March 2024 - KEP Iceland trip

I'm recently back from a trip to Iceland with 50 students, which was rather good.

Góða ferð

We had a lot of highlights, including:

- The Lava Show down by the harbour (a new one for me) - where lava is poured into the room - melted from rock collected near Vik - models how lava behaves...

- Raufarholshellir - a lava tunnel which is almost 4km long and shows the layers in the sides as the lava drained from the tunnel and is currently full of ice pinnacles created during the winter - a look at some images from a group about a week later suggested they had mostly melted away.

- Grábrok - a row of craters from an eruption 3000 years ago - with a view towards a lovely snow capped peak called Baula - a new one for me

- Hraunfossar - a line of low waterfalls flowing out from a lava flow, with lovely blue colours to the water

Images: top to bottom

- Solheimajökull glacier

- Hraunfossar

- On the road in Thingvellir National Park

- Gullfoss detail

A Flickr album of over 450 photos is available here.

Of course, the main highlight was that the Reykjanes peninsula came back to life while we were there.

The eruption started on the Saturday night.

It is known as the Sundhnukagigar eruption.

More to come...

Sundhnúkagígar Eruption

Of particular interest to those students heading to Iceland in March. 

A cross posting from the Fieldnotes from Iceland blog, which stores some reading and references linked to my work with Rayburn Tours.

This post is likely to be updated over the next few days and weeks - updates will appear at the bottom of the page.

The waiting is over for the residents of Grindavik and the Reykjanes Peninsula in particular.

The eruption began at 10.17 yesterday evening.

Live stream via RUV.

Paul Berry has produced a useful summary.

The eruption appears to be occurring exactly along the old crater line of Sundhnúkagígar (which is an old fissure) indicating that the magma likely exploited this weakness in the crust to find a way to the surface as it neared the surface (as indicated by the frequent earthquakes in the Grindavik area for the last few months).

There will be lots of people concerned about their flights and others who will be desperate to head out there, with flight prices likely to have been hiked with the news. The official line is that there are no disruptions to flights to and from Iceland and international flight corridors remain open.

The Guardian's page of updates.

Brendan Conway was quick off the mark with a web map using Vedurstofan map data. Thanks also to Ben Hennig of course for some quick responses despite the fact that he is thousands of miles away.

🆕 Updated map 03.00
🌋#Grindavík volcano eruption🌋 Reykjanes, Iceland Dec 2023
Map georeferenced using #MediaLayers in @ArcGISOnline#IcelandVolcano
🙏 @Vedurstofan_IMO for map layer via @geoviews
Click Layers > 3 dots > Show properties > Transparencyhttps://t.co/aXo0icv88I pic.twitter.com/qIsEApoFhZ

— BC (@mildthing99) December 19, 2023

A webcam picked up the start of the eruption: 

Byrjunin á eldgosinu á vefmyndavél RÚV yfir Grindavík

0:13 pic.twitter.com/Jx3icbxuxx

— Birkir (@birkirh) December 18, 2023

Some information on the resilience of the population: 

Excellent information about the steps Iceland is able to take manage the impact of tectonic hazards, for those who use it as a #geography case study. https://t.co/C84lLdjUK1

— Denise Freeman 🌎🙋🏻‍♀️ (@geography_DAF) December 19, 2023

Sunny Hunny

I spent the day in Hunstanton in the sun last Friday with 45 Year 4 students and six colleagues from KEP.

This was a good way to spend the day, exploring what makes it a special place.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license

Snowdonia 'A' level fieldwork

I'm currently on another trip - this time to Snowdonia with 6th form students, and colleagues, to do the fieldwork for upland and lowland glaciation. It is not on the doorstep when you live in Cambridgeshire, so we will be exploring upland and lowland areas, in the area around Cwm Idwal, the Ogwen Valley and Nant Ffrancon.

After a night at the Swallow Falls Youth Hostel, we've arrived at Rhyd-y-Creuau, and just back from an upland glacial day in and around Cwm Idwal.

I mentioned the BritIce map, as a possible secondary source.

