the forthcoming summer exam season.

Affordable housing in St. Ives

Thrown up here so I don't forget it later for something I'm writing...

The life and times of the Strawberry

A good video exploring the life of the strawberry, and the connection with food waste. Thanks to Susan Pike for the lead...

e-Wasteland

We're back to Agbogbloshie again, and exploring our e-waste. This time, we have a new hexagon sheet created by Miss Kyndt, a Guardian article on the impact of the reclamation of e-waste, a video of Liam: the Apple robot, and the Slavery Footprint website.

e-wasteland from David Fedele on Vimeo.

A visitor to the school field

Some excitement at lunchtime today when the East Anglian Air Ambulance helicopter landed on the school field. Mrs. Roberts and I went out to see the helicopter with a group of students, and we had a chat to the pilots, including Captain Redfern who answered all the students' questions really well. He showed them the equipment, and talked about his job, and how he used maps to find the locations where to land. We hope that the person they were landing to help was OK.

A few years ago we raised thousands of pounds for the Air Ambulance as a charity, and it was good to see it in action.

Image: Alan Parkinson

Another practice question for Y12

Can you name a number of applications of GIS and other GI to the work we've done this year, both inside and outside the classroom?

Impacts of migration linked with Brexit

Newsnight last night came from Boston in Lincolnshire, where there's been a large amount of immigration of workers from the EU, and has been in the news several times as an 'example' of a place that has changed as a result. Have those changes been positive or not, and how has the current make-up of the town reflected previous patterns of employment?
There's a useful BBC news article HERE.


Or, for the next month you can watch the programme HERE - watch from around 7'40" in to see the section which relates to the BBC news article.
Useful for Year 10-13 to watch in particular.

Make sure you enter the competition to win a book signed by Steve Backshall

The Ordnance Survey's competition to design a wildlife map is still underway - Primary schools only.
Alongside the main competition, there are 2 prizes of books each week for tweets which are sent with images from fieldwork with the tag #wildlifemap.

This week we sent some pictures from fieldwork which we had taken part in during the week, and posted a picture of a pond on the school site which was showing some signs of being good for newts.

We then had the good luck to be retweeted and replied to by Steve Backshall

We also heard from the Ordnance Survey that we had been successful and we have a signed Steve Backshall book on its way to is. This will be kept as prize for the Year 7 competition which we shall be organising in the second half of the summer term.

Strength to Dream

Good luck to all King's Ely Geographers who have exams over the next few months… which is most of you to be honest… Dream big… Work hard.
 

A journey down a line of longitude

Exploring the biomes through which the line passes…
Thanks to Miss Kyndt for the sheet below which you may find helpful.

A Journey Along a Line…

#30dayswild activities

We shall be taking part in this project through the month of June.
There'll be different activities each day during the month. I have sent off for a teacher pack, with stickers, and other goodies, and we will work out some small challenges for students to complete each day....

Your parents can also send off for their own pack here, and get involved in events organised by your local wildlife trust.

Mission:Explore National Parks

Out soon in English and Welsh, the latest of the Explorer HQ books under the Mission:Explore name. Year 7 will remember the Food book that formed their prep this term.
This is Mission:Explore National Parks, and involves the usual shenanigans of creative ideas for kids of all ages.
The books will be available for £5 from all National Park shops in England, Scotland and Wales. Here's a pile fresh back from the printers.

As always it's been wrangled by the Explorer HQ team, which includes Mr. Parkinson. Queen Philippa were also involved in helping choose the missions that made it into the book during a house assembly earlier in the year.

Watch this space for plenty more exciting Explorer HQ news soon….

Geog2 Revision Session on Saturday

See you there… there will be doughnuts….

Ice Station Antarctica

You watched this tonight I hope Year 8s !

Geographical Skills

There's plenty of resources on the Firefly page for this topic. Click on STUDY SUPPORT in the GEOGRAPHY>YEAR 12 section of the site.

Also check out Slideshare where you will find other teachers sharing their work too, and appropriate searches. There's a huge range of potential questions that you could be asked about this.

AQA Geography Geog2 from Will Williams

Will Williams

Remember that we have a revision session on the morning of Saturday May the 7th.

Ice Station Antarctica: Horizon documentary and a StoryMap

Ice Station Antarctica 

You'll remember earlier in the year that I was blogging about the visit being made to the Halley Base in Antarctica by Peter Gibbs (who had spent time on the continent earlier in his career)
The visit has now been made into a programme which would make good reading for anyone interested in Antarctica.

An excellent StoryMap was put together by Brendan Conway from Notre Dame Cobham. You can see it below, or click the link to see it full screen.



This was produced during the journey, which lasted for several weeks, but has been updated, including new images from the Halley VI Winter team plus links to the associated programmes and articles. There was a previous Radio 4 about the journey (e.g. Costing the Earth). The story map provides a useful companion resource.

Take a look at the programme, and check out the StoryMap too.

Endangered Biomes

Year 9 will start to look at biomes this term.

We will have a focus on coral reefs to begin with, and also consider what makes up biomes on land.
What are coral reefs like?
I know someone who knows...