My trip to London...

After a ridiculously early start on Wednesday (the sunrise was very impressive... sadly no pictures as I didn't really want to miss my train), and - fortunately - a rather less eventful journey than my last visit there, I arrived at the RGS... Met lots of interesting people and had lots of interesting discussions about what we should and shouldn't be teaching in KS3 - and had a very nice lunch! I was also very impressed (perhaps a bit too impressed...) with the fantastic globes in the Council Room...


As I was passing the Natural History Museum on my way back to the tube, I remembered about the Ice Station Antarctica exhibition that is on until 20th April, so went in to have a look at that... The pair of scissors that live in my pencil case didn't go down well with the security guards at the entrance and so they, along with £7.00, were taken off me. The exhibition was aimed really at primary school children, but there were some interesting bits and pieces, including the opportunity to stand in a freezer room at about -100C (which would be a warm summer day in Antarctica!) and various games to play including driving a skidoo (which I was rather better at when I did it for real in Iceland).

Then off to Angel to meet Mrs Kambalu for dinner at the Afghan Kitchen...

Back to the new St Pancras International Station, where I had half an hour before my train to investigate the new Foyles bookshop, have a look at the famous clock and the infamous Meeting Place statue and cause great amusement to a man with a rubbish cart when I stopped to take a picture of the plaque that said that the huge girders had been made in 1867 at Butterley in Derbyshire!

Structure of the atmosphere and the earth's energy balance...

We started Friday's lesson by recapping the vertical stratification of the atmosphere (see earlier post for diagrams) - the words ending in "-pause" were the upper limits of each layer, and Tom Sings Musical Tunes was the mnemonic we came up with to remember the order of the layers as you move upwards.

We then looked at the earth's energy balance....

Although it is written for Scottish Highers, this bit of the BBC Bitesize website has a nice and fairly straightforward summary...

The end of three months of darkness

The photograph shows Longyearbyen, Svalbard... Although we won't be doing Cold Environments until next year, this article from yesterday's Guardian about Longyearbyen's first full day of sunshine since October is interesting, especially after the conversations we had on Friday...

UK braced for storms and flooding....

This is from the front page of the Met Office website at the moment, together with advice to stay away from coastal areas between today and Wednesday...

According to this article from the BBC, the worst storm of the winter is on its way... Have a look at the pressure chart forecast and see if you can work out what's going on...

What's going on here?

Saw this story in the news the other day... Where is it, what are they doing, and why?

Click on the picture to link to the story in the New York Times. There's also a BBC In Pictures and a BBC video clip...

Wednesday

A reminder that I will not be in school on Wednesday as I am off to the RGS in London.

(Photos - Flickr users sarchi and stevecadman)

For the nosy/curious ones amongst you, this is what I'll be doing...

In my absence, I would like you to do some reading about the uneven heating of the earth's surface. Mr Bradley will be happy to lend you a textbook if you want to borrow one, there is lots of info on the Higher section of the Met Office website, and lots of other bits and pieces out there... Make sure, also, that you are happy about the structure of the atmosphere from Friday.

Place Spotting...

If you're doing so well on the "How many countries can you name in 5 minutes?" game that you need a new challenge, check out Google Place-Spotting...