Active Volcano Crater, Ecuador
Originally uploaded by dotnethed
This picture of Tungurahua Volcano in Ecuador was found on the photoshare site, Flickr. If you were asked to draw a “typical volcano” this is the classic cone shape you would probably sketch. Many of the world’s most famous volcanoes are cone shaped-or composite volcanoes, but there are other types, too. Volcanoes tend to be found in 3 main physical regions across the world:
1. Constructive plate boundaries-ie where the sea floor is spreading as new crust is formed
2. Destructive plate boundaries-ie where an oceanic and a continental plate collide. One plate goes under the other.
3. Hot Spot-where “bubbles” of magama rise close to the surface.
In this lesson we shall look at;
What? What are the most important volcanoes in the world?
Where? Where are they found? Is there a pattern to their location?
Why? Why are volcanoes only found in particular places? Why are there different types of volcano?
When? when was the last major eruption?
Who? what effect do volcanoes have on people?
Nb 1 volcano
2 or more volcanoes.
Significant volcanoes:
Mount St Helens, Washington state, USA
Vesuvius, Italy
nyiragongo, Congo
Cotopaxi, Mexico
Etna, Scicily
Krakatoa, Indonesia
Popocatepetal, Mexico
Hawaian island chain group of shield volcanoes developing over hot spot, eg Mauna Loa
What’s New?
Volcano Hazards.
Log on to the US Geology Survey update on current volcanoes here.
Snow fences, Cairngorms
Originally uploaded by jmmcdgll
Spent October break at the iconic Coylumbridge Hotel, which I last stayed at in the early 70s, back in the heyday of Aviemore as the winter resort of the UK. We used this as a base to explore the area, with top marks going to the quad biking. Looking at the activities on offer within the Rothiemurchus estate was like being plunged into a Higher Geography question on rural land use issues. I could see the potential for some good field work on conflicts of interest, but I also feel we can sometimes make too much of the theme of “conflict” and automatically ascribe to each and every activity within a national park a minus point in a conflict checklist. To take quad bikes, certainly they are noisey and churn up the land, but it is strictly contained within a small area near the town, and only runs at particular times. In fact I got a real sense of the amount of space surrounding the honeypots-vast areas of rock strewn mountains, forests and moorland, with scarcely a person to be seen. What I felt was that many activities do is encourage people out of their houses and into the countryside, to enjoy the beauty of the autumn colours, to try something new. The main problem is cost-for a family of four each activity could be upwards from £50
That said, it is clear that certain areas do suffer from overkill-the flanks of the Cairngorms are criss crossed by weathered snow fences and the ghostly infrastructure of old chair lifts. Broad, ever widening paths cut into the hillside, with secondary paths evolving along side. There are many of disapprove of the whole concept of the Cairngorm Mountain Railway, which makes it easier for more people to ascend the mountain.Car parks and mountain restuarants are anathema to those who want the mountains wild and challenging.The issue, as always, is to assess the costs and benefits of such developments. In a time of recession, and job losses, who would deny this region the chance to generate income, and create employment? But what price the environment?
Aims:
1. To know what is meant by the national grid
2. To locate OS symbols on a map using grid references
3. To give the correct grid references for features on an OS map.
The map is divided into a grid made up of squares 1km by 1km. Every grid square on an OS map is always 1km2.
The lines running across the page, ie from east to west are called Northings
The lines running and down the page, ie from north to south are called Eastings.
Every single square in the British Isles has a unique reference number. Some grid squares show very little:
Click here to find out more about officially the dullest grid square in Britain-it even made it to the QI Show!
First Years have been learning about maps, and in particular looking at the idea of their personal geography and mental maps. Everyone has a mental map in their head-if you shut your eyes you can still see places and you can work out how to get from one A to B. You can visualise places and begin to get a picture in your mind of where they are. Often your sense of direction improves, for example everyone in the class could point to the where the Science Block is even when it is not visible from my room. How?
