NAB looming!

What a ridiculous name for a test - it's almost as bad as 'internal unit assessment' and to add insult to injury, since NAB stands for National Assessment Bank, it doesn't even make sense! Thankfully, it is not the whole National Assessment Bank which is looming! Yet despite its erroneous title and the fact that NAB has to be the most unattractive acronym ever, I'm afraid the bad news is that you still have to sit one next Friday (8th December)!

The unit which is up for assessment is Unit3 - Environmental Interactions. You should revise all of your Lithosphere and RLR notes. Try to think of it as some early prelim revision and it won't seem so bad! This could even be an opportunity for you to trawl the Higher Geog Blog. Remember that the labels in the sidebar will help you to 'extract' relevant postings.

At the risk of repeating myself (again), success in this NAB will depend on learned factual detail i.e. specific, named, case study information and not vague generalisations which could apply to any number of places. You have been warned!

Development Indicators

In the Development and Health unit of the course you have recently been studying indicators of economic development and, in particular, you have been looking at contrasts of development within and between LEDCs. Unfortunately, textbooks (even new ones!), frequently carry development data which is out of date. It is, however, possible to access fairly accurate and up-to-date figures by looking at the World Bank's annual Development Indicators resource.

This is a very weighty publication but if you click on the image above, you will link to a facility which allows you to find abstracted development information based on 50 indicators for almost every country in the world. It is a 'data query' service which allows you to select the countries and years you want to look at and the indictors you wish to obtain data for. You can then opt to view the results as an Excel spreadsheet.

A quick and easy exercise would be to choose a range of LEDCs including some of the NICs which you have been studying with Mrs W and then to draw up a table of data for selected indicators. Which indictors best reveal the differences in economic development? However, are these necessarily the 'best' indicators of development? Which NICs are the current front runners in economic development? Where are most of the world's least economically developed countries?

Bulgarian Population Crisis

There is an excellent article on the BBC website today which would provide you with another good case study for the Population Unit.

Already a small nation, Bulgaria is likely to lose one third of its population in just a few decades. The question is why? Read the article and try to list as many reasons as you can for this imminent population crisis.


The article is conveniently divided into three sections relating to a)migration b) the rural economy and c) the birth rate . Use these as sub headings for your notes and explain how each is linked to population decline.

Having explained the underlying reasons for the population crisis, what are the associated social and economic problems ?

Second Dales Fieldtrip

If you did not participate in the first Dales fieldtrip of the session, you should now have received details of the March trip which is planned for 2nd - 4th March. In case you have been a little erratic and have already mislaid the letter, you can download one by clicking on the image below!As I have to confirm our booking with the youth hostel in Malham as soon as possible, I would appreciate a really quick turn around of the paperwork. ..... deposits and tear off slips back to me by the 1st December please!

Other blogs!

2006 is rapidly developing into the year of Geography department blogs! Geography teachers all over the UK are realising the potential which blogging has for beaming up-to-date resources directly into the homes of their students. Here are a couple written by geography teacher friends of mine which you might like to explore. Click on the banners to link directly to the blogs....

The first is written by Rob Chambers, a teacher of Geography at St Ivo school in Cambridgeshire. His blog is aimed at students studying GCSE in his department but many of the topics are similar to those we study in Higher. If you start at the posting for October 30th and work forward, you will find a huge amount of material which is relevant to the Hydrosphere unit which we have just started. As well as course notes, there are links to excellent animations, quizzes and activities.

The second blog which you might like to ckeck out is.. This one is the brainchild of Alan Parkinson who is the Head of Geography at King Edward VII (KES) in King's Lynn in Norfolk. Again it is being written to support GCSE students but it contains much which is interesting for any Higher Geography pupils.

Remember that those of us who write blogs may choose to archive our postings in different ways. Check out the 'Blog archive' section on the sidebar to access all previous postings. If, for example, you look at the KES October postings, you will find a huge amount of material about Svalbard.... and it has a connection with Dundee! When Alan and his family visited us in the summer, I introduced him to a friend of mine in Dundee who had just come back from an amazing holiday seeing polar bears in Svalbard. If you read some of the postings for October, you will see that as a result of this meeting, Alan's pupils had some interesting on-line discussions with my Dundee friend who also supplied some stunning photos like this one for Alan's blog.

I have added links to these other blogs on the sidebar so that you can access them easily in future.

