Showing posts with label rivers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rivers. Show all posts
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Yr12 - Bangladesh flooding
Apologies that I forgot to post the link to the Bangladesh flooding documentary that I told you about on Thursday. It's here. For some reason, it stops very abruptly near the end, but there is still plenty of detail before that point.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Yr12 Flooding and Flood Management
The Environment Agency's Flooding pages have lots of useful information about flood risk, how to prepare for a flood, and about what they are doing to manage flooding. You can also access summaries of their Catchment Flood Management Plans - the one that covers Boscastle is the East Cornwall CFMP.
You might like to have a look at the Met Office's "Past weather events" pages too - useful stuff here about the meteorological conditions behind various interesting weather events as far back as 1990, but including Boscastle, the 2005 Carlisle and North Yorkshire floods, the 2007 floods that affected much of the country, and the Cumbria floods of 2009.
You might like to have a look at the Met Office's "Past weather events" pages too - useful stuff here about the meteorological conditions behind various interesting weather events as far back as 1990, but including Boscastle, the 2005 Carlisle and North Yorkshire floods, the 2007 floods that affected much of the country, and the Cumbria floods of 2009.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Update.... (1)
Lots to catch up on as it has been a busy few weeks...
After spending the first few weeks of term getting to grips with the hydrological cycle and river processes, it was off to Dovedale for Year 12. Fortunately this time, it wasn't the morning after a Sixth Form Party, but the weather when we arrived at our first site was thoroughly grey and miserable, and the fog made it pretty difficult to see the nice v-shaped valley and interlocking spurs. Luckily, things improved as the day went on, and we almost had some sunshine when we got to Site 3. We measured a number of variables at each site - channel width and depth, velocity, gradient of the long profile, and size and angularity of bedload, with the aim of understanding how these variables changed with distance downstream. After lunch (and all those gates) we arrived at Milldale, from where we walked down Dovedale to the famous stepping stones, stopping to look at a variety of interesting geographical and geological features along the way, including Ilam Rock, the Tissingon Spires, Thorpe Cloud and Lover's Leap (although I was disappointed with the response that my rendition of the Lover's Leap legend received...). The highlight of the day, of course, was the ice cream...
For more about Dovedale, including various links, click on the label at the bottom of this post.
Since our return from Doevdale, we've spent a lot of lesson time writing up our findings in preparation for the GEOG2 exam in January. You should, by now, be very familiar with the enquiry structure:
- Aims (what you were trying to find out)
- Hypotheses (predictions of what you expected to find - with some theory to back them up!)
- Method (what you did - remember, your method should be clear enough that someone who knows nothing about what you were doing could replicate your investigation)
- Results (maps, graphs, tables, statistics, etc. - presentation of your findings)
- Analysis (discussion of the results of your investigation... make sure that you link back to your hypotheses)
- Conclusion (a summary of your findings - link back to your aims and hypotheses... Make sure that you are not saying anything new in this section!)
- Evaluation (what was successful about your investigation, what was less successful - and how could those problems have been resolved, how could you extend/develop the investigation?)
We also had to make sure that we considered the risks that we faced, and it might well be that you are asked about risk assessment in your GEOG2 exam.
After spending the first few weeks of term getting to grips with the hydrological cycle and river processes, it was off to Dovedale for Year 12. Fortunately this time, it wasn't the morning after a Sixth Form Party, but the weather when we arrived at our first site was thoroughly grey and miserable, and the fog made it pretty difficult to see the nice v-shaped valley and interlocking spurs. Luckily, things improved as the day went on, and we almost had some sunshine when we got to Site 3. We measured a number of variables at each site - channel width and depth, velocity, gradient of the long profile, and size and angularity of bedload, with the aim of understanding how these variables changed with distance downstream. After lunch (and all those gates) we arrived at Milldale, from where we walked down Dovedale to the famous stepping stones, stopping to look at a variety of interesting geographical and geological features along the way, including Ilam Rock, the Tissingon Spires, Thorpe Cloud and Lover's Leap (although I was disappointed with the response that my rendition of the Lover's Leap legend received...). The highlight of the day, of course, was the ice cream...
For more about Dovedale, including various links, click on the label at the bottom of this post.
Since our return from Doevdale, we've spent a lot of lesson time writing up our findings in preparation for the GEOG2 exam in January. You should, by now, be very familiar with the enquiry structure:
- Aims (what you were trying to find out)
- Hypotheses (predictions of what you expected to find - with some theory to back them up!)
