AQA Pre-release 2022

I was told yesterday that the AQA GCSE pre-release material for the 2022 summer exam season was based in / or mentioned Ely, so I asked for a copy and discovered that it was based on an application by Amey to add an incinerator to their existing waste management park near Waterbeach / Denny Abbey to the south of Ely, along the A10.

The scheme was controversial, although the benefits were clearly stated by the company. A protest group was set up, and commissioned a report on the impact of the proposal, which included mention of the chimney which would be taller than Ely Cathedral and spoil the view towards it from Madingley (a place of geographical significance).

Interestingly, for a pre-release where students usually have to weigh up whether a planned development should go ahead, the decision has already been made in that the scheme was .... spoiler alert.... turned down in 2020.

I tried to add some local contexts - newspaper articles, campaign group reports, local landscape character analysis reports etc. into the mix and shared to the community - AQA is the most popular GCSE specification choice so there will be lots of teachers looking to prepare something on this, and we are all working at our limits at the moment with hybrid learning for many still due to students recovering at home from COVID.

Anthony Bennett has added a copy of the document to his page of pre-release materials. This is available to subscribers and non-subscribers of Internet Geography.

An editable version is below or on this link...

Feel free to download a copy and add your own ideas to the document - there have already been some deletions from the document which is a little disappointing, but I have been able to recover to previous versions.

Images: Alan Parkinson and shared under CC license

Climate Stripes Display

I've just rasterbated the climate stripes for the United Kingdom, taken from Ed Hawkins' climate stripes site.

These are available for many different countries. The Rasterbator site turns them into wall art and you can make your own of course. Here's one I made earlier though.... 

All Climate Stripes images are available under Creative Commons license.

Climate Stripes Display by GeoBlogs on Scribd

This can be printed onto 10 A3 sheets, printed portrait orientation. These will then create a display which is 5 sheets across and 2 sheets tall. This might be the centre of a larger display on the climate emergency and related stories through the coming academic year... It will be going up on the wall of my own classroom. 

Thought for the Day

"This year’s GCSE results not only highlight the hard work of teachers and students, but also must surely reflect the fact that a knowledge of geography is an essential tool in understanding the enormously consequential and dizzyingly rapid changes our planet is going through. Geography is the one subject that looks at the whole story.”

Michael Palin

UK in 21st Century - Global Conflicts

Where is Conflict taking place now?

There are some useful GIS resources in this presentation

UK in 21st Century Conflict by GeoBlogs on Scribd

The sheet links to the GCSE book by Parkinson et al published by Hodder

Somalia Conflict by GeoBlogs on Scribd

GCSE Fieldtrip to Preston Montford

It was over to Shropshire this week, for a GCSE fieldtrip to Preston Montford Field Study Centre. This was an opportunity to explore economic hubs based on food, and the development of rivers flowing down the Carding Mill Valley. We were lucky with the weather... Here's a few images, more to come on these themes over the next few weeks...

UK in 21st Century

Top down or Bottom Up

As part of the Dynamic Development topic... Sheet for recording pros and cons of named schemes...

Top Down or Bottom Up by GeoBlogs on Scribd

GCSE Blog - essential for Year 10

Year 10s - you need to visit this blog regularly...

New blog for OCR 'B' Geography - useful for Year 10s

A new blog written by Mr. Parkinson, to support Year 10s (and 11s at revision time) with GCSE studies.
As you will know, Mr. Parkinson wrote sections of the 2 OCR books for the 9-1 OCR specs, and is going to be teaching Year 10 group OCR 'B' GCSE Geography.

The blog will share the resources that are used to teach OCR Geography from September.

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

Soon to arrive on a desk near you…

Coming soon to a classroom near you...

Sample material for @OCR_Geography GCSE B spec now available! https://t.co/94MPJM8p28 #geographyteacher Save 20% with code WK0003733

— Hodder Geography (@HodderGeography) March 1, 2016

 co-written by Mr. Parkinson

One for Year 10s - exploring employment and sectors in the UK (using 2011 Census data)

New GCSE books

The cover design for one of 4 GCSE books that Mr. Parkinson is working on at the moment for publication in 2016 has been released on the Amazon ordering page for the book. Got to love the penguins...

ONS Life Expectancy calculator

Questia Library

As part of the school's provision for students, the Senior school now has access to Questia Library, which is intended to support access to documents and books for students working at a high level, who may also need to do some research and cite particular documents.

There is a large Geography library of over 4000 items...
These include journals, books and other items.
This is a great addition to geography studies.
Let me know if you find any particular great and useful resources.

Alone in Antarctica

Mr. Parkinson worked on a project with the Polar explorer and adventurer Felicity Aston earlier in the year, which involved her travelling to the coldest inhabited place in the world, known as the Pole of Cold.
If you want a book to read for Christmas, Felicity's book 'Alone in Antarctica' is currently reduced to 99p on the Amazon Kindle store, if you follow the link here.
An ideal gift to the Kindle owner in your life.
It describes her solo-crossing of Antarctica.

What would it feel like to be out there alone in that empty vastness? Just before midnight on 24 November 2011, Felicity is left completely alone on the coast of Antarctica. The isolation is instant and devastating. Only three people in the world have crossed Antarctica alone. The first two were men and both Norwegian. At the age of 34, British woman Felicity Aston became the third. Unlike her predecessors, she didn’t use kites or parasails to assist her. Within days, frozen into her face mask and reflecting on what had drawn her to such a place, she was battling desperate weather as she towed her heavy sledges.Every morning she wakes believing she cannot face another day as the expedition becomes a race against time to reach the coast before the last flight out. This gripping and inspirational account of personal endurance shows what you can achieve when you grit your teeth and decide just to get through today in one piece.

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.

Flatford Mill - 1 - Arrival

Spending the weekend at Flatford Mill with Year 11 Geographers who are preparing for their Controlled Assessment.

Controlled Assessment title

"To investigate how well the River Brett, Suffolk matches the Bradshaw Model"

60 marks and 2000 words

Start by underlining the key words

"To investigate how well the River Brett, Suffolk matches the Bradshaw Model"

We then explored some key words

Followed by a look at the wetted perimeter and the channel efficiency shown by hydraulic radius.

How could water enter the river ?

What variables could we measure in the river ?

What might influence the flow of the River Brett ?

A number of survey sites will be visited along the river.

Fact file of the River Brett 

• Total length: 149km
• Basin size: 170 square kilometres
• Tributary of River Stour
• Land use of the area: irrigation, drinking water, urbanisation (Hadleigh), urbanisation
• Dendritic drainage pattern - tree like pattern

We then explored the format for the Controlled Assessment and thought about some risk assessments...
I've started to put together an ArcGIS Online StoryMap of the area that we are going to be visiting.

Will publish this later today...

About to head for breakfast to fuel up for a day in the field....
Thunder rumbling around Flatford at the moment...