Population and D and H resources

Although you have now completed the population unit, there is no harm in 'revisiting' it from time to time. Here is a resource which focuses on ageing and ageing populations which you might like to explore. It is published by the Wellcome Trust, an independent charity which funds research into human health. Their publication on ageing contains two articles which are particularly relevant to the Higher course:

1) Ageing populations and Demographic Change in the UK and

2) Ageing populations in Africa

The second resource, which is more relevant to the work you are doing with Mrs W at present, comes from the same website as the 'Gapminder' scattergraphs which you have been exploring in the ICT suite this week.

This is an excellent presentation (you can download it to your computer at home) which explores many aspects of social and economic development around the world. Link directly to it by clicking on the 'start' button above.

"Out of Oblivion"

When we were at the YDNP visitor centre at Malham this weekend, I picked up a leaflet about a new website which has been produced by the YDNP with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund. It claims to "offer a window into the archaology and history of this beautiful area and its place in the landscape". As you will know from what I've been saying in class, I do believe that the landscape of the Dales owes as much to the history of human land use in the area as it does to nature.

I have now had time to look at the website (click the image above to link) and I'm really impressed with the resources which it contains. You might like to begin with the section on geological timelines where there are excellent descriptions of the geology, the effects of the Ice Age and the formation of karst features. On the same page there is a link to a short video called 'The Landscape through time" which looks at how the landscape around Malham Cove has changed since the Ice Age. In the 'Themes' section there is also a succinct description of the evolution of farming in the Dales .

And on a different note... here are the drumlins in Ribblesdale which you may recall me getting out of the coach yesterday to 'snap'. Although you seemed singularly unimpressed, they are one of the best drumlin swarms in England!!

YD Fieldtrip Weekend One

I hope those of you have been in the Dales with me and Mr Ross this weekend are all safely back home. You were an excellent group - up for everything we did and not a murmur of complaint (at least not that we heard!). It is always encouraging for me when my pupils are complimented but three times in one day - from the youth hostel, the manager at White Scar Cave and our driver - was exceptional and well deserved. The other Higher group who are going to the Dales in March have a lot to live up to!

As promised here are some pics from the weekend...
At Thornton Force

9pm on Friday evening and you were still working

"Stand off" at Malham Cove with some of the cattle which are being grazed around Malham as part of the Limestone Country Project. (see posting for 07.

A nice view 'over the edge' of Malham Cove. You will, of course, notice the solution hollows in the limestone in the foreground and the resurfaced path leading to the Cove below!

Look past the foreground 'distractions' to see some nice joints and bedding planes!

So this is limestone pavement?

Deep inside Gordale Scar



Erratic at Norber (Hope that limestone plinth doesn't suddenly dissolve, Mr R!)

Grikey! That one's deep.

The pavement at White Scar Close

Underground waterfall in White Scar Cave

You can expect to see a lot more photographs of our weekend appearing in the department over the next few days

Just to whet your appetites....

For those of you who are going with me this weekend on the 'first' Dales fieldtrip of this session, here are some pics of a few of the sights we (and the remainder who will go in March) will enjoy....

Thornton Force waterfall

Erratic at Norber

pavement above Malham Cove

Gordale Scar

Watlowes dry valley

Flowstone in White Scar cave

You might like to look at each of the photos and draw up a list of the PROCESSES which have operated to produce the feature or fashion the landscape.

Limestone Country Project

We have been looking at farming in the Dales this week and have spent some time looking at how various agri-environment schemes can help to resolve conflicts between farmers and environmental considerations in the National Park. I made brief mention of the Limestone Country Project but you might like to research this a bit more (could be worth a few marks in the external exam!). Click on the image above to link directly to the project website. You might like to start with the 'watch our video' section and then move on to read the excellent 5 minute guide to the Limestone Country Project . The 'Farmers Guidelines' section explains how farmers can benefit from involvement in the project.

River landscapes programmes

River Cuckmere

After the Limestone programmes in 2001 and the Development and Health programmes in 2003, I am pleased to tell you that my latest efforts as Geography Consultant for BBC Scotland will be broadcast on BBC2 in the early hours of Friday morning (04.40 - 05.20) this week. The programmes explore two rivers in contrasting geological locations - the River Cuckmere in Sussex and the Devon in Clackmannanshire.

River Devon

The first programme compares the features of the two rivers and the processes which created them while the second programme explores the contrasting hydrology of their drainage basins - both are very closely linked to the Hydrosphere section of the course.

We will look at the programmes in class but you might also want to record them for watching at home when you are revising (remember to roll the credits!).