Snow!!

If you're getting bored (?!) of sledging and snowman-building, have a go at one of these geographical snow challenges:

1. Measure the depth of undisturbed snow in different places - how and why does it vary?

2. Collect a cup of snow... Bring it inside and let it melt. How much water does it produce? Is this more or less than you expected?

3. If you have a thermometer at home, keep a record of the temperature... How does it change? Why? Keep a record of the times when it’s snowing... Watch the sky and how it changes... How do the temperature, the weather conditions and the state of the sky relate to each other?

4. Choose a particular spot – somewhere in your garden... or out of your bedroom window. Take a photo every hour. Put them together in MovieMaker to make a timelapse movie... (Email me the finished product, or upload to Vimeo or YouTube and email me the link.)

5. Wrap up warm and put your wellies on... Then go for a walk. Put together a snow/ice/cold weather hazard map for your local area.

6. Find some black paper and freeze it. When it snows again, take your frozen black paper outside and catch some snowflakes. Look at them carefully (with a magnifying glass if you have one). Describe them. Have a go at taking some photographs of them.

7. Make a glacier... Send me photos and/or video...

8. What does the snow look like? Feel like? Smell like? Sound like? (Taste like? H&S!!)

9. Make a geographical sculpture... The Eiffel Tower? The Taj Mahal?

10. Make some icicles or freeze some bubbles...

11. Go follow some footprints in the snow... Who or what made them?

12. Make a Frozen Earth video - Grace in Yr11 made a fantastic Urban Earth style video in January, taking photos every 8 steps on a walk through her snowy village... Upload it to Vimeo or YouTube and email me the link.

13. Something else!!! Can you come up with your own interesting educational snowy geographical challenge?

If the Earth were a sandwich...

Have you ever wondered where you would end up if you dug a hole all the way through the earth?? Some of you will have seen Holey Moley before, but this new Google Maps mashup is a more recent discovery (yes... via Twitter!) and is fab...

The Blogging/Tagging Game

It seems that I have been tagged by Alan Parkinson (aka GeoBlogs) for a blogging "game". The idea is that I tell you, Geogtastic readers, seven things you didn't know about me! So here goes...

1. I am left-handed... That is, I write with my left hand, which means that when I write on the board, it is with my left hand, although given the regular interjections in my lessons along the lines of "Why are you writing with your left hand, Miss?" that is not something that is widely known. I throw [badly] with my right hand though, and if I was forced to kick a ball I would probably do it with my right foot. I hold my knife and fork as though I were right-handed, but can't use a spoon in my right hand (much to the upset of my late great grandmother, who apparently used to take the spoon out of my left hand and force me to use my right.

2. I spent a year before university living in South Africa. I taught Biology, Physical Science, Speech & Drama, PE (!!) and Art (!!!) and was a houseparent looking after twelve 15-year old girls... (I was 18. It was good experience!) I seriously looked into staying in South Africa to do my degree - in Biology, not Geography... It turned out to be too expensive, which was probably for the best... I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed there?!

3. I played the clarinet, the saxophone and the piano when I was at school. I was never very good at the piano because I didn't like having short nails, but wasn't bad at the clarinet or saxophone... Not played either for a long time though, until last week.

4. I like filling in forms.... strange but true... I don't understand it either.

5. I caused myself a nasty injury trying to wash a tomato tin for recycling... Since then, despite the fact that I do recycle glass, paper and card wherever possible, and buy things with not much packaging, etc.), I don't always recycle tins. I think that better be my New Year's resolution...

6. I like cooking and baking, and like to think that I am not bad.... Ask Mr Rodgers or Mr Hoben about Malteser Cake.

7. Despite telling Alan Parkinson a couple of years ago that I couldn't understand his interest in what he referred to as "Cool Geography", I seem to have developed a strange fascination with ice, snow, cold places... Antarctica, Norway (far enough north to see the Northern Lights), Svalbard and South Georgia (blame the penguin webcam) are at the top of my "To Visit" list, together with Japan, Madagascar, New Zealand, the Grand Canyon, and lots of other places...

ps Several other people who have completed this "activity" have added photographs to illustrate their seven facts. With the laptop issues I have had of late, I can't easily lay my hands on relevant pictures, but will try to add some over the next few days.

I am supposed to "tag" seven other people to continue this blog game... Several of the people I would have tagged have already been done, so I will add:

Mrs Magee - Histatic
Mrs Kambalu - Adventures in T&L (amongst others)
Val Vannet - GMPaY
Anna Simpson - Natural Wonders
Ayrshire Geography
Mr M - Hulme Geog Blog

A novel twist to travelling the world!

Mr S of the History Dept alerted me to this today...



And delving a little deeper reveals that Matt Harding hasn't just done this once - he's been dancing around the world a few times, and has his own website with tales of his travels... Brilliant!!