Montserrat

The Year 9 geographers have been having a look at Montserrat in their geography lessons this week... The Montserrat Volcanic Observatory have just posted this lovely photo on their Facebook page... Click on the photo to link to the MVO website.

Prince Charles visits Montserrat...

Yr9 and Yr11 should recognise the Soufriere Hills volcano, on the Caribbean island of Montserrat...

As part of his tour of the Caribbean, Prince Charles visited Montserrat yesterday, and saw the long-term economic, social and environmental impacts of the 1997 eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano.

There's a video clip here of Prince Charles' visit, and an excellent article from the BBC which is well worth a read, particularly for Yr11.

As part of his tour of the Caribbean, Prince Charles visited the island of Montserrat yesterday.

Year 9 - Volcanic activity on Mercury...

Following Ben's question yesterday about volcanic activity on other planets... Just spotted this on the BBC website about the US Mercury Messenger which has collected "evidence of widespread volcanism"...


Click on the picture for the full story...

Plate Tectonics...

Of particular interest to Year 9 at the moment, who've been looking at plate tectonics over the past couple of days, but also worth a listen for Year 10 and 11 and anyone else who's interested...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/iot/

The episode can be downloaded at the moment, but I'm not sure how long it'll be there for...

Britain Day??

Of particular interest to my current Yr9 group, who started thinking about the idea of Britishness today...

Ruth Kelly - the Communities Secretary, and Liam Byrne - the Immigration Minister, have proposed that we have a "Britain Day" in order to "promote a stronger sense of British identity and prevent communities from becoming more divided"... More here. They've also suggested that migrants should "earn" their British citizenship through good behaviour, as well as that brilliant test that I've mentioned before and that Yr9 will be looking at tomorrow.

Do you think a Britain Day would be a good idea?
If so, when should it be?
What kinds of things should we be doing to celebrate Britain Day?

The BBC also have a "Have Your Say" section for this topic... Some interesting views on there!

Sim Sweatshop

Earlier in the year, Yr9 had a look at "sweatshops" - the factories in LEDCs where workers are paid very badly and worked very hard, often in pretty grim conditions - usually producing garments for big multinational companies like Nike and Adidas.

Lots of geography teachers are blogging about Sim Sweatshop at the moment, and I've finally got round to having a look at it this evening... The game gives you a bit of an insight into the hardships that these sweatshop workers face on a daily basis, and if you click on "What's the Story?" there is lots of information about sweatshops, why they exist, the companies that use them, and what can be done about them.

The picture below will take you to the game, where you are a worker in one of these sweatshops - making sports shoes. If you work hard all day (12 hours), you will be paid your full wage of $6.05. Making mistakes will cost you dear.

Yesterday's volcanic eruption...

Interestingly, it was my Year 8s today who could tell me all about the eruption of Stromboli - both Yr9 groups (who are studying Natural Hazards at the moment) claimed not to have heard of Stromboli!

Check out the BBC coverage here, or have a look at the webcams on this site (actually, I don't know how good they are - it's dark in Italy at the moment!!)