Blackhole postponed- Thank you BBC!

Categories: Rural Land Resources, s1 and s2, Environmental Hazards, Urban

Apparently, we've all been granted a stay of execution on Earth, as the Hadron Collider has broken down. I wonder if Fiat built it? (long story about my first ever car, a Panda) ;-). So why am I looking at this? I had been exploring the BBC news section after reading an article by Ollie Bray, where he talked about how he used the news with all of his classes as a starter. I have used news articles and clips from the bbc before, but never with that consistency,and sometimes it's nice to get a wee reminder of some of the great resources that are out there for students and teachers.

From very little searching, I've found a video of a newsclip I had fruitlessly hunted for last week which fits in perfectly with Higher and your work on The Cairngorms and National Parks. I wondered if we could correctly identify all the groups of land users,land owners, the conflicts and how the NP has dealt or is dealing with them? This would be a really good way to show how a) there are always current examples to support case studies in the news, and b) reading a good newspaper or taking an interest in current affairs over and above newsround is vital! I'll also be giving back interim tests tomorrow.

I further found a good clip to link in with s2 mind movies, due to be sampled tomorrow. I had asked you to go and write a sensory account of what you would experience had an earthquake woke you from your sleep. We had a good discussion around some of the things that you would be very aware of- feeling your way in the dark, listening for sounds, calling out for family etc. A Chinese teacher kept a blog to record his very personal feelings when an earthquake struck his hometown and ended up losing his job as a result. I wonder how many of you would have had similar feelings had you been in his position? This might also be a good opportunity to send a story round the class, with each pupil building a piece of the story...

I know I'll get hounded for The Simpsons in Brazil tomorrow by s1, but I'd also like to use the National Geographic puzzles flagged by Tony Cassidy as a plenary to the Brazil mapping exercise. I'll shoehorn this in at some point in the week.

Finally, Advanced Higher return from Ardentinny, and I'll be giving you some pointers as to how to write up the results of your rivers fieldwork. Remember, this will be the basis of the Physical part of your GMT NAB. It's also a good taster for the kind of analysis that is required in your Geographical Study, worth 40% of your final mark...