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...