- Method (what you did - remember, your method should be clear enough that someone who knows nothing about what you were doing could replicate your investigation)
- Results (maps, graphs, tables, statistics, etc. - presentation of your findings)
- Analysis (discussion of the results of your investigation... make sure that you link back to your hypotheses)
- Conclusion (a summary of your findings - link back to your aims and hypotheses... Make sure that you are not saying anything new in this section!)
- Evaluation (what was successful about your investigation, what was less successful - and how could those problems have been resolved, how could you extend/develop the investigation?)
We also had to make sure that we considered the risks that we faced, and it might well be that you are asked about risk assessment in your GEOG2 exam.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Year 12
The first part of Monday's lesson was spent discussing the fieldwork section of the Unit 2 exam that you will be sitting on Monday morning. Remember that you can access some of the sample questions on the AQA website... If you know your fieldwork investigation thoroughly, then this section should be very straightforward - and there is no reason why you can't answer the fieldwork section first, even though it will not be the first question in the exam booklet.
We then revised some of the key rivers ideas - the drainage basin hydrological cycle, river processes and landforms, flooding and management. If you look back at previous posts on Geogtastic6 (click on the Yr12 or Rivers labels at the bottom of this post) there are various bits and pieces that will help you - and if you look at the post below this one, you will find the link to the revision guides I've put together for the Year 13s who are resitting GGA1. The two Water on the Land documents, and the Exam Command Words one, will both be of use to you. If you have forgotten the password that I gave you the other day, email, or ask one of the Yr13s.
A quick reminder about the exam:
Monday 12th January - 9.00am - 6th form block
1 hour
50 marks - 25 marks on Rivers-based OR Population-based skills questions, followed by 25 marks on your fieldwork.
Email (or leave a comment on here) if there are things you are unsure about.
And remember READ THE QUESTION!!!
Good luck!
We then revised some of the key rivers ideas - the drainage basin hydrological cycle, river processes and landforms, flooding and management. If you look back at previous posts on Geogtastic6 (click on the Yr12 or Rivers labels at the bottom of this post) there are various bits and pieces that will help you - and if you look at the post below this one, you will find the link to the revision guides I've put together for the Year 13s who are resitting GGA1. The two Water on the Land documents, and the Exam Command Words one, will both be of use to you. If you have forgotten the password that I gave you the other day, email, or ask one of the Yr13s.
A quick reminder about the exam:
Monday 12th January - 9.00am - 6th form block
1 hour
50 marks - 25 marks on Rivers-based OR Population-based skills questions, followed by 25 marks on your fieldwork.
Email (or leave a comment on here) if there are things you are unsure about.
And remember READ THE QUESTION!!!
Good luck!
Monday, 24 November 2008
Year 12
Some interesting reactions to the test this morning... Remember that in the actual exam you will only have population OR rivers questions, plus fieldwork questions. We will endeavour to have the papers back for you for Monday next week.
We also had a look at the causes of the 2004 flooding in Bangladesh (although the causes are very similar every time there is flooding in Bangladesh), and the impacts and responses. You will need to be able to talk about flooding in countries with different levels of development.
Also a bit disappointing that I have still only had two Boscastle movies...
We also had a look at the causes of the 2004 flooding in Bangladesh (although the causes are very similar every time there is flooding in Bangladesh), and the impacts and responses. You will need to be able to talk about flooding in countries with different levels of development.
Also a bit disappointing that I have still only had two Boscastle movies...
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Scintillating Statistics! And two important reminders...
A bit of an adventure across the road this morning for Year 12... The lesson was spent thinking about statistics - and specifically measures of central tendency.
You need to understand:
- mean, mode and median
- standard deviation
- range and interquartile range
- box-and-whisker plots
You will not be asked to calculate things like standard deviation or Spearman Rank from scratch in an exam, and nor are you expected to learn the formulae. You may, however, be given a partially completed calculation to work with, and it is important that you understand a) how the calculations work, and b) why they are useful from a geography point-of-view.
Remember that you have the "skills checklist" from the specification in the handbook I gave you at the beginning of the year.
Assessment Week
Please don't forget that next week is Year 12 Assessment Week, and so in your lesson on Monday you will be completing an exam question - under exam conditions. As it is not too long until your Unit 2 exam (12th January), we have decided that the most useful thing would be for you to do a skills-based paper. Your exam in January will be skills-based, but will use content from either the Population unit or the Rivers unit, and then there will be generic fieldwork questions. The paper you do on Monday will have some Rivers and some Population questions (skills-based) and some generic fieldwork questions.