Game of Thrones locations in Northern Ireland

Game of Thrones and tourism in Northern Ireland

Games of Thrones is coming to the end, with the final season about to start filming in Northern Ireland, Iceland, Croatia and other places. Each of those places has gained in many ways from the series, with many jobs being created both at the locations, and also in the local area. It has also generated a lot of interest from tourists who want to visit the locations they've seen in the series.

We have a plan to run a fieldtrip to Northern Ireland in 2018, and we will be visiting some of the locations featured in this Independent article.

Making London a National Park city

Making a National Park City

 

Could London really become the world’s first National Park City?

Accompanied by Miss Kyndt and Mr. Parkinson, a group of Geographers from Years 11-13 travelled down to London on Wednesday this week to an event at the Royal Festival Hall which had been set up to explore some of the benefits and trouble-shoot some of the barriers that might exist to this ambitious plan coming to fruition. The idea was first dreamed up by Dan Raven-Ellison in 2014, and has slowly gained traction, even gaining the support of Sadiq Khan. The students made their way through train delays to the evening of short talks and music, compered by comediene Josie Long. It was also a chance to experience the South Bank at night, with the London Eye lit up, and skateboarders using the Undercroft.


Dan Raven-Ellison will be visiting King’s Ely later in the term when he walks across Ely as part of his current project to traverse all the UK’s cities and National Parks.


Image: Students watching Andrew Simms talking at the Royal Festival Hall - Alan Parkinson

 

Hunstanton - visiting a Victorian resort

People have been heading to Hunstanton for their holidays since Victorian times.
Back then, they arrived by rail, and enjoyed the beach.
Some Victorian postcards show how the resort was back then. One of the things that has been missing most obviously is the pier, which used to be there, and which is shown on the image below that I took through the window of the heritage centre (which was unfortunately closed). You can also see the difference in the cliffs since the time the image was taken...

Many local people would like the pier to be replaced, but that seems unlikely.
There has been a campaign to have the railway replaced for years, but the track has steadily been built on and the route compromised... I used to live in a village that the railway line used to pass through. This old film shows John Betjeman taking that route...

Hunstanton Preview...

For Year 7s
Look at this embedded gallery - click the pictures and captions to find out more about what we are going to do on Thursday next week.

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.

Snowdonia Images

Snowdonia - March 2016

Preparing for the Year 12 fieldtrip to Snowdonia, which will involve us in travelling up to the Field Studies Council centre at Rhyd-y-Creuau

A page with field trip information is being put together on Firefly and you can see it here

Flatford Fieldtrip - 4 - the StoryMap

Started to put together an ESRI StoryMap to frame the thinking for Year 11 students who are doing their Controlled Assessment following the fieldtrip. In draft at the moment...

Flatford Mill - 3 - River Brett fieldwork

Some pictures taken on the fieldwork.



There were other images taken by students and staff, along with the collection of a range of data.

More to come on that in a few other blogposts...

Flatford Mill - 2 - Having a field day.... (preparation)

Mini version of the fieldwork equipment which we will be using was handed out...
Laminated cards with the equipment which was going to be used on the day.

Measuring

• Width
• Depth
• Velocity (float and flow)
• Wetted perimeter
• Bedload size and shape

Five points along the river's width will be measured, at each of the five field study sites.

Low-lying area means we wouldn't be measuring gradient, but we could do in other situations.

We will also be calculating discharge from other measurements.

We would be using a Hydro-Prop with an impellor for the flow velocity measurement....

Also discussed the various risks, and carried out a risk assessment for the day.

Bletchley Park

Year 8 were on a trip here earlier today. The place is connected with the idea of code breaking and the connections with the Enigma machine, and also with Alan Turing.

Here are a few pictures from the day - more to come on Firefly....

Controlled Assessment for Year 11 - Ipswich 1

The OCR B GCSE Geography course has a range of fieldwork titles.

The Geographical Enquiry section (25% of total mark) is entirely made up of a fieldwork investigation of 2000 words, which is a fairly recent change from previous models of assessment.
The one that has been selected for the current Year 11 cohort is:

'What are the consequences of economic change in your chosen study area?'

and the locational context, given our location in Suffolk is:

‘What are the consequences of the dockside redevelopment in Ipswich'

Here are some of the images that I took at the weekend for starters.


Check the SENIOR area of Firefly for more support from Mr. Danby...

Fieldtrip weather forecast...

Looking good...