Updates and Water, Water Everywhere, But Not A Drop to Drink

Various updates for those out in Geography Land...

Congrats to Alice in 7L, winner of the first picture competition of this term. Well done Alice, your answer to the picture question: Anak Krakatoa was correct!

For those who check back here regularly you'll notice that the YouTube box on the left hand side of the page has changed again. This week's new hot topic in videos is the Global Water Crisis. Something Mrs. Mitchell is very passionate about is alerting all those out in geoggersland of the issue of getting sustainable, clean water supplied to everyone around the world. I came across this wonderful video of American rapper Jay-Z bringing to light this growing problem. Check it out:

Diary Of Jay-Z: Water For Life | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

You can also find out more about the global water crisis by checking out these websites and articles dedicated to educating the public on the real problems facing the world when it comes to this vital resource:
World Water Council
Nature
Wikipedia: Water Crisis
USAID
Water for Life
WaterAid

Also, there was an enlightening documentary on the Discovery Science channel the other day called A World Without Water. I've found the same documentary on Google Video today and its really worth a watch. Just follow this link for A World Without Water. The water crisis is especially significant this year across the entire Key Stage 3 curriculum kiddos, so get yourself educated on this issue!

Enthusiasm galore!!!

I want to applaud 7L on their enthusiastic entries for past picture competitions, but sadly kiddos...those were last term's competitions and the newest picture competition has yet to be released.

Well at least until now! Below is a picture that is just crying out to be placed somewhere in the world. Can you guess where it is???

The translation of the first name of this volcano means "Child of" and it was born in the same location of one of the deadliest eruptions of the 19th century.

Year 8 India

We're starting this year with a brand new curriculum kiddos, which means we're going to try some new, exciting and interesting activities to increase your geographical knowledge. The first of these activities is all about India for Year 8. To help with your first task, the creation of a survery to see what people know/think about India in this country, here's a great article from BBC News giving you an enormous amount of information about this country on the rise. Check it out!

Welcome Back!

Well its less than 24 hours before the Geography department get back into the full swing of things. All you minigeoggers are in for a real treat this year as the entire Key Stage 3 curriculum has been remodelled to suit your every geographical needs and dreams. A big welcome back to all those year 8s and 9s who are rejoining us this year on our journey through Geography bliss and a huge welcome on board to all our new year 7s who are about the embark on quite a trip this year!

So let's get things started in real style kiddos...Mrs. Mitchell was surfing the information super highway this afternoon and found a wicked flash animation of Hurricane Gustav's progress through the Caribbean. For all those wild weather enthusiasts out there (I'm looking in your direction 9A) this one's for you!

I can imagine what many of you might be asking yourselves...what has the wonderful world of Geography got in store for us this year? Well I'm glad you asked (and that I am psychic and possess all the skills necessary to know exactly what geographical quandries you're cooking up at all moments of the day - be afraid, be very afraid). This year on this blog you are going to get more of the great videos, animations, links, quizzes and games that set your Geography hearts all a flutter. Additionally, all of us in Geographyland will be posting information that will be incredibly relevant to the Great Beaumont Geography Bee this year...yes...you heard me right...I said the GREAT BEAUMONT GEOGRAPHY BEE!!! More information to follow in the weeks to come kiddos.

The blog is also going to become an integrated part of Beaumont School's move to great new ICT heights by starting our new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), which you all will be hearing about very soon. Watch this space for more updates.

Finally (at least for this post), the Geography department would like to enlist all those minigeoggers out there who so wish to, to start contributing their own ideas and wicked geographical finds to the Wonderful World of Key Stage 3 Geography blog. If you're interested kiddos, either comment on this post to express that you're on board, or find a Geography Teacher...preferably one from Beaumont School of course...and let them know in person you're up for the job.

Hope you've had a wonderful and very rested summer minigeoggers...now, let's bring on the Geography!

A Hole New World Competition

Calling all Mini-Geoggers!!! Competition time and this time I would like you to identify where in the world you can find this great big hole. Here's a hint: It's an absolute beast and holds the title of the world's largest open diamond mine. There's even a no-fly zone above the hole due to a few helicopters being sucked in.

Geography in the News!

Calling all Year 8s!
We are starting a new unit next week...Geography in the News. For this unit you will need to become proper keen-os in watching the news and spotting any geography related content. Your homework this week is to spot one geography related news item and give Mrs. Mitchell the 5Ws and an H of that item.

