Geosquishing Competition Results

1st Place - James Wright with the Matterhorn

2nd Place - William Forbes at the Tutankhamun Exhibition

3rd Place - Nikesh Mistry holding the "B in the Bang" in Manchester

No Ice in the North Pole?!

For those of you who read the Independent this story will not come as a shock, but for those of you who don't - click the link and read more.

The Independent Newspaper online

Cycling City

Bristol has become England's first "cycling city" in a £100m government scheme aimed at encouraging cycling.
The city intends to double the number of cyclists over the next three years with a series of innovations.
Sharing the funding will be York, Stoke, Blackpool, Cambridge, Chester, Colchester, Leighton Buzzard, Southend, Shrewsbury, Southport and Woking.
Among the features in Bristol will be the UK's first major bicycle rental network, modelled on a scheme in Paris.
The government is giving Bristol £11.4m to transform cycling by creating dedicated cycle lanes, better facilities and more training for children.

Longest day

Today is the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere's calender.

It is correctly called the Summer Solstice

To find out more click on the picture

Finish the fact file

So far you should have a map, a flag and population data for your selected country. Now to finish it off!
I want you to find some economic data on your chosen country. Find the following information:
The Gross Domestic Product per capita
Percentage of Arable Land
Percentage of people working in Primary/Secondary/Services
List the Import and Export Products

This link to infoplease may help
Once you have done this put it all on a single side of A4 paper and bring it in before your last lesson of the Year.

If you want to add any other details about your country please free.

What good will it do?

Plans to use a state-of-the-art camera onboard a satellite to monitor deforestation levels in Africa's Congo Basin have been unveiled.
The high resolution RALCam3 camera, designed and built by UK scientists, will provide the first detailed view of the area's rate of forest cover loss.
The project is part of the Congo Basin Forest Fund, a £108m joint-initiative by the UK and Norwegian governments.
The fund aims to curb climate change by preventing deforestation in the region.

Japan is rocked

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake strikes northern Honshu, Japan's main island killing 6 and injuring more than 140 people.

In this mountainous part of the island landslides triggered by the shaking earth covered homes and people.

Japan which is on the boundary of the Pacific Plate and Eurasian Plate is prone to earthquakes.

For more details about Japan's earthquake history click on the US Geolgoical website link in the Georgaphy link list below right.

Protesters storm a coal train

A train carrying coal to one of Britain's largest power stations was stopped by protestors and boarded this morning.

Thirty members of the group "Leave it in the Ground" stopped the train with a red flag and boarded it at Rawcliffe on the boundary between north and east Yorkshire. The train was carrying coal to Drax Power Station.

Leave it in the Ground is an organisation which protests against open cast mining.

Drax Power Station the largest coal fired station in the Uk claims to be the cleanest and most efficient power station in the UK.

Look at the two site and see what you think?

Tornado rips through scout camp

Tornado season in the US runs through spring into early summer and unfortunately each year people are killed.

Yesterday was no exception when a Tornado ran through a scout camp in Iowa killing four people.

This year has been a particularly deadly one with Tornadoes ripping through many of the mid western states of the US; an area infamously called Tornado Alley.

To learn how Tornadoes form click on the link to the Weather Wiz Kids page.

Year 8 - Population data

Okay - you've picked your country, found a map and you've got an image of the countries flag. Now some data:

You need to find your country's total population, birth rate, deat rate, fertility rate, infant mortality rate and percentage of population under 15 and over 65.

For this use the link to the Population Reference Bureau's pdf document that shows the 2007 world population data.

Begin to consider why your country is different to the global averages and to the UK data. A starting point maybe to find your country's wealth - why might this influence population data?

Blowing in the wind

Scientists at the University of Florida have created the world's largest hurricane simulator, which is capable of producing hurricane force winds.
It is hoped it will make the homes of millions of people safer.

Watch the simulator work on the BBC Website - click the link.

Congestion Charge for Manchester

Today the government approved a Congestion Charge scheme for Manchester.

The scheme, due to begin in 2013, will have two charging rings as shown on the map. The outer ring will be the M60 and the inner ring will be made up of the current inner ring road system that surrounds the CBD. Charges will be be triggered by a series of electronic beacons and costs will range from £1 to £5.

The government have also stated that they will provide £2.8bn to upgrade the public transport system of Manchester. This funding will support the extension of the Metrolink to Oldham, Rochdale and Ashton-under-Lyne. It will also be used to create priority lanes for buses and improve the city rail links.

So how do you feel about getting charged for driving in Manchester?

Mr M's Year 8 - Country information and population

So you have managed to find your way to the blog.

Your homework is to find a map of your chosen country and the flag of that country. Remember to save them electronically.

A site that enables you to get both pieces of information is Geographic.org. Click on this link and see if you can find what you need. If you can't, go to Google and search for your country.

For those of you who want to view the World Population Clock - click this link.

Remember if you find any useful sites of your own send them to me via the comments.

Second Homes - here there and everywhere

Not only was it a major item in the news but the debate on Second Homes also featured in todays AQA Syllabus B GCSE Paper 1.

A Second Home is a home bought, usually in resort areas for the use by the owners at weekends and during holidays.

The debate over Second Homes is one of great interest for Geographers. As many rural areas, especially National Parks have a high percentage of Second Homes; in some parts of the Lake District 60% of the dwellings are Second Homes. The debate has both advantages and disadvantages to the rural communities.

In todays news a report suggested that parts of the Welsh countryside could "lose its next generation of young people" because, despite their being over 18000 vacant properties in rural Wales the house prices were up to five times above the average wage: such prices were being forced up by the demand from city slickers wanting a quite rural retreat. For more information check out the news story on the BBC and also take a look at the Jeremy Vine Website on Radio two for different opinions on the debate.

Rising food prices

As Mrs M complains about the rising cost of staple foods such as bread and milk the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) - has warned the industrialised countries that unless they increase yields, eliminate barriers and move food to where it is needed most, a global catastrophe could result.

The recent food crisis is believed to have pushed 100 million people into hunger worldwide. Poorer countries are faced with a 40% increase in their food imports bill this year, and experts say some countries' food bills have doubled in the past year.

According to the World Food Programme higher food prices are rooted in increased energy costs, rising demand from economic growth in emerging economies, the growth of biofuels and increasing climatic shocks such as droughts and floods.

The map below shows how the rising cost of food is affecting countries ballance of trade. Balance of tarde is the difference between the cost of exports and the cost of imports for a country.