I really enjoyed this lesson today, I thought we made excellent progress and there was a real sense of interest, or perhaps that was just me!

We started with a starter for ten based on the visit of Andrew Conney, I think I’m going to up the anty with this and make it into a mini-going competition, with top position recieving a prize each half term. What do you think? (more…)

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Today the our Pilot lessons were suspended for the visit of the Andrew Cooney, the youngest person to walk to the South Pole. Apologises in advance, I think my digital camera hasn’t got over a wet time in North Wales, but thanks to Stefan and Tom who acted as photographers for the event. I only have a few good photographs. Oh well, a new one for my next adventure in Berlin. (more…)

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Not really much to report back on. We finished watching the British Antarctic Survey video on polar explorers, so we could reflect on our past perceptions of Antarctica. I think we gathered that there were many motives for past travel to Antarctica, including exploration, challenge, fame and scientific discovery. It was interesting to reflect on how this later changed to exploitation, with the development of the Seal and Whaling industry. Later in the course, we will look at how our perceptions changed again, Antarctica still being a place of exploration, challenge and scientific research, but now perceived as being fragile and of global importance.  (more…)

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Congratulations to Tom who becomes the first student to give his alternative account of the course through his blog. A nice Dry Valleys movie is already up and running. He has also devised Geography TV on You Tube, where he will host his videos, great little advertising video as well. Congratulations.

Anyone else willing to take the challenge.

I have another little blog project on the go, but that’s for staff… Secret until I find the time.

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Another hot one in H5. Overall I was pleased today, I wanted to really push the group and find out what they are made of, they worked extremely well under difficult conditions and we covered a lot of new concepts and ideas. As a class we are just beginning to get the measure of each other, but I think great things could come. I would like you to be a little more responsive, are you finding this course interesting? Are you learning anything? Let me know! (more…)

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Not really much to report today, we watched the promotional video for Rob Gauntlett’s and James Hopper’s attempt at traveling from Pole to Pole under manpower. It was a useful introduction, because I was then able to explain the 180 degrees used in the title of the expedition, in relation to our place lesson the previous week; this time I was able to utilise Google Earth. It was also a  useful reinforcement of our perceptions of extreme environments, traveling to them just for the challenge.

We then went onto look at isostatic adjustment and the potential impact on Antarctica of the melting icecaps. We then reviewed our Antarctic convergence homework, the majority got to grips with this well.

Finally after organising our folders, we played Grade or No Grade for Antarctic physical features, I found though that our system flash player needs upgrading, but luckily I had already put a version online.

Ok, so we could have done more, but I was tired.

Tomorrow, changing perceptions of the continent and some dry valley research.

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Well, we now know our case study is Antarctica and we set about mapping some of the physical and human features of the continent. The work rate of the class was brilliant; with more emphasis on the student rather than being teacher lead.

It was strange at GCSE level to allow students so much freedom with the time, but the quality of work was excellent.

On reflection though, I felt that my explanation of longitude and latitude was poor, basically I let them down. I made the assumption that students would be able to make the jump from a globe projection of Antarctica, to a flat map projection, and then be able to interpret the different lines of longitude and latitude.

So basically from this… (more…)

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