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.

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?

London Fieldwork Summer School

I mentioned to you last week about the fantastic London Fieldwork Summer School opportunity that the RGS are offering for students who are thinking of applying for Geography courses at university... There are still places available - more details here.

Projects...

Apologies that I forgot to take in your plans this morning - I will have them in on Monday from everyone please!

Dos and don'ts of questionnaire planning and execution this morning... You demonstrated that you know the "right" answers; your task now is to apply them in the questionnaire that you are planning (either linked to school transport, or something that is directly related - and therefore could be used as your pilot - for your own investigation). By Thursday morning, your questionnaire needs to have been written and carried out - you will be analysing your results and then evaluating your questionnaire on Thursday, so if you don't have any results, you will be in something of a mess.

Monday we will look at locations, maps, and get those action plans sorted.

Oh... and this is Survey Monkey!!

Welcome back Year 12!

This morning, in our first lesson after the exams, we looked at the structure of the A2 course, and talked about the new A* grade...

Remember, the specification is here, and you can also access sample questions, etc. on the AQA website. The ppt from this morning's lesson is in a new folder in Student Share, and you have a copy via email too.

We then went on to look at GEOG4A - the individual fieldwork investigation, and after we'd talked about the process of planning and carrying out an enquiry, you started to think about topics that you might be interesting in investigating.

We will spend Thursday's lesson (p1) continuing to discuss topics and investigation ideas, and then on Monday you will need to be ready to present your initial proposal to the rest of the group, and to hand in one side of A4 outlining your intentions. Don't forget to talk to people at home (who are likely to need to be roped into helping you collect your data!) and have a chat to the Year 13 geographers too...

North Wales...

I'm pleased to report that the weather forecast for North Wales for the past few days was wrong, and although it was a bit cold and windy, we saw very little in the way of precipitation!

Plenty of good photos - many of which demonstrate Yr12's ability to pull strange faces... We'll look at them properly next week, but here are a few:

Cwm Idwal
View from Clogwyn Station

View down the Llanberis valley from Pen-y-Pass (no hail in this pic!)

The Conwy estuary and Llandudno from Conwy Mountain (see what you missed out on!!)

It was a great few days - you worked very hard, asked lots of good questions, and provided plenty of entertainment.

Year 12 River Dove Visit

Despite several of the party not being entirely "with it" at the start of the day, the Year 12 geographers had a good visit to the River Dove just before half-term. The morning was spent measuring a variety of channel characteristics at several different sites along the upper course of the River Dove. Google Maps is not cooperating at the moment, but hopefully will be able to add in a map showing the sites we visited here soon.

After lunch we arrived at Milldale, where we had a look round the National Trust Information Barn and then set off walking down Dovedale, stopping along the way to look at a variety of fantastic geological features and to think about how the river was continuing to change.


(I'll save the photos of the ice cream eating for school!)

The "mystery building" at Site 3 was a gauging station (yes, that was Wikipedia link...), and we saw another one near to the end of our walk at the bottom of Dovedale. A variety of data for the Hollinsclough gauging station (which is no longer in use), the Izaak Walton gauging station (and every other gauging station in the UK!) is available from the National Environment Research Council.

UK Tourism and Coursework

Period 3 was spent looking at UK tourism case studies - remember you have a list of questions to base your work on, but should also include a map (or maps) and anything else that you think is useful or interesting (especially about tonnes of fish....). Don't forget about the article about heritage tourism that I gave you - very important that you understand terms such as heritage tourism, cultural tourism, etc.

Period 4 was more coursework time. Most of you are now well on the way and have clear plans for what you are doing in terms of data collection during half-term. I will remind you tomorrow but:

- field sketches are a really useful thing to be able to include in your projects
- photographs (especially digital ones that you can annotate easily) are also a valuable addition to your project, and if you are doing a physical project, might help with things like plant identification... also get your family/friends/whoever to take pictures of you doing your work - we had plenty of amusement with the Wales pictures (and we still haven't seen all of them - Joel and Laura!) so no reason why we shouldn't break up our "long and drawn-out" Wednesday morning lessons with some more photo-viewing!!
- make sure that you have everything that you need with you... most of you have given me details of what you need in terms of equipment... we should have ranging poles sorted, and so you will need to come up straighaway at the end of school on Friday to collect equipment. If there is a problem with this, you need to let me know asap - I am not here on Thursday as I am out on fieldwork with Year 12, and I am spending my free period on Friday collecting ranging poles!!
- be flexible and think on your feet... You might find when you get to your fieldwork location that things are not quite as you expected... If you are forced to change your plans, don't worry!! A student a few years ago, for example, was looking at LSD on a spit.... He spent a day collecting lots of data and then found when he went back to continue the following day that a huge storm overnight had completely changed the shape of the beach - he changed his plans and produced (arguably) a better piece of work as a result...
- email if you need some help... Don't wait til we get back and then tell me that you got stuck and didn't know what to do. I am away from Friday until Sunday, but will be within reach of a computer for the rest of the week... if in doubt, ask!!
- enjoy yourself!! You will need to work hard to make sure that you have all the data that you need, but you have picked a project that interests you and you are all going to interesting locations (well, most of you anyway...) - make the most of it!

If you haven't had a meeting with whoever is supervising your project, you must must must make sure that you do so tomorrow - we are all out on Thursday for Year 12 fieldwork, and Friday is cutting it a bit fine!

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!

Year 12 River Dove Visit

The ppt that we used in this morning's lesson with the details of what we will be doing on our field visit next Thursday can be downloaded here. Make sure that you understand each of the variables we'll be looking at - and how to measure them, and remember please that for Monday, you need to be designing a simple recording sheet to use "in the field".

We will be leaving school at 8.30am on Thursday, and intend to be back by 5.30pm.

You will need to have a packed lunch with you, and will need to be suitably dressed with plenty of warm clothing, waterproofs, etc. Wellies for the morning if you have them, and walking boots or sturdy shoes for the afternoon.

If you look back a few posts you will find the Where's the Path? site which will allow you to look at full screen OS maps of the area we'll be visiting. Our first site will be at Axe Edge - the source of the River Dove, and we will then visit 4 more sites between there and Beresford Dale/Wolfscotedale. At lunchtime, we'll get to the Milldale carpark, near the "top" of Dovedale, and we'll spend the afternoon walking down Dovedale to the carpark near the famous stepping stones.

Fancy going to meet Old Harry?!

I will speak to you properly about it on Wednesday, but you might like to have a look at this... The RGS are offering 16 AS/A2 students the opportunity to take part in a Fieldwork Summer School from 25th-29th August at the Townsend Centre in Swanage...

The Townsend Centre is the field centre I went to back in October, and it was a fantastic weekend... The week is aimed at students who have completed AS, are planning to do A2, and who may be considering studying Geography at university, and who may not otherwise have the opportunity to do fieldwork like this... And - the entire cost of the week (food, accommodation, travel to and from Swanage) will be met by the RGS!

Fieldwork Photos...

All my pictures from Wednesday are now on Share, but here's a little selection for you...

Hard at work...



Sub-standard Sainsbury's satsumas...

Curbar... and blue sky!

Moments from disaster...

If you have any other good pictures that you'd care to share, email me them, or bring them in after half-term. And don't forget to enter any particularly good ones in the Geogtastic Photo Competition!!

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!)