A superb congrats to Alex who managed to guess correctly the picture I provided below comes from the Eden Project. Alex, look for a treat at the end of the week making its way to you at Tutor time.

Competition Time!!!

The first student to any member of the Geography Department with the answer to the following question, will receive a chocolatey treat from Mrs. Mitchell.

Look at the following picture...

Where can you find a tropical rainforest experience without leaving the UK?

Tropical Rainforests

As I was surfing the net this morning, I came across Oxfam's Cool Planet website, which has some wicked information all about Tropical Rainforests. Year 8, this would be a wonderful site to use during your assessment in three weeks time. Check it out!

Long time, no see!

A big sorry to all you keen mini-geoggers for the much overdo update to the blog, it has been quite a hectic half-term already. Hopefully everyone out there in geoggersland has had a good half-term and are as psyched as Mrs. Mitchell is to get right back on the mini-geoggers horse...so to speak.

For our year 8s, we have already been waist deep in Ecosystems and are now in the midst of trekking through Tropical Rainforests. "What would you like for lunch, what do you want to munch!?!" should still be echoing through your mind...I know I can't seem to get it out of my head (but that's partially Mr. Jenkins fault as he keeps singing it in the Geography Office).

For our year 9s, the main name of the game is Tourism this half-term and what a great job most of you did on your Tourism Crime Watch Posters and UK Destination Travel Articles. Mrs. Mitchell was very impressed with most of the work she saw. Good luck year 9 on your SATs next week (especially 9L...Mrs. Mitchell's Jeopardy Review ought to have you prepared!)

Keep checking back, as things have slowed back to a nice pace here in geoggersland there should be updates galore for all you Geographers in training.

TTFN - Ta Ta for Now!!!

The World Population

Year 8, take a look at the various animations that INED (the French National Institute for Demographic Studies) has come up with to explain world population growth and change. Each animation lasts about 5 to 10 minutes depending on how fast or slow you want to run the animation and has interactive links to explain population demographics in greater detail. Start first with their answer to the question: How will the world population change in the future?

Geographical Profiling

Calling all you amateur sleuths in Geoggers World...check out this interesting article on TruTV's Crime Library website all about geographical profiling. It includes a reference to the Zodiac killer, who operated in and around San Francisco, California in the late 1960s, and how his killing spree might have been geographically motivated.

War on Crime: The Homicide Map

Based on county coroner data and in-depth research, the LA Times presents an geographic index of homicides from across Los Angeles, the Geography of Homicide in LA.

National Geographic News

Cool Geography Related Games on the WWW

Hey all my geography mad minions! Check out what games4geog has to offer in the way of Geography related gaming. The games are categorized into the different subjects we study at Key Stage 3 and all are a great way of reviewing what we have learned so far this year.

Lego Madness!!!

For any of you Year 9s who really enjoyed Simon and Tom's workshop last week (especially the Lego models) Mrs. Mitchell has found this very cool, very free download from Download.com. It's Lego's Model Designer. So any budding Lego model designers out there in Geoggerland, check this out and let us know all the cool models you come up with that are geoggers related.

Maps Galore

Another great offering from National Geographic - The Map Machine generates loads of different themed maps that illustrate relevant geographical points. Year 8, be sure to check on the population density map; you can actually zoom into different levels so you can see the population density of the World, Europe, the UK and England.

Population

Year 8, check out this video from National Geographic about the State of the Earth: Population. The video illustrates well the dangers of overpopulation. When you've viewed the video, be sure to click on the links to photos of urban areas and learn about urban habitat.

The Lincolnshire Earthquake

Cool update for all you mad minigeoggers...well, cool for us because of how interesting it is, but not so cool for those who lived through it extremely early this morning...there was a magnitude 5.2 on the Richter scale earthquake at around 1 am today, centred on the village of Holton cum Beckering, about 15 miles northeast of Lincoln. The quake is the largest to affect the UK since the 1984 Lleyn Peninsula earthquake, which measured 5.4.

But what was the cause??? The first student to find any member of the Geography department before the end of next week with the correct answer, will receive a special prize.

Also, remember to check out the flash earth at the bottom of the page for further information about the quake.

The Issue of Overpopulation

Hey everybody...was surfing this evening and came across this thought provoking YouTube video from WOA! (World Overpopulation Awareness). Check it out.

