DUMPED!

And while we are on the subject of rubbish and waste... On my trip to London at the weekend, I saw a billboard advertised a new Channel 4 series called DUMPED!

According to the Channel 4 website, 11 volunteers (who have agreed to take part in an "eco-challenge" but have no idea what it is) are left marooned on one of Britain's biggest landfill sites, and have to survive for three weeks on the rubbish that the rest of us throw away!

Doesn't sound like my idea of fun, but promises to be interesting (and eye-opening) viewing!

DUMPED! starts at 9pm on Sunday, on Channel 4.

Waste Watchers on The One Show

I've written before about the problem of excess packaging, and if recent reports on The One Show are anything to go by, there are plenty of other people who share my frustration...

The picture, sent in to the BBC by a viewer, shows the packaging that one supermarket think is necessary for a single banana! Other pictures, and some interesting comments, as well as video clips from the show here.

But what's the solution?? What can we do about all this packaging??

Geography: My Place and Yours

I've mentioned Val Vannet's excellent blog before, but it's particularly good at the moment, because she is following the journey of her former pupil, Mark Beaumont, as he cycles round the world.

You can track Mark's journey yourself, read his diary, etc. at the Artemis World Cycle website, but if you have a look at Val's version, you get the geography of the places Mark's travelling through as well!

Geographical Art? (Or Artistic Geography?)

At last... an excuse to have clothes all over your bedroom floor!!

Find out what this is all about here... And then get creating your own!!

(Thanks Tom, for pointing this out.)

Congratulations!!

Well done to the Year 11s who have received some excellent GCSE results today - I was really pleased with the results, and it was nice to hear a good few people talking about doing Geography at AS as well...

If you happen to be one of those people, then you will want to be having a look at Geogtastic6 - the new blog I have started for AS & A2 Geographers... There are few bits on there already, but my intention is that it will be more specific to what we are doing in lessons... Let me know if you spot anything you think should be on there!

Blog Action Day

Thanks to Tony Cassidy for pointing out Blog Action Day...



Visit www.blogactionday.org to register your blog and find out more.

Hurricane Dean

People in the Caribbean are preparing themselves at the moment for the arrival of Hurricane Dean - a Category 4 hurricane (5 is the most severe) which has already claimed three lives.

The BBC have more information here, together with video clips and links to coverage of the story on other news sites.

You can also visit the National Hurricane Center website and follow the progress of the hurricane.

A bit of a let-down?

These are ten of the UK's best-known landmarks...

But according to a survey out today, they are the ten most disappointing UK landmarks! The report is here, and also has lists of the ten most disappointing world landmarks, and the ten most promising UK places to visit...

Do you agree? Have you been to any of these? And did you like them? Anywhere else that you think should be included in the lists?

A wintery day in South Georgia

It occurred to me today that it was quite a long time since I'd looked at the wonderful South Georgia webcam... A rather wintery day!

If you click on the South Georgia label at the bottom of this post, you can look at some of the previous pictures from the webcam, from when it was summer in South Georgia. If you look at the steps at the right-hand side, you can see just how much snow there is at the moment!

Cultcha!

Geography Pages man, Alan Parkinson has started another new blog, looking at Cultural Geography... Some really interesting stuff on there already, looking at Britishness and the idea of the Citizenship Test... links in well to some of the work we've done in Year 9 recently, but also of general interest. Get reading - www.cultcha.blogspot.com !!

(Please note, "culture" is the correct spelling!!!)

Well done Year 13!

Congratulations to the Year 13s who got their A level results this morning... The hard work that most of you put in was well rewarded!

Good luck with whatever you are doing next... And don't forget to keep visiting Geogtastic!

Peruvian Earthquake

An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale has hit the coast of Peru, killing more than 300 people and injuring many more.

Tremors were felt in Peru's capital city, Lima, about 90 miles north-west of the epicentre, but most of the damage seems to be in the city of Ica.

More on the BBC website...

Great British Journeys

Some good geographical TV at the moment... BBC2 at 8pm today is the first programme of the new Great British Journeys series...


Geographer Nick Crane (of Coast and Map Man fame) will be following in the footsteps of some of some of the explorers who discovered Britain...

Check out the website here and find out more about the journeys that Nick will be taking...

