Bhopal - 25 yeas on

Students in Years 10 and 11 have looked at the cyanide gas leak that happened in the Indian city of Bhopal in 1984. It is a good case study of all the negative aspects of multinational companies. This week saw the 25th anniversary of this dreadful industrial accident, and many of the victims have received very little compensation. People are still being affected because the area, and in particular, the water supply, has not been cleaned up. This article tells you all about it.

A Week of Natural Disasters

This week has seen a number of major natural disasters hit East Asia. You can read about the tsunami that his Samoa on Tuesday here - this page has links to information on which countries were hit, and an animated guide to tsunamis. This article is about a surfer who survived the tsunami by staying out at sea.

On Wednesday, two major earthquakes hit Indonesia - a magnitude 7.6 followed by a 6.8. So far, the death toll stands at 1 100. You can read about the earthquake and its aftermath here - again, there are many links to other related articles and sites on this page.

Earlier in the week Typhoon Ketswana hit Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, where many people were affected by heavy rain, strong winds and landslides. You can read about it here. Today, the Philippines is being hit by Typhoon Parma, although the capital city, Manila looks like it will escape the worst of it. The BBC report of this typhoon is here.

Away from Asia, the city of Messina on Sicily (Italy) has been badly affected by heavy rain and mudslides. Information and film of this can be found here. So far, the death toll stands at more than 50.

All of these events can be used as case studies for GCSE and A Level. Think about the causes of the disaster, the consequences (social, economic, environmental, political) and the responses (local, national, international).

Too Many People?

This article on the BBC website may be useful for A2 (Population and Resource Management) and GCSE (Food and Water Supply, and Population Change).

Ecotourism

For those of you in Year 11 (and U6?) who are struggling with an Ecotourism case study, try this from today's Guardian Travel section.

Antarctic shelf 'hangs by thread'

Here is a story from the BBC website published today regarding the ongoing problems in Antarctica.

This is especially useful for the current Year 9 Antarctica assessment.

Depressions - Year 10

As promised, here are a few websites for you to look at about depressions.

Try this powerpoint to show what we learnt today. BBC bitesize has a good summary of depressions, fronts etc (make sure you look at the next couple of pages on this website). The BBC website has some information about how depressions form - click on the Fronts section on tbe right as well for additional information. The Met Office has a more comprehensive explanation, including the weather associated with the passage of a depression.

When you've looked at these, have a look at the current pressure chart and the satellite photo, and see if you can spot the different features of a depression and how the weather will change over the next few hours. Good luck!

And if you want to see it again, you can download Postman Pat does Depressions here!

Coral reef bleaching

Here is an article about the use of ocean temperature monitoring equipment to try and protect vulnerable coral reefs. This is of increasing concern as an impact of global warming and climate change.

Increasing Rainforest Deforestation

Here are a few articles about the increasing rates of rainforest deforestation in Brazil.

Original story

A response

Increasing pressure

Rising Sea Levels and Tuvalu

AS Geographers - this is the link to the news report item from yesterday about the impacts of global warming and sea level rise on the South Pacific island of Tuvalu. There is an article here with lots of interesting links too. This is also relevant for GCSE and A2 students - a useful case study - as well as anyone else with an interest in the environment.

Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh

In the last few days, Bangladesh has been badly hit by Cyclone Sidr. There is some really useful information here including interactive guides, photos, video footage and eye witness accounts. This would make a useful case study for GCSE, AS (Climatic Hazards) and A2 (Coasts - the cyclone caused a 5m storm surge). BBC coverage is here and includes information about the management of the cyclone here . There is also an animated guide to cyclones.

Oil Spill in California

In the news today - oil spill in California. read about the spill and the clean up operation here.

Hurricane Dean

Normally I'm a little bit jealous of my sister who lives in the Cayman Islands. However, over the weekend, she and her sons have had to leave the island because of the imminent arrival of Hurricane Dean. It is expected to hit Cayman today, at Category 4, possibly 5 (the Saffir Simpson scale which is used to measure hurricane strength only goes up to category 5!). You can track the progress of Dean here - http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#DEAN - it's already hit Jamaica, and is on its way to the popular tourist resort of Cancun in Mexico. The BBC website has a number of links worth looking at, like http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6955163.stm(news story), http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6952773.stm (eye witness accounts) and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6956117.stm(for pictures). Makes our dismal "summer" that we've had this year not seem so bad!!

GCSE Past Papers

Special message for Year 11 students! Here's the link for the past exam papers on the AQA website. Look at the papers (you can choose Higher or Foundation as appropriate), and look at the mark schemes too.

http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gcse/geo_c_assess.php

Remember, Paper 1 is the Decision Making Paper, and Paper 2 is the one which tests your knowledge of the topics we have covered in the last two years.

The topic for Paper 1 this year is as follows:

“Paper 1 will consider different indicators used to compare
economic development and how levels of development reflect
general quality of life and employment opportunities. It will
then look at the issues associated with the development of
tourism in LEDCs and examine a specific example. It will also
consider the issue of managing tourism developments in
sensitive areas.”

Happy revising!