What Have We Learned This Week

Just to recap for any of those not paying attention in lessons this week :-)

Year 8: We finished up our football unit and are now working on population. Remember that cool National Geographic link I left for year 9 to look at? Well it also has a great interactive map for population density. For more information click here.

Year 9: We are quickly wrapping up our Brazil unit...we shall be so sad to say tchau (goodbye in Portuguese), but do not fret as we still have our speeches to finish and will be looking briefly into the differences between regions in Brazil before we leave this beautiful country.

Competition Numero Dos

Competition time again mini-geoggers!!! See if you can guess where this landmark is in the world.




Here's a quick hint: This volcano in the Southern Hemisphere erupted last in 1996, calling an early end to the ski season on the mountain.

Map Zone

Welcome back to all my favourite mini-geoggers. Just wanted everyone to check out the latest find courtesy of Ms. Mansell, Map Zone from the geographer's best friend Ordinance Survey. On this super cool site you can find homework help, competitions and games. Check it out!

Volcano Fears

Hello again my geography junkies!!! Mrs. Mitchell found this amazing video of Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano erupting this morning. Thousands of villagers in the shadow of the volcano have fled their homes as officials ordered them to evacuate the area to shelters. Tungurahua, 95 miles south east of the capital Quito, has been active since 1999.

Guerilla Geographers on the News

Check out this bbc news item on 3 guerilla geography teachers trying to take Geography out of the classroom and into the streets. Warning - its a real audio post because the windows media player version had wonky colouring.

Homework Help

Hello again all you mini-geoggers! I've enabled comments now on the blogsite, which should act like a kind of forum in which you all can help each other with homework and you can have Mrs. Mitchell answer any of your many panicked-last-minute-homework-due-the-next-day questions. I'll give this post a trial run, which means over the next couple of days I'd like to see you guys come online and give this a whirl.

Just click on the comment link at the bottom of this post and type in any querie you have about the work we have been studying or your homework. *Reminder* Year 9 your posters are due tomorrow!!!

One major rule for the blogsite:
No inappropriate comments...I hate to have to put this in, but I just have a feeling that someone might think they are being funny and in fact are being incredibly rude. If this occurs I will turn the comments off and we will not do any homework help through this site again.

Happy Homeworking Everyone!

A better glimpse into life in the favelas

This is the opening clip from the 2005 film "Favela Rising," which documents the rise of the Afro Reggae movement in the notorious slums(favelas) of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the clip you can see the lack of basic infrastructure (sewage, running water) and the danger that faces people living in the favelas from crime.

Competition Time!!!

Where in the world is the following photo??? If you can find the answer before the week is out you will receive two credits.

Here's a hint...those are not birds, but bats. This city is host to the world's largest urban bat colony.

Monday's Lessons

Good job today to all Mrs. Mitchell's mini geoggers. Year 8 you all did exceptional work today in class and your books reflect this.

Year 9, we will continue with our favela exercise on Wednesday. To help you prepare well for this lesson, I have provided a link below to wikipedia's article on favelas.

Remember to keep checking back regularly as Mrs. Mitchell will be posting various competitions randomly.

Favela article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favela

This week in Geography...

Mrs. Mitchell's Year 8 Geography Lessons: This week we will be learning that there are winners and losers in the football industry. These lessons will help us after half term when we begin working on our speech project.


Mrs. Mitchell's Year 9 Geography Lessons: This week we will be working on our Favela decision making exercise. You and a partner will decide how to improve the standard of living within a favela.

What does Quality of Life really tell us?

For all of you mini geoggers still buzzing from our many discussions of quality of life this year, National Geographic provides several excellent interactive maps as a visual guide to global trends. Check it out...

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/earthpulse/quality-of-life.html

YouTube Geography Catch of the Week

Just for Mrs. Mitchell's year 9s, the much anticipated video of Lilly, the little Geography wonder child!!!

Welcome!

Welcome to Beaumont School's Geography Department website for Key Stage 3 Geography! On this page you'll find all you could ever possibly want to know about Geography, with a special emphasis on the topics we are studying at lovely Beaumont. Keep checking back as Mrs. Mitchell will be updating the site on a regular basis. Be sure to have a look at the links highlighted on this page as they will be useful for your homework from time to time. Don't forget to keep track of the Moving Earth at the bottom of the page to see all the tectonic activity across the planet each day.

Geography ROCKS!!!!