Silver Practice Expedition to Kinder Scout 2008

Rob, Greg, Liam, Hannah, Laura, Lee, Jen and Abi survived the climb from Edale to Kinder Scout moor on Saturday. In fact they found the ascent the easiest bit! The view from the top of Kinder Scout was spectacular, and so was the weather…

The verdict on the way home was, as Mr Wootton says, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail!” Next time - hats, sunglasses and suncream are a must! Plenty of water is also required so Miss Smith’s supplies are not used up!!

Overall though, a successful venture. The team was able to practise key orienteering skills of route finding and micro navigation… even the moors was no obsticle for them!

Looking forward to the Snowdon assessed expedition in July…!!!

WE HAD AN EARTHQUAKE AT STM!!

Watch the following footage to find out what happened in room 17 at the time fo the earthquake.

The 10 second earthquake rattled afew tables, but luckily nothing collapsed - good job really!

Spookily enough, Stoke-on-Trent did actually experience an earthquake on the 27th February, 2008! 5.2 on the Magnitude scale… it certainly woke me up!

 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7266668.stm for an indepth report on the recent earthquake.

Wave cut notch…2007

Having just recently returned from a FANTASTIC fieldtrip to North Yorkshire… it was great to upload lots of photos (some interesting ones) from all the fabulous work we have done.

We started with our coastal processes data collection along West cliff beach in Whitby…

Wave cut Notch 2008

 

The whole bin saga has started again… do we reduce the size of our bins, do we have fortnightly collection… with the aim of getting folk to recycle more! Anything to reduce our waste problem I reakon… What do you think?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6932781.stm 

Foot and Mouth hits Britain (again)…

This reminds me of February, 2001… how disasterous this disease can be for agricultural/rural communities. I just hope this time we can contain it…

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/reports/archive/science_nature/footandmouthindex.shtml for an excellent interactive map… 

Britain in Flood… 

Doh!!!

For a full and indepth review of the recent floods see the BBC website below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6914876.stm  

Carbon Footprints… 

Check out this new advert published this week on the BBC. The advert encourages the public to become more aware about their carbon footprints… here is the advert…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6914876.stm  

Calculate your own carbon footprint on this excellent website. you may need to quiz your parents over some of the answers!! Then explain to them how environmentally damaging they are! Have fun…

http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/index.html

A link to the news article is…

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2122319,00.html#article_continue

Back by popular demand, it is Celebrity Big Butterfly 2007. The 5 celebrities are doing marvellous, and are excited about their task this week which is to double in size. We wish the housemates, Bill Bryson, David Attenborough, Bear Grylls, Michael Palin and Ray Mears all the best for a great experience.

Coming soon… you will be able to vote housemates out of the house…! 

Excuse the error… it is 2007! I couldn’t record that again… 

Well… 7 days have passed. Bear, Bill, David, Ray and Michael, our housemates, have all passed their task as they are all 5cm in length. This means of course that as ALL of the housemates have achieved the task… that ALL of them are up for eviction this week!!

Today… the housemates have enjoyed a spot of sunbathing. Bill and David however stayed in the shade discussing nature. whereas, Bear and Ray went on an adventure climb right to the ceiling of the Big Butterfly House where they relaxed in the sunshine for a few more hours. Active housemates. Michael has just been munching on the forever swamp supply in the kitchen of the Big Butterfly House. you can tell only men live in this house - what a mess! The house mates will soon be preparing themselves for Bear Grylls’ Birthday party…

Sunday 10th May… Michael has got fat quick and is at present danging from the BB house roof, letting his food go down. Ray and Bill are sitting at the dining room table discussing Sustainability (a previous housemate). David is out in the BB garden searching for insects - all he has managed to find in caterpillars. 9.30pm Big Butterfly has delivered Bear a birthday party invitation in the Diary Room at 10.00pm tonight…

Monday 11th June. 20.59p.m - Bear is the only housemate not to have gone to sleep in his homemade silk blanket… active housemate. must be all that basil. He has spent the whole day climbing the walls of the house behaving like Spiderman! David, Bill and Michael are all fast asleep, and Ray is contemplating it… for more info watch the vid…

Wednesday 13th June… 9.00pm in the BB house. The housemates have been really busy today. There task set by Big Butterfly was to create a unique silk costume for the next live show. All 5 housemates eventually completed their task. Bill was first, followed by Dave, then Bear, Michael and finally Ray who was not enjoying having to show his creative side. All housemates are now resting up ready for the big live eviction.