We also looked at the idea of scale. Now with Google map, or multimap, we tend to scroll up or down a scale bar, a plus sign at one end a negative at the other. Sliding the bar allows us to zoom in for more detail; zooming out to cover more area. This becomes more complex as you get older, as your knowledge and experience of where places are develops. Classes have been experimenting with drawing mental maps of their home areas and we shall publish some examples. After drawing the mental map, you had to write up the things you found easy and difficult about this exercise. Did you put in too much detail, eg lots of little trees, or chimneys on houses? Did you start with your house and draw the map around it, or did you decide in advance what streets you were going to include? Did you exaggerate the size of your house to make it look bigger? Did you draw the houses in correct scale, ie did the size of the houses match the width of the roads and other features you included? What information did you leave out of the map? Why? Did you use colour or symbols?
This becomes more complex as you get older, as your knowledge and experience of where places are develops. Classes have been experimenting with drawing mental maps of their home areas and we shall publish some examples. After drawing the mental map, you had to write up the things you found easy and difficult about this exercise. Did you put in too much detail, eg lots of little trees, or chimneys on houses? Did you start with your house and draw the map around it, or did you decide in advance what streets you were going to include?
Did you exaggerate the size of your house to make it look bigger?
Did you draw the houses in correct scale, ie did the size of the houses match the width of the roads and other features you included? What information did you leave out of the map? Why? Did you use colour or symbols?
Further information
Click here for more information about mental maps.
Key Words: Structure; Core; Mantle; Crust; Seismic waves
Aims- To name and describe the three zones of the Earth
To use our reasoning to ask some questions to help us understand the zones of the Earth
To think about:
What is the deepest place humans have ever reached? (How can you tell how deep you have reached?)
Could we ever drill a hole to the centre of the Earth?
Assuming you could, where on the earth’s surface would you begin?
As you dug through, what would you come across?
What evidence is there that the Earth is not just a solid lump of rock spinning through space?
Dictionary Definition
Originally uploaded by luv4sams
This is the title of a regular column in the popular monthy magazine, Readers Digest. (a digest here means a summary of the main points) Each month they introduce the reader some new words and their meanings, with a view to enriching our vocabulary-ie increase your word power.
In geography we want to increase your word power. Geography is the description of place and there fore we can use lots of adjectives to paint a full, detailed and interesting picture of different parts of the world-maybe a city, a mountain, a river or a rain Forest.
Throughout the session, we shall be introducing many new words and terms. The first time you meet a new word, you will highlight it in your jotter, and you’ll add its definition. All new words will also go in a separate page of this blog called the Word Bank. As the session proceeds, you will see more words go into the word bank. You can find this page by going to the right hand pane of the blog, look for the heading “pages” and click on “Word Bank”.
Sir, what are we doing today?
This seems the most important question a pupil should ask. If you don’t know why you are in a class, and most importantly what it is you are meant to be learning or doing, then there is not much point in being there. It always helps to know what we are going to be learning.
One general approach we can apply to every lesson in geography is to think 5 Ws. This is a list of 5 questions, all beginning with W we should be asking about any place we study.
Where is this place?
What is it like?
What makes it the same as/different from my home area?
Who lives here?
Why is this place the way it is?
We don’t always need to ask all 5 questions, and there are others we ask instead, but this is a useful starting point, and most importantly gets us thinking about the idea of place.
Next-building a geographical vocabulary: what words can we use to describe places.
The rule of thirds
Originally uploaded by dgray_xplane
Today in First Year we talked a little about field sketching. You have been asked to try a sketch of the farm landscape on page 96. There is a “worked example” on pages 95-96 of your textbook, but you might also be interested in what this guy has to say about sketching. When you prepare your field sketch of the farm think about the layout of your sketch-here, the example given suggests that you divide in into thirds, effectively giving you nine squares to work within.
For more on Visual Communication, visit the excellent website, Communication Nation.
Here’s an interesting slide presentation I found on SlideShare. Given the current concerns about world food shortages and rising prices, it seem more important than ever to consider the world’s food supply and how we can avoid people falling into famine and starvation.