Boscastle Movies
Need to be finished for Monday if they are not already!!
You need to understand:
- mean, mode and median
- standard deviation
- range and interquartile range
- box-and-whisker plots
You will not be asked to calculate things like standard deviation or Spearman Rank from scratch in an exam, and nor are you expected to learn the formulae. You may, however, be given a partially completed calculation to work with, and it is important that you understand a) how the calculations work, and b) why they are useful from a geography point-of-view.
Remember that you have the "skills checklist" from the specification in the handbook I gave you at the beginning of the year.
Assessment Week
Please don't forget that next week is Year 12 Assessment Week, and so in your lesson on Monday you will be completing an exam question - under exam conditions. As it is not too long until your Unit 2 exam (12th January), we have decided that the most useful thing would be for you to do a skills-based paper. Your exam in January will be skills-based, but will use content from either the Population unit or the Rivers unit, and then there will be generic fieldwork questions. The paper you do on Monday will have some Rivers and some Population questions (skills-based) and some generic fieldwork questions.
Boscastle Movies
Need to be finished for Monday if they are not already!!
Sunday, 16 November 2008
The River Severn - From Source to Sea
Interesting viewing for Yr12 who are currently studying rivers, and those of you in Yr13 who are resitting GGA1.
Thanks to Alan P, and to David Noble who created the videos.
Thanks to Alan P, and to David Noble who created the videos.
Year 12 - Boscastle and the UK Floods of 2007
Boscastle
A reminder about some of the Boscastle-related links that we looked at last week (and some that we didn't):
Comprehensive coverage of the flood including a timeline and meteorological data from geographyalltheway.com
The findings of the Environment Agency's investigations into the flood.
GeoProjects KeyFile
And a Geogtastic6 post about Boscastle from last year.
UK Floods 2007
Some images showing the impacts of the flooding in Sheffield - thanks to Andy Pinks:
The main cause of the Boscastle flood was very heavy rainfall combined with the topography of the area causing a rapid increase in the discharge of the River Valency and the River Jordan... In the case of the floods that affected much of the UK in 2007, however, rainfall was higher than normal, but pluvial flooding - caused by surface runoff - is thought to have been a major element.
Thanks to GeoBlogs for this PowerPoint which looks at the causes, impacts and responses of the floods and some of the (very complex) issues involved:
This report from the Association of British Insurers makes some interesting points about planning and preparation for similar floods in the future, and it's worth having a read of this Guardian article about the problems of predicting pluvial flooding.
The Environment Agency's pages about the UK floods make for interesting reading ("Currently, surface water flooding is not part of our remit. We are responsible for issuing warnings for flooding from rivers and the sea only...") - and they also contain a variety of useful links, including to the Pitt Review.
The BBC Panorama programme Keeping Britain Dry doesn't seem to be available any more, but you can read the transcript, together with a whole host of links to news articles, images and video clips.
A reminder about some of the Boscastle-related links that we looked at last week (and some that we didn't):
Comprehensive coverage of the flood including a timeline and meteorological data from geographyalltheway.com
The findings of the Environment Agency's investigations into the flood.
GeoProjects KeyFile
And a Geogtastic6 post about Boscastle from last year.
UK Floods 2007
Some images showing the impacts of the flooding in Sheffield - thanks to Andy Pinks:
The main cause of the Boscastle flood was very heavy rainfall combined with the topography of the area causing a rapid increase in the discharge of the River Valency and the River Jordan... In the case of the floods that affected much of the UK in 2007, however, rainfall was higher than normal, but pluvial flooding - caused by surface runoff - is thought to have been a major element.
Thanks to GeoBlogs for this PowerPoint which looks at the causes, impacts and responses of the floods and some of the (very complex) issues involved:
This report from the Association of British Insurers makes some interesting points about planning and preparation for similar floods in the future, and it's worth having a read of this Guardian article about the problems of predicting pluvial flooding.
The Environment Agency's pages about the UK floods make for interesting reading ("Currently, surface water flooding is not part of our remit. We are responsible for issuing warnings for flooding from rivers and the sea only...") - and they also contain a variety of useful links, including to the Pitt Review.
The BBC Panorama programme Keeping Britain Dry doesn't seem to be available any more, but you can read the transcript, together with a whole host of links to news articles, images and video clips.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Year 12 - River Landforms
Some v good posters this morning..... We talked about:
- v-shaped valleys
- interlocking spurs
- rapids
- waterfalls
- gorges
- potholes
- braiding
- meanders
- oxbow lakes
- floodplains
- levees
- deltas
We also discussed turbulent and laminar flow...
