Year 12....
Wales is Monday 22nd to Friday 26th March.
The cost will be confirmed asap, but you need to get your permission slips and deposits (£20) in as soon as you can please!
Click on label below for more about Wales from previous years....
Monday, 23 November 2009
Update... (2)
Lots of plate tectonics work for Year 13 in the first few weeks of term - plate tectonics theory, evidence for the theory of continental drift, structure of the earth, locations of the major tectonic plates, types of plate boundary, and how plate boundaries affect volcanic activity.
We've also spent a long time working on fieldwork investigations in preparation for GEO4A in January. Look at the previous post if you need a reminder of the enquiry structure (you shouldn't!). The majority of the paper will be focused on your fieldwork enquiry, so you need to make sure that you know your investigation inside out. There will also be some questions based on secondary fieldwork data, and it might be that you have to do some calculations as well as interpreting and analysing the data.... Make sure that you have a look back at Spearman Rank and know how to calculate Rs values (AND test their statistical significance!). We will have a look at Mann-Whitney and Chi-Squared in the next couple of weeks.
Most of the Year 13 group also enjoyed a trip down to "the big smoke" just before half-term. Although it was a pleasant morning considering, the layby and the school minibus are not necessarily a welcome sight at 6am. A sleepy trip down the M1 and we were at Stanmore, and then - after an impressively quick assessment of the Tube map - it was the Jubilee Line to South Kensington (an opportunity for Miss Breider to do the SuDoku, Jonny to do the crossword, Myles to catch up on the news, Michael to collect some McDonald's vouchers, and Ellie to do her make-up), and then a v speedy walk to the Royal Geographical Society. There were a number of interesting lectures (although, admittedly, some of them might have been more appreciated had we not been up so early...) and some good advice about Geography at university. Before we left, we had a chance to explore the Map Room, and we tiptoed through the Fellows' Tea Room so that we could have our photo taken in front of the rather lovely perspex globe. (A shame Jonny felt it necessary to block the view of the lovely perspex globe...)
We made the most of our venture 'down south' with a trip to the Red Zone of the Natural History Museum, where we experienced the Kobe earthquake first hand, looked into the structure of the Earth in a bit more detail, and saw some of the rocks and 'spun sugar' produced by the eruption of Mount Saint Helen's in 1980.
We've also spent a long time working on fieldwork investigations in preparation for GEO4A in January. Look at the previous post if you need a reminder of the enquiry structure (you shouldn't!). The majority of the paper will be focused on your fieldwork enquiry, so you need to make sure that you know your investigation inside out. There will also be some questions based on secondary fieldwork data, and it might be that you have to do some calculations as well as interpreting and analysing the data.... Make sure that you have a look back at Spearman Rank and know how to calculate Rs values (AND test their statistical significance!). We will have a look at Mann-Whitney and Chi-Squared in the next couple of weeks.
Most of the Year 13 group also enjoyed a trip down to "the big smoke" just before half-term. Although it was a pleasant morning considering, the layby and the school minibus are not necessarily a welcome sight at 6am. A sleepy trip down the M1 and we were at Stanmore, and then - after an impressively quick assessment of the Tube map - it was the Jubilee Line to South Kensington (an opportunity for Miss Breider to do the SuDoku, Jonny to do the crossword, Myles to catch up on the news, Michael to collect some McDonald's vouchers, and Ellie to do her make-up), and then a v speedy walk to the Royal Geographical Society. There were a number of interesting lectures (although, admittedly, some of them might have been more appreciated had we not been up so early...) and some good advice about Geography at university. Before we left, we had a chance to explore the Map Room, and we tiptoed through the Fellows' Tea Room so that we could have our photo taken in front of the rather lovely perspex globe. (A shame Jonny felt it necessary to block the view of the lovely perspex globe...)
We made the most of our venture 'down south' with a trip to the Red Zone of the Natural History Museum, where we experienced the Kobe earthquake first hand, looked into the structure of the Earth in a bit more detail, and saw some of the rocks and 'spun sugar' produced by the eruption of Mount Saint Helen's in 1980.
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.