Britain's Favourite View

You might well have seen David Dickinson waxing lyrical about Blackpool last night in the first of the new series looking at Britain's Favourite Views...

I am still trying to decide what my favourite view is... I think there are too many! In the meantime though, check out the rest of the views chosen by the celebrities on the Guardian Travel site, and the shortlisted views on the Britain's Favourite View website here.

What are your favourite British views? Do you agree with the celebrities' choices? If you were to add a view to the top 16, which would you get rid of?

Earth Portal

I haven't had chance to explore it properly yet, but the Earth Portal site looks interesting and useful...

Loads of information in the Encyclopedia (or should that be Encyclopaedia?) of Earth about anything and everything earth-related, and you can search by topic, author, location... Also Earth News and an Earth Forum...

Thanks Tom for pointing this out!

How walkable is your neighbourhood??

Thanks to Lucy Rawe, who's just pointed out this excellent little site which allows you to calculate the "walkability" of your neighbourhood.



The idea is that walkable neighbourhoods are healthier, more environmentally friendly, more sociable, and have stronger local businesses... So, if you type in your address, WalkScore will plot the amenities local to you in a Google Map, and give you a score out of 100 for the walkability of your neighbourhood... Unfortunately, my neighbourhood is not very walkable at all; my score was an abysmal 7 out of 100 (although the shop next but one, and the pub four doors away are not listed). School scores slightly higher - 27 out of 100.

Click here or on the picture to read more about what the scores mean and what a "walkable neighbourhood" is, and then leave a comment to let us know your score!

On the way!!

I posted the other day about Mark Beaumont setting off on his 18000 mile cycle trip around the world... Well, Mark set off this morning from the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees, and is on his way...

You can follow Mark's progess on the website here, or on the BBC site that is tracking his journey...

Good luck Mark!

Flooding...

The picture shows a scene which unfortunately is fairly familiar to us at the moment.

This though, is in India.

200 people have died, and almost 20 million people been displaced from their homes in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, in some of the worst floods that South Asia has seen for years.

More information about the floods, and the monsoon season that's causing them on the BBC website.

Green Film Competition!

Just spotted the Friends of the Earth Green Film Competition on Alan Parkinson's blog. They want people to create 60 second films exploring how we look after our planet, and use it like there is a tomorrow... Some good prizes to be had... And best of all, they've enlisted the help of my old favourite Morph to advertise it!



You've not got long til the closing date on the 20th August though, so check out the details here and get creating!

18000 miles...

That is how far Mark Beaumont will be cycling on his round the world trip which starts on Sunday morning from the Champs Elysees in Paris.

Mark - who is a former pupil of a geography teacher friend Val Vannet, at the High School of Dundee - plans to cycle 18000 miles through 20 different countries, in an attempt to claim the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle.

The current record is 276 days, 19 hours and 15 minutes; Mark hopes to complete his journey in 210 days, returning to Paris in February next year.

You can find out more about Mark's journey at http://www.artemisworldcycle.com/ and follow his progress on the BBC Online Documentary.

Happy Yorkshire Day!

Since 1975, August 1st has been a day to celebrate tea, flat caps and all other things Yorkshire.

Yorkshire Day began as a protest against the re-organisation of England's county boundaries which took place in 1974, to remind people of the traditional culture and heritage of Yorkshire. The date of 1st August is significant as it is the anniversary of the Battle of Minden, when soldiers from Yorkshire regiments picked white roses from hedgerows near the battlefields as a tribute to their fallen comrades.

The Yorkshire Day celebrations take place in a different Yorkshire town or city each year, and this year, to coincide with the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain, it is the turn of Hull. Today, the mayors of every Yorkshire town and city gathered in Hull for a civic procession and lunch as the guests of the Lord Mayor of Kingston-upon-Hull.

Keith Madeley, who is Chairman of the Yorkshire Society and has had a special Yorkshire pinstripe suit made for the occasion, has been talking to to the Bradford Telegraph & Argus about why Yorkshire is so special.

Mr Madeley was also interviewed recently by Radio Derby, as the first ever Derbyshire Day will be taking place in September this year...

Anyway, Happy Yorkshire Day to you all - and to celebrate... seven famous Yorkshire places for you to name!

Photographs from http://www.geograph.co.uk/ and http://www.saltsmill.org.uk/