Mt Redoubt

Lots of volcanic activity over the past week or so at Mt Redoubt in Alaska... Nice image from the webcam here:Plenty of stories if you do a Google News search, and you can follow the ongoing activity via the Alaska Volcano Observatory site and on Twitter.

QR codes...

The "experiment" in yesterday's post was more for my benefit than yours - I spent some time researching QR codes and thinking about the possibilities for use in teaching, and more specifically, in teaching Geography...

I have various ideas, at various stages of development, but they will fall flat on their faces if the "target audience" - ie you - doesn't know what QR codes are, and doesn't know what to do with them. And the response from Yr11 today, when one person had seen something similar on a Pepsi can but didn't really know much about it, suggests that some work is needed on my part!

Reluctant though I am to post a Wikipedia link, this explains a bit more about QR codes and what they are... QR codes are appearing everywhere in Japan... including - bizarrely - on tombstones, allowing visitors to view photos and videos of the deceased!!

The idea is that with a mobile phone which has a camera, you can scan a QR code, and be taken to a website, or be given a phone number or piece of text. If you are lucky enough to have an iPhone, you will be able to choose from a variety of QR code readers to download - I've tried Snappr and Neoreader (both free) but particularly impressed with Optiscan (£2.99). If you have a relatively recent Nokia phone, you might well find that you have a QR code reader pre-installed - check in the Office bit of your phone menu... With many other relatively new phones (as long as they have a camera), you can download a reader - type "QR code reader" and the model of your mobile phone into Google (or any other search engine!).

Once you've got your QR code reader sorted, check this one out....

OS map overlays for Google Earth

Very impressed with Gavin Brock's OS map overlays for Google Earth... (Thanks to Noel Jenkins for the tip-off.) Like the fabulous Where's the Path?, which I have posted about before, there is a limit of 30,000 map tiles per day, but it will be very useful nonetheless.

The screenshot (showing Llyn Ogwen, Cwm Idwal and the Nant Ffrancon valley, where Yr12 are headed on Wednesday) was taken with the overlay set to semi-transparent so you can see clearly how the terrain links to the contours on the map...

More volcanoes...

Twitter (@geologynews) strikes again - 8 Hot Volcanic Eruptions from Wired Science is a collection of pretty impressive photos of volcanic eruptions including Mt St Helen's. My particular favourite is this satellite image (courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory) of Mt Cleveland, in Alaska...

Streetview UK

I'd be surprised if you haven't heard by now about the arrival of Streetview to the UK. Streetview, which has been about in the States for a while now, allows you to explore panoramic ground-level images in pretty impressive detail.

At the moment, Streetview is available for 26 UK towns and cities, including Nottingham and Derby... This is where I lived in Nottingham when I was training to be a teacher!


View Larger Map

Exploring Bradford City Centre (including the "regeneration"!!) was also interesting...

If you want to have a play, you need to go to www.google.co.uk/maps - drag the little yellow man at the top of the zoom slider onto any of the streets that are highlighted in blue - and get exploring!!

Hunga Ha'apai

Lots of you were asking yesterday about the eruption of Hunga Ha'apai, the underwater volcano near Tonga, in the Pacific Ocean.

The Google Earth screenshot below shows the area, with the USGS earthquake overlay and the Smithsonian Global Volcanism overlay turned on...


A Google News search will bring up lots of articles, videos and photos... More here from the Times Online, and some superb images from The Big Picture.

An experiment...

Saudi Sandstorm

An excellent (though rather scary) set of images from the BBC of "one of the most powerful sandstorms in decades" which hit Riyadh - the Saudi Arabian capital - on Monday.

Tube Map...

For some strange reason, I still have a fascination with the Tube and the Tube map, so love this video from Digital Urban showing the lines laid out according to their geographical locations, rather than the traditional Tube map layout...


London Tube Map Geography:Visualisation Draft from digitalurban on Vimeo.

Breathing Earth and Plug into Now...

Two fab new discoveries via Twitter (thanks @HelenNurton and @mbarrow)...

Breathing Earth

Plug into Now (also a Plug into Now widget at the bottom of the page...)

Switzerland!!!

If you are a Yr10, 11, 12 or 13 geographer, you will already know about the fantastic opportunity that is the proposed Geography visit to Switzerland in summer...

We will be leaving school on the 29th July (returning on the 4th August) and travelling by coach (and ferry!) to Les Mosses, a beautiful little hamlet in the heart of the Alps.

The itinerary will be finalised once we have confirmed the booking, but it will include a wide variety of physical and human geography - avalanches, tourism, glaciers, mountains, the cheese and chocolate industries... The photos below (of Les Diablerets, the Aiguille du Midi cable car and the famous Mer de Glace) were taken by Val Vannet from the High School of Dundee when she took some of her students on a similar visit a few years back.


The cost of the visit will be approximately £550 (this will be confirmed once the itinerary is confirmed), and if you want to come, you need to get a deposit of £40 (cash is fine, or a cheque payable to Swanwick Hall School) and a parental consent slip to me as soon as possible...

If you have any questions, need more information, or didn't get a letter, come and see me in Humanities as soon as possible.

Polar Journeys...

Digital Explorer's Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop is currently en route to Antarctica... He is headed for Bellingshausen and the E-Base - a permanent educational base "to share the beauty of this continent with students and leaders around the world". During their time in Antarctica, Jamie and the team he is with will be only be using renewable energy - to demonstrate that if it's possible in Antarctica, it's possible here in the UK too.

Lots to investigate on the E-Base website and if you've been bitten by the Twitter bug, you could follow Jamie's journey there too.


You might well have heard in the news about the Catlin Arctic Survey team, who are now 5 days into their expedition to measure and map the Arctic sea ice. They too have a website and can be followed on Twitter and Facebook...