Pilot Geog Blog

Just to confirm that there will be no more posts to this blog. Thanks for your continued interest in the legacy of the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography blog, which still lives on in work carried out in classrooms. Thanks for reading over the years.

It's now a few days short of four years since the last post on this blog.... The OCR Pilot Geography is of course no more... There are also changes ahead for the OCR Specs that replaced it, not all of them welcomed by colleagues teaching the specification, but forced by OFQUAL in response to other pressures... I've had a fascinating four years since then with my role at the Geographical Association, and now as a freelance geographer and author.... It's interesting to see that there's still interest in what we did back in 2006-8 here... around 30-50 visitors  on most days... You're all very welcome and I hope you find something of interest...

This is the 679th post on this blog, and the last from me. Hope you all have a good summer. Keep an eye out on your travels for examples of sustainable transport solutions - take pics with your mobiles, pick up timetables etc. Best wishes to KHCTC staff and students too. Mrs. Clarke will now take over... Best of luck with Year 11 - I will be checking in from time to time to see what you're up to... Mister P

Big Huge Labs is one of my top 10 sites. We used the MAGAZINE COVER MAKER today to start to think about the cover for our coursework portfolio. Here's my starter effort.... You might also want to read this post on the BBC NEWS website.

I'll put this up here now so that you can have access to it when you need to... This is the first piece of work that you will probably do next year, but I am putting it here now so that you can think about it over the summer, and also to save Mrs. Clarke a job. Before you move on to this, you need to have done the research on the various forms of transport that we mentioned, and also consider the factors that put people off using the bus (and other forms of public transport) and how they can be overcome (think of the CARROT and STICK idea that we have discussed before) These are some problems with the car parking provision at school. Are there any others ? Is this a realistic assessment ? Is it too pessimistic ? There are some follow up activities to complete now: A powerpoint will be available on the school network (and SLIDESHARE)

We have been looking at the VELIB scheme in Paris. Take a look at this useful SCRIBD document too, which contains a useful FAQ on the scheme. You need to consider whether this scheme could work in King's Lynn. If so, how could it be planned to work ? Where would you place the cycle stations ? What potential problems could there be ? How sustainable is the scheme ? Read this article from the TIMES , which goes through some of the issues that the scheme is now facing. Does this item focus on the good aspects or bad aspects of the scheme ? What are the impacts of Velib on encouraging cycling ? Cycling deaths are apparently well down, and there have been a total of 27 million Velib trips. Also thanks to SLN member Plene for pointing out THIS ARTICLE which has some useful information on SVALBARD : a good focus for an EXTREME ENVIRONMENT. It starts: It is forbidden to die in the Arctic town of Longyearbyen. Should you have the misfortune to fall gravely ill, you can expect to be despa...

While having a mooch in Sheffield yesterday, I saw this car. It was parked near the University, and the old Jessop's hospital (and the Henderson's Relish place). It was in a bay marked CAR CLUB . There was a website address called WHIZZGO on the side of the car. If you follow the website link you will find lots of information about this particular online car club, and see that Sheffield is one of several cities where they have cars which can be borrowed by the hour (or for longer periods) This is a nice idea for those people who don't want the running costs of owning a car.