Pre Release 2008

Image by Flickr user left handed male - Creative Commons license

We have been looking at Broadmead and Cribb's Causeway.
Don't forget the resources on TONY's PAGES, particularly the Half a Min game.
Good luck with your exams this week.

Remember that we have another 4 or 5 weeks to work on the pre-release booklet - it hasn't got to be done in a hurry !
I am going over to Norwich tomorrow to meet other Norfolk Geography colleagues to talk about the best ways to prepare you for the pre-release...

Coursework request

Another request for final pieces to be handed in or e-mailed to us:

Year 11

Sustainable Transport Magazine
Multicultural UK response (including cultural objects)
Global Culture vs Local Culture
Your contribution to the presentation on King's Lynn, and the ways that different groups of people might view the town.

Year 10

Svalbard piece and poster
My Place: improving an area in the town to make it more sustainable (plus pyramid)
People as Consumers

Also a reminder to check out the materials on TONY CASSIDY's blog. Check the tabs at the top of the screen for appropriate resources, particularly the new PRE RELEASE MATERIALS - these are ideal for Year 10 to look at during Work Experience...

The sooner you get this to us the better...
We want to give you the best possible mark...

Special Day today...

Today is a special day, and is relevant to several of the Pilot GCSE sections - Google is also celebrating it. Can you guess from the image what today is...

Update: St. George's Day - very much part of our image of Englishness, but how English was St. George (according to Billy Bragg's 'England, Half English' he was 'from the Lebanon')

Pilot Pre-Release Materials Lesson 1

The Cribb's Causeway Mall (WEBSITE)
Broadmead Shopping Centre, Bristol City Centre

You now have a copy of the PRE RELEASE BOOKLET, and the preparation booklet.

I am going to a meeting in a couple of weeks to firm up the questions with colleagues from Norfolk.

Thanks to Tony Cassidy and Pete Flaxman once again for their input here.

First section of the resource is about LANDSCAPES OF CONSUMPTION: the difference between a SHOPPING MALL and a CBD street.

The location is BRISTOL: in the SW of England.

Question to ponder first of all....

Why do people like / dislike the experience of shopping in an out of town mall ?

Use the images and the questionnaire results to answer the question...

Mark Beaumont

If you missed Mark Beaumont's journeys last week, YouTube has them in clips of course. Here's a bit of the end of Part 1, as he arrives in Istanbul as he crosses from Europe to Asia...

Food Stories

A few stories related to food in the news today.
First was the announcement of Tesco's huge profits of £2.8 billion....
This article in the BBC NEWS reports further.

Just been reading in "Real England" (which I've mentioned before) about the planning battle in Sheringham that I have also reported elsewhere before... The Real England blog is worth reading as it is updated regularly with interesting stories and links, such as THIS ONE to the Daily Telegraph's lead article on the continued decline of RURAL ENGLAND, particularly useful for AS / A2...

The second story relates to an item to be on tonight's NEWSNIGHT about the shameful amount of food that we waste in the UK, despite all the issues related to food security and food costs...
This BBC ARTICLE has more details, and would be a good basis for debate.
"Is it wrong to leave your crusts ?"

Householders chuck out 6.7m tonnes of unwanted food every year at a cost to us of £8bn. That's the equivalent of chucking out one bag of food for every three that we buy.

Around 40% of that is fresh fruit and veg - nearly 4.5m apples, and more than 5m potatoes and 1.5m bananas.

Oh, and a final new BBC NEWS article is saying that SEA LEVEL will rise much faster than previously forecast... Anyone want to buy a house near the Norfolk coast ?

Multimedia Presentations: Year 11

These need to be in by the beginning of next week ideally. Mrs. Clarke and I need to mark and moderate your portfolio of work. You had some examples shown to you, and this blog contains other ideas, but we need to avoid 'spoon-feeding' you as this will lower your mark. You are in the final term of Year 11 and shouldn't need a lot more saying to you about the importance of this work.Reminder for Matthew and Aaron (and any others using Movie Maker) that if you need to convert files into various formats so that you can put them into movie maker, you should try ZAMZAR. I always use this to convert files, and strip the mp3 track off YouTube movies. Reminder that I have a guide to using Movie Maker that you can use...

Pilot GCSE in the news

The media are finally realising that Geography has changed, and THIS BBC NEWS article which I picked up earlier: "Tesco studies in Geography GCSE" featuring on the OCR exam board, who are responsible for administering the Pilot GCSE.
The exam specifications are all changing from 2009, so the Pilot will be disappearing and reappearing in a new slightly altered format which is described in this article. It's nice to have been in at the beginning...

Coursework Deadlines !

THIS WEEK IS THE FINAL FULL WEEK THAT YOU HAVE TO PRODUCE ANY REMAINING COURSEWORK.
LETTERS WILL HAVE TO GO TO PARENTS AT THE END OF THE WEEK (particularly for the Year 11 students, not so much the Year 10s) AND UNFORTUNATELY DETENTIONS WILL HAVE TO FOLLOW FOR SOME OF YOU IF THE COURSEWORK DOES NOT COME IN.
This is now getting serious, as the Pilot is mostly marked on the quality of the coursework. All the details have posted on numerous occasions on this blog.
Please help yourself get the best possible mark...

Commercialism and Young People

Young people are asking for their views on COMMERCIALISM.
BBC News site has all the details.

A recent poll carried out for the Children's Society suggested that most adults in the UK did believe that children's well-being was being damaged because childhood had become too commercial.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said: "As parents we all worry about new influences, and feel pressure to buy the latest toys for our children.

"I want to know if advertising and shopping, and other influences such as media and entertainment, marketing and promotion, commercial websites, and sponsored events are affecting our children's lives in any way.

"I want to know what these things are telling young people about how to behave, what to believe, and what kind of person to become."

It's important that you take part in this, by clicking THIS LINK and answering the questions.

You might also have an extra day to revise for Geography on the 24th of April.

Extreme Penguins

Pre Release 2008

The inputs have already started from Tony C and Pete F.
The first aspect is about the difference between in town and out of town shopping and the effect that a large shopping mall like Cribbs Causeway can have on a place. Also need to consider the difference in the PATTERNS OF CONSUMPTION that are involved, and the fact that each of these places is what we call a LANDSCAPE of consumption.

Tony has put up the first of a few planned HALF A MIN games on the KEY TERMS from the pre-release booklet.

The Arctic is also now warming up so quickly that IGLOOS are becoming a thing of the past...

Car Footprint

Useful for Sustainable Transport



from National Geographic website