Please remember that if you haven't already returned your permission slip and money for Thursday, you MUST do so as a matter of urgency!
- v-shaped valleys
- interlocking spurs
- rapids
- waterfalls
- gorges
- potholes
- braiding
- meanders
- oxbow lakes
- floodplains
- levees
- deltas
We also discussed turbulent and laminar flow...
Please remember that if you haven't already returned your permission slip and money for Thursday, you MUST do so as a matter of urgency!
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Year 12
On Monday we spent a lot of time talking about the factors that affect river discharge, and at storm hydrographs.
The website we looked at with the storm hydrograph stuff was this one
Don't forget please, that you have the Factors Affecting Discharge sheets to complete for tomorrow to give to Mrs Chambers.
Also remember that if you click on the Water on the Land or rivers/hydrographs, etc. labels at the bottom of this post, you will be able to access the posts from this time last year when the current Yr13 were looking at rivers and hydrographs...
The website we looked at with the storm hydrograph stuff was this one
Don't forget please, that you have the Factors Affecting Discharge sheets to complete for tomorrow to give to Mrs Chambers.
Also remember that if you click on the Water on the Land or rivers/hydrographs, etc. labels at the bottom of this post, you will be able to access the posts from this time last year when the current Yr13 were looking at rivers and hydrographs...
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
Fieldwork...
Erm... an interesting day!! Frozen peas not doing much for my ankle... Photos will follow (not of my ankle!) when Yr11's Burbage drafts are marked...
However, in the meantime... The Peak District Education Service have some good factsheets on their website about various Peak District locations, geology, vegetation, etc.
Remember that we compared two valleys - Bar Brook, in the Dark Peak, and Lathkilldale in the White Peak. We talked about the landscapes of the two areas, the features and characteristics, the vegetation, the human activity, and how all of this links to the geology.
The rock type in the Dark Peak is millstone grit - a mineral sedimentary rock... And in the White Peak, limestone - an organic sedimentary rock (as we saw from the shells and fossils in the overhanging cliff near the beginning of our walk).
A virtual tour of Lathkill Dale (the SSSI!!) here... Might have been a better option for me!
Thank you again to all of you for fantastic behaviour/attitude and lots of hard work - and especially to Laura, Amy and Tom for looking after me!! See you on Friday (I hope!)
However, in the meantime... The Peak District Education Service have some good factsheets on their website about various Peak District locations, geology, vegetation, etc.
Remember that we compared two valleys - Bar Brook, in the Dark Peak, and Lathkilldale in the White Peak. We talked about the landscapes of the two areas, the features and characteristics, the vegetation, the human activity, and how all of this links to the geology.
The rock type in the Dark Peak is millstone grit - a mineral sedimentary rock... And in the White Peak, limestone - an organic sedimentary rock (as we saw from the shells and fossils in the overhanging cliff near the beginning of our walk).
A virtual tour of Lathkill Dale (the SSSI!!) here... Might have been a better option for me!
Thank you again to all of you for fantastic behaviour/attitude and lots of hard work - and especially to Laura, Amy and Tom for looking after me!! See you on Friday (I hope!)
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
Friday...
As I said, I will not be with you on Friday afternoon as I am very lucky to be going off to do some fieldwork in Dorset.
On Saturday, I will be visiting a number of places that I've taught about lots of times, but never managed to see for myself... Prize for the first SHS person to leave a comment telling me the names of the landmarks shown in the pictures... Bonus points for explanations of their formation!
On Saturday, I will be visiting a number of places that I've taught about lots of times, but never managed to see for myself... Prize for the first SHS person to leave a comment telling me the names of the landmarks shown in the pictures... Bonus points for explanations of their formation!
In my absence, I would like you to work out the following key terms, and find some definitions for them...
snorieo; snatprotantio; postideion; snabriao; tintrioat; cladruyih rwoep; nolustio; latsniota; nortiact; punsesnsnio; greeny
Don't forget, also that you need to make sure that your presentation on the flooding in Africa is ready for Tuesday p1!
Saturday, 11 August 2007
Posters...
The Geography Department at the University of Lancaster have a series of excellent posters designed for A level students... You will be seeing them in lessons, but it is worth having a look - particularly at the Physical Geography: Surface Water Systems, and the Environmental Geography: Water Resources Management (below) which will tie in nicely with our first unit.
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