Useful Weather and Climate Videos

Below are some excellent videos from the Met Office which explain some important basics of weather and climate patterns:

How does the Earth's Climate System work?

What is the Jet Stream?





What are Weather Fronts?




What are Air Masses?

Fox hunting adaptation

Animals and plants must adapt to survive in cold environments. Long periods of freezing temperatures and precipitation falling as snow mean that both food and water are scarce. Animals can adapt in both physical and behavioural ways. One of the best surely must be the way that the fox below hunts mice:




To see further clips of animal adaptations to the yellowstone winter, see the BBC clips site for the episode here.

(The Only) Solution to Desertification?

The issue of desertification is one of the prime issues of our present and our future. Alan Savory gives an excellent TED Talk below analysing what he sees as the only viable solution.

Questions to Consider:
How big an issue is Desertification?
Could there be other solutions?
Is it too late to solve this problem?

UK Floods - an avoidable hazard?

Have a scan through the Wallwisher discussion below. Matching planning and investment to the potential costs of flood events is a tricky business. What is your opinion, were the floods avoidable?
If nothing else, the video links are worth a follow up:

Created with Padlet

Sustainable Management in Lapland

Year 12 students began a single lesson with an outline of how management of Cold Environments works. They then had the rest of the lesson to research an example and fit it into the syllabus framework. The points on Lapland by B.Thrasher and P.Ramsbotham would support an essay on this very well when used with specific locationed examples.

Further work from this class can be found on their blog.


What was the short term gain?

Money from tourists coming to the area and the option to create more infrastructures to be able to sustain more and more tourists each year

What management strategy is being used?

Tourism in Lapland is based primarily on the region's clean and unique nature. Nature has been protected more extensively in Lapland than in other parts of the country. This is an opportunity and richness for tourism provided that protected areas can be and are used for tourism in a sustainable way.

They have started controlling the way in which the tourists interact with the land and the local communities and their objectives have been outlines below:

·         to ensure that the water supply systems of the main tourist resorts in Lapland meet modern requirements by 2007 (This means that there is less water waste)

·         to complete the environmental restoration projects at the tourist resorts by 2007 (To update everything to the most efficient economically and also to use less fuel)

·         to continue to use employment schemes (160 person-years) extensively to carry out work promoting tourism and improving the natural environments

·         to promote the use of protected areas in tourism

·         to encourage the sustainable development of resorts

How does it meet socio economic needs?

A lot of money is still being generated by the ever increasing amount of tourists coming to Lapland to come and see 'Father Christmas' This creates jobs for people in the local communities surrounding areas, e.g. working in a hotel or pretending to be Father Christmas. The money also increases the life style and standard of living for the people affected as a lot more money is being injected into the economy from outside tourists.

How does it meet environmental needs?

All of the dedicated tourist areas have been carefully set up as to make sure that each of them have the most up to date machinery, for example fuel efficient vehicles. Also other aspects have been taken into consideration for example noise pollution and light pollution, where bans have been put in place to make sure that tourists treat the area with care and respect. Here is a quote from a tourist website:

"Mother Nature is our main partner in production and we do all in our power to take good care of her. At this moment over 50% of our snowmobile fleet is equipped with 4-stroke engines which are more environmental friendly than the 2-stroke"

Alaska Blackfish

Task one in the year 12 blog competition was to write about an animal or plant adapted for life in a cold environment. The post with the most views was the one below:. To see further studies of animal and plant adaptations visit the 12D blog.

The Alaska Blackfish:Dallia pectoralis

Once thought to be an herbivore, its primary diet is midges and mosquito insect larvae. Alaska blackfish are found in swamps, ponds, lakes, and streams with vegetation for cover, in tundra and forested locations not far inland. Their range includes Alaska and the Bering Seaislands.

Most living things are made up of 70% water. When water freezes, it expands and forms ice crystals. Repeated freezing and thawing can destroy living tissue.

