The Development Gap
Rivers
Clay models of river landforms.
Click on this link to take you to a folder where you can download this slide as a powerpoint presentation or use google docs to annotate the models. Make sure you look at your test books to help you understand the features and processes that are taking place.
All change - Population Change
We will be beginning a new unit of work this half term on population change. Below are a few terms that you will need to be comfortable using to ensure that you can access the discussions and work we have in class.
Extending your understandingFor those of you seeking As and A* - you need to be accessing Geography beyond the classroom. The Wall Street Journal recently published a fantastic set of interactive articles that explores some of the issues that demographers and economists are facing in the forth coming decades. Click on the image on the right to take you there... |
Restless Earth
This unit requires you to have a good understanding of plate tectonics. There are various online resources to help you (plus the information in your textbooks. Do take the time to ensure that you are familiar with constructive, destructive and conservative plate boundaries. Click on the image on the right to take you to the Geological Societies page on plate boundaries. Lots of good information is very well explained here. Do be aware - they use slightly different terminology to describe the plate boundaries - divergent for a constructive boundary and convergent for a destructive boundary.
Make sure that you have a good understanding of the processes that occur at each type of plate boundary and the landforms that occur as a result of each. |
The Boxing Day Tsunami. 2004
Terminology
It is critically important that you have a good grasp of the terminology. In order to write a level 2 response in the longer answer questions you must "use a good range of specialist terms where appropriate". It also helps you to write more with less ink. You will be under a great deal of time pressure in the exam so saving time by using the right words helps you get more marks elsewhere. Use the cards below to help your learn some of the terms. This first set is focussed on young fold mountains. Note that you can change the study mode in the bottom right hand corner.
Young Fold Mountains
We use the Alps as a case study. Once again you need to ensure that you have a good understanding of their formation (remember the playdoh!). Mountain building has a fancy scientific name - orogeny. The Alps started to be created about 300 million years ago. However the main period of mountain building began in the late cretaceous period between 100 - 60 million years ago as the African continent collided with the Eurasian continent. Early geologists discovered seashells high up in the mountains giving them crucial evidence that the material that formed the mountains was once on the seafloor. Watch the video on the left - it gives us a pretty good understanding of how different layers of rock (strata) folds to create young fold mountains. |
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Human Uses of the Alps
In order to understand how people use the Alps it is really important to have a good idea as to the relief of the land as this determines how they can be used. One of the best ways of doing this is to take a virtual flight through the mountain range. This can be done on Google Earth. Google Earth is a free application that works on most machines runnings windows or mac software. Click on the image to the right to take you to a page where you can download the software (do check with the owner of the computer first!)
Once you have opened Google Earth type Chamonix into the search box in the top left. Then go to the tools tab and open the flight simulator. I would recommend using the propellor driven plane rather than the fast jet as it will give you a chance to take in the views and marvel at the landforms. |
An adventure playground?
Have a look at the video below. Wingsuit flying is still only a niche (small) sport and doesn't bring in a great deal of money to the local economy. However it does give an idea of the importance of tourism to the area. As you are watching the video consider the scale of the landscape and the amount of work it has taken to get tourists up to the summit of the mountain - cable cars and large concrete structures perched up high. Other sports that take place in the Alps include skiing, snowboarding, mountain climbing, paragliding, mountain biking, walking etc.