It seems ice bergs from Antarctica have become a temporary tourist attraction off the New Zealand coast. BBC News Report.
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Archive for November, 2006 Page 2 of 4
Berlin seems such a long time ago now, oh the memories. One of our base areas during our visit was Ku’damn, short for Kurfürstendamm, it is Berlin’s and Europe’s longest shopping area. A fact that many of you know well! 
The Ku’damn is dominated by the Memorial Church, a mixture of old and modern. I have to say that it looks much better at night, but the modern Church is very beautiful instead when viewed from the interior.
Official title, Emperor Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche) it was badly damaged during the Second World War, and we can only now imagine its former beauty. Within the original tower, the walls are decorated with impressive and brightly coloured mosaics.
Between 1957 and 1963 the adjacent modern church,an octagonal church structure and six-sided bell tower was added, designed by Egon Eiermann.
The Church stands as a daily reminder of the horrors of war and the need to seek a lasting peace.
There is a live webcam of Ku’damn here, brings back memories…
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Pre-ordered my copy of Al Gore’s Incovenient Truth last night, the UK release is the 26th December 2006. Looking forward to watching this again at Christmas. Global Warming is coming up in the course, so perhaps it is one for the Pilot Film Club.
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Tomorrow or today, depending on when and where you are reading this. Yeap, that will do me fine, because I’m broke , but Buy Nothing Day has an interesting message
‘Buy Nothing Day also exposes the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism. The developed countries - only 20% of the world population, are consuming over 80% of the earth’s natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth.’
The campaign started in North American, here is a TV spot, but there seems to be many events taking place in the U.K. I’m even considering making my own consumer monster. If you want to go the full hog, you could also go for Buy Nothing Christmas. I have to say this was more weight for me, personally I hate the buying of gifts, the pressure of advertising, the debt, and stress that it all causes; basically the true spirit of the holiday, Christian or Not, is lost. At the moment my form group is aiming to buy a cow, whilst I intend to buy at least one ethical gift for each of my family members, that will benefit someone elsewhere in the world; I’ll blog their reactions! See Oxfam Unwrapped for ideas.
Perhaps I’m being miserable, but I was taught a very important lesson by my parents at Christmas. When we opened our presents, each one still had the price on, the reason was to help us understand the cost and the hours they had to work to provide them.
Interesting thoughts for our next topic… People as Consumers…
Am I being miserable?
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Settle down or tape ‘Touching the Void’ on Channel 4 at 7.20 p.m. this Saturday, I won’t give too much away if you haven’t seen it; it is the real story of two mountaineers. Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who conquered a peak in the Peruvian Andes, but Simon had to make a life changing decision… You can view the trailer here. A great example of an extreme environment and human motive, stunning landscape and a good story. Look out for crevasses in glaciers and a crawl over moraine to Boney M. I highly recommend the book of the same title as well.
Joe Simpson also has a website with some great images of his travels, that you may be interested in looking at.
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There are a number of Geography blogs springing up at the moment, I find reading blogs a useful tool for professional development, for student readers its a great way of gaining a little extra knowledge and to see what other students are doing. Why not set up your own personal blog? It doesn’t have to be about Geography…
Most of us are indebted to Alan Parkinson, Mr P of GeographyPages fame, I believe he lead the way, his original Geoblog and links to other interesting examples are here. I remember when I started teaching, there were few very good geography sites on the web and Alan’s was like a little flame in a very dark cave. (Present please ).
Noel Jenkins has started a collaborative blog for Somerset Geographers, an idea I’m taking active interest in, perhaps a way forward for collaboration between Ilkeston Geographers. He has already put up some nice little ideas and tips for using blogs, and recommends this one, he didn’t really have a choice now I can get him live on MSN! It also has some further links to other great Geography bloggers.
Another example is GeographyPCS, the student blog of Portchester Community School, there are some interesting lesson resources also available. Mark Batchelor has recently redesigned his school Geography webpage and has also developed a new blog. Mark is making effective use of Slide Share.
Rich Allaway has also produced a blog for his IB and IGCSE International Geography students, an interesting course and supported by a very good website as well. I notice that as I write this Rich has started a list of new blogs created this year on SLN.
Plenty to get on with then…
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After the coursework we need to round up Antarctica, and very fast, with a review of the scientific work being done. This strange space-age image, is in fact the new design for the British Antarctic Survey’s research centre, Halley. The present Halley has two problems, the first is that it needs to be constantly moved, because obviously the ice sheet is moving and this means the station drifts by about half a kilometre a year; this is a difficult and time consuming process. The second is that the station is now on a major potential calving point; the design of the present Halley (V) has made it hugely successful, meaning that it hasn’t been relocated. There is a nice little page here showing the evolution of Halley overtime, I particularly like the image of Halley III emerging from the ice sheet at a calving point, this steel tube Halley was built to be buried by the snow, but was eventually crushed!
 Halley VI has some great advantages, it will be raised above the snow and will also be on ski-type legs, allowing it to be moved over several kilometres. The website tells you more, and there is a great little fly through movie of the design.
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Thanks to Mr Spence, who emailed me a link to this interesting photo website this morning. Over the last year, a theme has been given to each month, for November it’s work. People from across the globe have been sending in their images, geotagged to their location. A brilliant snap-shot of life across the Earth.
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