The Alaska blackfish overcomes this problem by producing chemicals within its body that lowers the freezing temperature of cell fluids. Much like the antifreeze we add to the water in our vehicles, the "antifreeze" of the Alaska blackfish prevents the formation of large ice crystals within its cells, even at low temperatures.

 The Alaska blackfish can survive temperatures of-20 degrees C (4 F) and the complete freezing of some body parts, including their heads, for up to several days

By P.Ramsbotham

Arctic Oil Rig Grounded

The grounding of the Kulluk rig in the Arctic sea has been in the news this week. For a summary particularly relevant to L6th Geoggers see below:

Yangtze Basin Management

H.Mok has produced an excellent study on the management of the Yangtze River Basin. It focusses on the social and environmental needs being met by the variety of schemes across the basin and shows many specific details and the use of symbols and colours to show location and key points. Click on the 2 images below to open them in new windows and see the case study.

Venice Floods Case Study

Year 12 D1 had the task to create a case study on the Venice floods in a single lesson. 4 methods were used: Prezi, Storify, Powerpoint and the classic: Word. The powerpoint group were the winners on this occasion as voted by MG and year 9 boys. The other 3 presentations were also very good but hey, win some and lose some!

Venice%20 floods%20november%202012[2] from BSGeography

Morocco 2012 - Looking back by B.Nesseler

Located on the Northern African coastline, Morocco is one of the most well known Maghreb states offering breath-taking landscapes, a mixture of African and Arabic culture and a very exquisite cuisine. We mainly travelled to Morocco for the geographical aspect but were lucky enough to experience and take home a bit of everything. Arriving at the airport in Marrakech, I was expecting tropical weather conditions, however, it turned out that the shorts in my hand language were unnecessary ballast for that evening. The conditions were comfortably warm most of the time though, and coming from Great Britain, I guess most of us appreciated the sun when it was shining. Most people we met on our trip were very kind and warmly welcomed us, be it in the hotels or cafes. Eventually, we discovered this might have been associated on some occasions with the fact that we were easily discovered to be European tourists who may have some extra Dirhams left to spend on their superb souvenirs. Anyway, our guide and our bus drivers did a great job and safely led us from Marrakech down to Ouarzazate, then further into the desert and back again only showing us the best sides of Morocco, always being a helping hand. Geographically, the trip was useful for all students as all of us were able to engage with and look at aspects of the courses we study, followed by some evening Geography sessions. One of the highlights of the trip was surely the night out in the desert. It was an amazing experience to spend the night away from civilization in the Moroccan dunes next to camels. The market place in Marrakech is also a quite memorable image in our minds; unbelievably busy and exotic smells and shops around every corner. This was also a very good opportunity to go shopping and get some original Adidas sneakers for 5 pounds! Unfortunately, not everything went as well and fluidly as the waterfalls coming down the hills in the Atlas Mountains on our journey back from Ouarzazate to Marrakech after some rather excessive rainfalls during the day. There were some health issues from the first day on, even going on back home. These made some days of the trip for some people less comfortable but that may simply be considered to be part of the personal costs and risks you pay going to such a country. All in all, I would like to thank Mr Walker, Mr Strachan and Mr Gracie who organised and ran the Geography excursion and of course also everybody who joined us on the Moroccan adventure, looking back to a good time overseas with Bedford School.

Great Extension on development and Population

Hans Rosling gives a 4 minute lesson on 200 years if history for 200 countries. Shows change in life expectancy along with wealth.

Guerrilla Geography at School Site - results

As published last week, open day at the school inspired a study by year 12 students to see whether the perceived status or value of cars influenced their location. When collecting the data, it had appeared that smarter cars located closer to the most visible and walked past locations on the school site. The location of the cars was mapped out in the field then transferred to a map in the classroom. The map includes a key where the colour denotes the car type. Note that the tabular form of the key allows an easy analysis at first glance of car types and their proximity to what was deemed to be the highest exposure site: immediately next to the South porch, the main entrance for the day.

