Graphs, Gore and Gaps (in the Ice...)

An Inconvenient Truth (but without the capital letters) is a new film by Al Gore. It started life as a powerpoint presentation – like most of my best lessons !

Update: apparently it's an Apple version of Powerpoint

Some excellent graphics and vignettes to use in lessons - readable and accessible... A recommended purchase...

There is a website to support the film which has some useful information, and you should be able to see a trailer for the film from your very own favourite video sharing website...

The film is about Global Warming, which is very much part of the FUTURE for Svalbard – or at least one possible Futures scenario.

This is looking even more likely if this recent report using images from the European Space Agency is anything to go by. It looks like Arctic Sea ice is at its lowest ever. There is an image below which illustrates this, from the European Space Agency.

The land at the bottom is Svalbard. The area is around 800 km across, and there should be rather more ice than that !! Bad news for polar bears.

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM7ZF8LURE_planet_1.html

“This situation is unlike anything observed in previous record low ice seasons. It is highly imaginable that a ship could have passed from Spitzbergen or Northern Siberia through what is normally pack ice to reach the North Pole without difficulty.

Quote from Mark Drinkwater of ESA.

Today we were working on our E-Portfolio documents and also using Val Vannet’s from the High School of Dundee's Climate Graph drawing instructions (with my own suggestions for formatting with an image) I was very impressed with what the group produced (once you actually started reading and following the 'foolproof' instructions - although we never did work out how to get the degree signs in there !)

I will post a few here soon so that others can see what we produced.

After school today I showed Mrs. Clarke how to add comments to this blog. Don’t forget that you can contribute to the blog. All comments are moderated by me – keep them clean ! All you need to do is look at the bottom of each post, and you'll see 1 comment , 2 comment etc.

Click on this label, and you can add a comment. These will come to me for moderation. You'll need to enter some characters that you see in a verification box...

Also don’t forget to think of some questions for the person I mentioned who has visited Svalbard several times. I will send a sample of the most interesting / answerable questions to him at the weekend and then post the answers and some nice images when I get them back...

When is a desert like apple pie and custard ?

When you add that extra ‘s’ which most of you have done as I marked your work.

That makes it dessert…

Also remember other key words to spell correctly in this topic: Environment, Svalbard, Michael, Climate, Extreme etc.

And finally, some exciting news. I've been asked to be part of some interesting developments for the Pilot. There are 2 sections to this, and one of them could include you: KES pupils ! You have the chance to be involved in some research involving the Geographical Association and some academics from universities and teachers from other schools. The work we do will help lots of other school pupils. I'm going to a meeting in November. I will be choosing those pupils who have shown the most interest and effort between now and Christmas. This is an exciting project to be involved in. More to come soon once everything is confirmed !