sharegeography.co.uk

Thought this was a brilliant clip for starting a mystery exercise…

Nothing much new, caught up in coursework and finishing the R.S. and Geography syllabuses.

I’ve started to put revision materials on Pilot Geography related to the pre-release booklet.

The first presentation is comparing Hutton Henry and Harbone, with our place, Ilkeston.

[slideshare id=1180695&doc=prerelease2009part1-090322124345-phpapp02]

Also noticed a broken link to the 2008 resources, which people might find useful.

Not much new with KS3, I’ve added a homework task for illustrating the Richter Scale, I like to enlarge them to A3, makes nice display work. I’ve also added a simple starter/review for hurricanes- it has a couple of weather and climate questions included for revision purposes.

Twitter and hot seating a fictional character.

There’s been much discussion about the use of Twitter within the classroom, so I thought why not have a go… We are currently studying Hurricane Katrina in Year 9 , so I wondered whether we could interview an individual who experienced the event.

I haven’t got a wide Twitter network, so I set up an account for a fictional elementary teacher called Maisy Jay, who lives in New Orleans. I then added Maisy as a follower, and then surprisingly Maisy followed me! Liz Smith was available to act as the character. We briefly arranged beforehand the timing and structure of the lesson.

I like to try new ideas with one of my most challenging classes, I introduced the concept of Twitter, none in the class had heard about it, so there’s food for thought!

(more…)

A late one due to problems with the web host. The stop disasters hurricane task when down well, so I’ve adapted it for earthquakes.

Also added a couple of new bits for hurricanes, the first is a simple match-up exercise with strategies for reducing the impact of hurricanes. I’ve also added two homework tasks, one is about developing hurricane preparedness within the population and the second about the Saffir-Simpson scale.

I’ve spent a nice week doing nothing much, planning has been light due to the snow days last half-term. Next week I’m going to start looking at strategies to reduce the impact of hurricanes.

We’ll be using my favourite geo-simulation, Stop Disasters, I’ve put together a simple worksheet, have to justify playing the game in lesson . I’m going to ask students to record ten strategies that people can use to reduce the impact of hurricanes. I’ll put this worksheet on our shared drive, so students can type into the document.

I’m also going to introduce a little competition, I’ll ask students to record their scores in an Excel spreadsheet, also under our shared drive. As a result I’m sure I’ll have cries of cheating, but that’s part of the fun!

A discussion with an online colleague Ruth lead to this resource, she teaches hurricanes in the autumn term, which makes sense. As we are studying Katrina as a case study I decided to produce a tracking exercise.

The first slide shows the objectives of the exercise, the second slide shows students the correct symbols for tropical storms of differing intensities, which can then be annotated onto their tracking sheet. The third slide goes over the process of recording data onto the tracking sheet, so a revision of longitude and latitude.

From then the presentation is automated, students receive updates from NOAA about the tropical storm, students report this on their table and transfer it to their tracking maps, there is significant time between each data update to allow this process.

I’m not sure yet whether I’m going to split the class into groups, with data collectors informing trackers. I reckon I could also integrate Google Maps into the piece and some disaster management, but that’s for another time.

I know it works, because Liz had a go for me. Cheers! I now need a whole class run through to seek out any adaptations.

Also added a hurricanes penalty shoot-out to the page.

Thanks to Jo for trialling the pop-up hurricane resource, I can use it with confidence now, nice use of video as well.

 Tony Cassidy’s pop up model of a hurricane ~ Great Geography!

After marking coursework for most of the day, I wanted to do something creative.

I find hurricanes difficult to explain, so decided on the pop-up route.

[slideshare id=951548&doc=popuphurricane-1232907428139972-1&w=425]

I haven’t uploaded it to R.G. yet, because I’m still deciding whether it has merit. I’d use it with my Katrina resources.

What do you think?