Click on the images below to see them clearly and on a larger scale.

Fig 1: Map showing the locations of car types and the prime location (marked by an X)

The students have also graphed the number of each car located within 50 metre intervals of the prime location:

Fig 2: Bar graph of 50m wide radii of location and brands within them

So... do the cars that are better locate closer to important locations, and do those that are worse hid further away?

From the map, the closest cars to the prime location are Vauxhall, Audi and Lexus. The degree to which this can support any theory depends on which model. Certainly those spotted on the day appeared smarter. Within 50m there are also pockets of BMWs and VWs. So, though there are smarter cars close to the most visible location, there is no dominance by any particular brand.

The key on the map gives some more revealing information however, when the proportion of each car in each circular band is given. Audi, BMW, Lexus, Vauxhall and Mercedis all show a tendency to locate closer to the most visible location, whilst Ford, VW and Range Rover are skewed the other way.

The graph, displays some interesting trends too. The most notable bars are those for the Audis within 50m and the Fords between 150 and 200m. There are brands which  havn't located within the 150m-200m category at all: High range BMWs, Jaguar and Lexus, whilst some have not located within 50 metres: Honda and medium range BMWs.

Some data needs no analysis since it is likely that Jaguar and Porsche drivers will locate wherever they like!

Overall, the data probably supports the initial theory that drivers of nicer cars locate closer to the most visible locations, although it would appear that the visual study at first may have carried an emphasis on those cars which were more striking since the spread of cars is greater than was first anticipated. being able to investigate and quantify Geographical observations has been a very useful exercise, as has using different forms of presentation to highlight certain data more clearly. We are on the lookout for more small scale investigations around us...

What Causes Monsoons?

With the AS group looking at flooding causes and A2 at earth hazards, the video below on what causes India's monsoons may be useful:

Guerrilla Geography on the school Site

Open day at school inspired an impromptu semi-guerrilla investigation.
It was noted that those cars which one would perceive to be more expensive or more coveted were parked in positions of greater prominence.

Year 12 boys have collected maps of the car locations which will be presented and analysed this week.




Prius located away from traffic around natural surroundings!




Most prominent position - front of school




Scho car park, a less desirable location???

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Social Good Summit - get involved

The UN Social Good Summit starts today. There are some excellent ways to follow whats going on:

1) You can follow and watch it live online here:

2) You can follow it on twitter with the hashtag: #sgsGlobal

3) We have also set up a live twitter feed on this site, just click on 'Live News' to the right of this post to watch it update:

The video below is an excellent rundown of what it is about and how you could get involved.....

Excellent A and AS level results

This year's sixth form exam candidates should be very proud of themselves. There have been many excellent grades achieved and the staff would like to wish all boys congratulations for seeing the fruits of their hard work.

A Level:
Out of 33 candidates, 26 had geography as their top or equal top grade. For 15 of these boys, their grade in Geography exceeded those in their other subjects.

AS Level:
Out of 27 candidates, 17 had Geography as their top or equal top grade. For 9 of these boys, their Geography grade exceeded those in their other subjects.

Storify on Beijing Floods

Some images and news sources to have a look at if you're interested in the flooding in Beijing this weekend.

Half a month's rainfall in just TWO days?

There are forecasts that the depression below could be bringing nearly 2 inches of rain to the UK this weekend. Be prepared that there may be flooding in different parts of the UK as there was in Wales last weekend.

The environment agency have an excellent flood warning system set up:

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/31618.aspx

New Research Links Added

You can now search all of our twitter hashtags by subject by clicking on the research Tab at the top of this page. The link to the twitter search is at the top of that page.

We have also added some excellent blogs and websites to that Tab, both specialist and general.

If you are a twitter user, you can look at our latest tweets under our username: @BSgeography, or search our tweets using #bs followed by any geographical topic.

Climatic hazards, Sustainability and Tectonics are the most developed at present.

Case Study on oil extraction in the Niger Delta