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!

The aims of this set of lessons are 

1. To understand the need for symbols in any map

2. To use the key in the Philips Foundation Atlas to find a range of places, features and countries

3. To learn the most commonly used symbols in Ordnance Survey maps (and to think about the best way to learn and memorise them!)

There’s lots of useful information here.

Latitude-this is a measure of distance North or South of the Equator. As the world’s surface is curved, we measure distance as an angle. So, we talk about the number of degrees north or south of the equator. The Equator is Zero degrees, the North Pole is 90 North and the South Pole is 90 south. Latitude has a big impact on temperature-the closer places are to the equator, the warmer they tend to be. Places far from the equator are much cooler. Can you think why? (post a comment if you have an answer)

Longitude-Lines of longitude allow us to say how far east or west a place is. All lines of longitude run north-south from the North Pole to the South Pole. Longitude is measured in degrees west or east of the Prime Median which runs through Greenwich in London. The Greenwich Meridian is used  to work out all time zones in the world. Places EAST of Greenwich are AHEAD of us, because the sun rises in the east. Places WEST of Greenwich are BEHIND US.

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?

For  more on hurricane Gustav, click here.

We also found out about the shrinking ice cap in the Arctic; click here to find out more on the BBC’s news page-

Homework; 1.You should write up two further news reports about Geography in the News.

                 2. Practise writing a comment on this blog. Rules for posting comments are:

                 write in proper sentences

                 full words; don’t use slang expressions or text language

                 first name only

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 “Craft of the Classroom” focused on effective classroom management, with practical advice on the ways in which a teacher can establish control as a necessary precursor to building relationships, becoming “more friendly, more subtle, and more yourself”. I am going to get hold of the latest edition and re read Marland’s words of encouragement and practical suggestions, which I first read way back in 1983; it’s always instructive to revisit your roots, and weed out bad habits……

I love his pithy use of English; to define the central aim of a school as,

 “..sensitive, warm, efficient, human, realistic and thorough”

and the ideal mix for a teacher was a cocktail – “a spirit compounded of the salesman, the music-hall performer, the parent, the clown, the intellectual, the lover and the organiser”

Not an easy cocktail to distill for HGIOS3, perhaps, but Marland’s insight offers a refreshing vademecum for today’s teacher!