Friday, 2 October 2009
RGS Learning & Leading Gap Year Scholarships
The Gap Year scholarships that I mentioned this morning are offered by the RGS. You need to be planning to do something geographical in terms of further study, and commit to being an RGS Ambassador (visiting schools and talking to students about Geography and why it's so fab!)... Scholarships of up to £4000 available!
More info here but if you think that you might want to apply for this, you need to get a wriggle on as the application deadline is 18th October.
More info here but if you think that you might want to apply for this, you need to get a wriggle on as the application deadline is 18th October.
Global Fellowship...
Will add posts over the weekend as a reminder of the lessons of the last week or so, but just been reading about the Global Fellowship programme that we talked about this morning.
I can't see the details of the application process as you have to register first, but there is lots of information on the website, and the more I read about it, the more I think it sounds like a fantastic opportunity and that some - or all - of you should apply!
The website is here and the deadline for applications is 18th December 2009.
Give me a shout if you decide that you want to apply and need a reference. Also, pass the details on to anyone else you think might be interested - non-geographers welcome too!
I can't see the details of the application process as you have to register first, but there is lots of information on the website, and the more I read about it, the more I think it sounds like a fantastic opportunity and that some - or all - of you should apply!
The website is here and the deadline for applications is 18th December 2009.
Give me a shout if you decide that you want to apply and need a reference. Also, pass the details on to anyone else you think might be interested - non-geographers welcome too!
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Year 13
After spending our first lesson back reminding ourselves about the structure of the A2 course, analysing the AS results, achieving slightly better marks in the Summer GeoNews Quiz than Year 12 did, we spent Friday's lesson looking at progress with projects.
Remember that you should, by now, have a plan together of what you are doing and when - regardless of whether you are replanning a new investigation, or are about to start writing up your project. We will spend Friday lessons on project work, but we need to make sure that write-ups are finished by mid-November so that we have time to get plenty of practice of exam questions in before your exam in January.
This morning's lesson was an intro to Plate Tectonics - and a reminder that you need to be keeping an eye on the news so that you have an up-to-date knowledge of what's going on in the world, and some "golden nuggets" to incorporate into those essays you'll be writing.
Homework, for when I see you on Tuesday next week (I said Thursday initially - but it's Stop the Clock Day, and Friday is project work) - is to find out about Alfred Wegener... Who was he? When was he around? What did he do/say?
Remember that you should, by now, have a plan together of what you are doing and when - regardless of whether you are replanning a new investigation, or are about to start writing up your project. We will spend Friday lessons on project work, but we need to make sure that write-ups are finished by mid-November so that we have time to get plenty of practice of exam questions in before your exam in January.
This morning's lesson was an intro to Plate Tectonics - and a reminder that you need to be keeping an eye on the news so that you have an up-to-date knowledge of what's going on in the world, and some "golden nuggets" to incorporate into those essays you'll be writing.
Homework, for when I see you on Tuesday next week (I said Thursday initially - but it's Stop the Clock Day, and Friday is project work) - is to find out about Alfred Wegener... Who was he? When was he around? What did he do/say?
Year 12 - Drainage Basin Hydrological Cycle
Once we had looked at the structure of the course, and what you need to be doing in terms of reading, notes, organisation, etc., on Wednesday, we had a look at some key hydrological cycle terms.
Thursday's lesson was then spent looking at the systems approach, the idea of open (eg the drainage basin hydrological cycle) and closed systems (eg the global hydrological cycle), a recap of the features of a drainage basin. We then had a more detailed look at the drainage basin hydrological cycle, and you began putting together your hydrological cycle flow charts.
I've spent some time this afternoon marking these, and the exam question you did, and I am pretty impressed on the whole (not least with the fact that all of them were handed in on time!). We will start tomorrow's lesson with a quick look at those.
Thursday's lesson was then spent looking at the systems approach, the idea of open (eg the drainage basin hydrological cycle) and closed systems (eg the global hydrological cycle), a recap of the features of a drainage basin. We then had a more detailed look at the drainage basin hydrological cycle, and you began putting together your hydrological cycle flow charts.
I've spent some time this afternoon marking these, and the exam question you did, and I am pretty impressed on the whole (not least with the fact that all of them were handed in on time!). We will start tomorrow's lesson with a quick look at those.
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