Cumbria Floods November 2009

The BBC Cumbria website has a large amount of resources on the recent floods, including many, many photos which you can access here. You can read about the weather that caused the flooding here.

A New National Park for England

Today the Government confirmed that the South Downs are to become the 10th National Park in England. You can read about why it is being protected and the implications of it becoming a National Park here.

There are some pictures of the area here.

Birth and deaths in real time

Look at www.breathingearth.net which shows birth and death rates by country in real time. It also shows CO2 emissions. Its quite hypnotic really!

The Future of the Maldives

The Maldives are a group of low lying coral islands in the Indian Ocean that rely on tourism to keep their economy going. The islands and the people who live their are likely to be some of the first casualties of global warming - it will create many environmental refugees here. The President of the Maldives is trying to plan for the future. You can read about what he is trying to do here. You can listen to his proposals here.

Snippy

I've mentioned this little handy tool to a few people.....snippy. Lets you copy a selection of a web page or document easily.
Click here for more information and to download it.

Cyclone and Earthquake Update

The BBC now has in depth areas on its website for both of the natural disasters that have hit Asia this month. There are many useful links from these pages.
Cyclone Nargis
China Earthquake

Earthquake in China

More bad news from Asia - a magnitude 7.9 earthquake has struck the SW of China. A day after the quake, the death toll stands at 12 000, but this figure is likely to rise. You can read about this disaster here and here. There are some pictures from China here - the BBC warns that you may find some of them disturbing.

There is an interesting article here about the contrasting responses to this disaster and the cyclone in Burma.

Weird Weather

For an unusual weather story, click here!

Earthweek - A Diary of the Planet

This is a really useful website that summarises the major physical events that have happened each week. It tells you where there has been earthquake and volcano activity, storms, highest and lowest temperatures and other interesting things, such as a snake invasion in SE Australia this week!

Is your home at risk of flooding?

Find out if your home is at risk of flooding with the maps on this website

Mrs Nurton's year 8 homework

Tuesday 15th Jan - homework 2 set today which is:
'Collect a weather map from newspaper or internet. Identify any areas where rainfall is happening and suggest what type of rainfall it is.'

If you can't remember the work you did on the different types of rainfall this link may help -click here

This is a powerpoint on the internet so you'll need to click through / scroll down to see it (don't worry if the first page is just a blank screen...scroll down, it will appear!)

Father Christmas and climate change

Turn your sound up.....




Thanks to Steve, a Field Studies Leader in Lancashire for pointing this out!

Interactive maps

A superb interactive world map showing data from the world bank can be found here.

Which parts of Africa are richer than others? Click on the map to see!


Ever wondered what some places in Europe are actually like? try the interactive European tourism map here Click on a location to see pictures and short video clips of the places.

Thanks to two Geography teachers from Preston and Woodcote (near Reading) for these links!

Fantastic pictures from around the world

Thanks to Alan Parkinson (Head of Geography in Norfolk) for pointing out this fabulous site - 336,458 photos so far (and rising) from around the world - some fantastic pictures......
Click on the website link to take you there...

www.woophy.com/map/index.php

Methods of flood control

Year 8 - here is the powerpoint that will help you with your assessment (hopefully!)

Foot and mouth disease update

The strain of diasease has now been identified and it is identical to that used at the Institute for Animal Health, at Pirbright, three miles from the farm. Defra could not say the laboratory was the source but has increased the size of the protection and surveillance zones covering farms in the area. (from BBC news website)

The map below shows the new, enlarged protection and surveillance zones. The map can be enlarged using the tool on the top of the 'scribd' page below (map from Defra)

Foot and mouth disease found on a farm near Guildford

Foot and mouth disease has been discovered on a farm close to Guildford.

This is taken from the BBC website: "Cattle at a farm in Surrey have been found to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease. Animals on the farm near Guildford have tested positive for the disease which swept the UK and wreaked havoc in 2001. A 3km protection zone has been put in place around the premises and a UK ban imposed on movement of all livestock."

Read the full story here and now updated here which includes a link to the map below (where it is much clearer!)

The map below shows the 3km protection zone and the 10km surveillance zone that have been put in place. This information is taken from Defra. (http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/fmd/pdf/declaration-pz-sz-rz-070803.pdf)

Floods in Southern Asia

We aren't the only ones experiencing difficulties with floods at the moment. Weeks of torrential rain, landslides and floods in China have left more than 700 people dead and forced about 5 million others to flee their homes.
Click here and here to see more pictures from the region.

World Population Clock

World population clock. If you click on 'Now' button the statistics start again at zero so you can see how fast things are rising.


Created by Poodwaddle.com

For those of you who wanted to see Yakko's World (the countries song) again here it is....