The infamous ash cloud!

An image made available by NEODASS/University of Dundee which shows the volcanic ash plume from Iceland, top left, to the north of Britain as received by NASA's Terra Satellite at 11.39 GMT Thursday April 15, 2010. All flights in and out of the UK and several other European countries have been suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south.

For more information from the BBC click this link.

Skipton Controlled Assessment

These maps may be useful for use in your controlled assessment. However, you must feel free to use any that you may have created or modified for yourself.

Saving the oceans?

The UK government has designated an area around the Chagos Islands as the world's largest marine reserve.
The reserve would cover a 544,000 sq km area around the Indian Ocean archipelago, regarded as one of the world's richest marine ecosystems.

For more details click this link.

Welcome Lottie to the World

Congratulations to Mr Peacocke and family on the birth of their baby daughter!

For those going to Iceland

Have a fantastic time!

Controlled Assessment

This may help you with your introduction!

Click this link.

Unemployment Map

A simple but effective GIS to show current trends in unemployment can be found here at the BBC. Look closely and you can see how the details change over time. You can even zoom in to see our home region.

Can you process this data further, maybe to produce a table of employment changes by local areas over the past 5 years? This could even be transformed into a graph.

Trade and Development

A handy way to study various trade patterns is to visit the international trade statistics web site, here. The nice thing about the site is that it will produce maps for you. Just explore and see for yourself. In particular, look at a commodity such as any of the aluminium products (76...) and compare the countries who export these goods with the countries who export and provide the raw materials (2606). Alternatively look at the countries who supply (export) the raw materials for chocolate and the countries who import the beans for processing and making the bars of chocolate.

Fairtrade Fortnight 2010

This year's Fairtrade Fortnight is all about THE BIG SWAP.

So why not get involved by clicking on this link.

Earthquake Miracles

Miracles and misfortune continue to coexist in Haiti. An aftershock registering 6.1 on the Richter scale shook the rubble yesterday. But survivors are still being rescued — despite having been buried alive for seven days. A trapped man used his iPhone to learn how to treat his wounds; a woman was dug out of the wreckage singing and smiling; a baby girl, who had spent half her 15-day life imprisoned and alone, was also saved.

Read more at The Times