Please vote for the housemate who you want to be evicted next week. Please state a clear reason why your chosen housemate should be evicted.

Thanks to those who have voted. the votes are in…

The 2nd eviction video has been sold on ebay sorry… the third…

and the winner is…

Thanks to geogsoc for releasing the housemates into the wild.

That is it now for Big Butterfly, until another year…

Take a look at this weeks HOT BLOG… Rebecca groccott, our recently appointed head Girl has created a school blog where you can comment to your hearts content…! Well done Beck!

http://www.stthomasmore.wordpress.com  

Here are some fun games to help you improve your Geography knowledge! have fun!!

Weather games…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/multimedia/games/  

Places in the world…

http://games.vmn.net/game/11000/Geography-Game—Africa.html

http://games.vmn.net/game/11001/Geography-Game—South-America.html

http://games.vmn.net/game/11002/Geography-Game—Middle-East.html

For Map Zone Games… http://mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/games.html

Test your geography knowledge…

http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geospy/

Disaster Games - these 5 games are EXCELLENT!

http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/  

Farming games…

Fancy being a ‘3rd world farmer?’ http://www.3rdworldfarmer.com/index_content.html

If anyone finds a good game let me know and I will add a link to the blog…!

Can you guess where this photograph has been taken?

Last week’s photo was…

…but where in the world has this week’s photo been taken?

Leave your answer in the comments box below…

Can you answer this week’s Question of the Week? The student who offers the best and most accurate answer will win a prize!

Last week’s question was…How many countries are smaller than Disneyland, Florida?

Answer: 5

This week’s Question of the Week is…  why do clouds darken to a heavy grey before it rains or before a thunderstorm..?

Please leave your answer in the comments box… good luck!

Bronze DofE Expedition 2007 

Just returned from our expedition to Grindon and it’s surrounding area of the Manifold Valley. A fantastic trip… here is a brief outline of our itinerary…

Day 1

Well arrived in Grindon by 10.00 a.m with Liam, Abigail, Greg, Rob, Laura, Lee, Jen, Hannah and Rachel. The students waved us good bye and ventured out into the unkown landscape of the Peak District National Park. A few brief showers later, the sun came out… Mr North  and I caught up with the students munching away happily on Supernoodles and icecreams! We were impressed… a cooked lunch! After a lengthy day of hiking up hill and down dale… the students ended up at camp a little worse of wear, muddy but with high spirits!

They set up camp, Laura played Kite with the tent and then they began a mammoth session of Ready Steady Cook… all manor of delights were  on the menu including raw sausage and cold mash… 3 flavoured supernoodles and the ole favourite Pot Noodelle Extreme. The campers were happy.

 Day 2

After a cracking night’s sleep. The students awoke to the sounds of Mr North shaking their tents. How kind. They slowly got up and lavishly fed themselves with bacon sarnies! Excellent. On we continued… both groups worked hard. In particular one group who went SE instead of SW. An easy mistake to make (apparently!!!)… This nearly got them to the finish 6 hours premature! Crafty… We caught (rescued) them and set them off in the right direction again. A few damp and windy hours later all students returned to the van for a sleepy return journey to STM. Well done campers…

Don’t forget… DofE-ers…you will be writing up your ‘Journals-with-a-Purpose’ on Monday.

One group mentioned doing tourism in national parks. Check out this webpage… http://www.visitpeakdistrict.com/

Silver DofE Expedition 2007

Having just returned from a fab weekend expedition to Snowdonia. I thought I would post a brief outline of itinerary and experience…

Day 1                                                                                                                                             We left school and arrived in Abergwyngregyn, North Wales, at 11.00 a.m. here we met Our Award Assessor for a safety briefing and map orientation. We followed Cassie, Lauren, Rebecca and Dannielle for about 2 kilometres and helped them navigate between locational features. Eventually, we left the students to it along the North Wales Path and off they went…
We caught up with them a few hours/kilometres later for a top up of much needed water supply! All was well. Off they went again, in a seemingly downhill direction towards the camp site at Dinas farm…

Day 2
Dinas Farm was a good site… a beautiful stream ran by the camping field. We all had quite a good night of sleep, bar Becky who had brought her bro’s sleeping bag by accident! Oops… After a sluggish start, the students set off (in the right direction) towards Bethesda. We caught up with them in the afternoon at Llyn Ogwen. Mr North and I, scrambled up the mountainside onto an overlooking ridge (approx 100m) above the girls path. 1 chilly and windy hour later…(after watching through binoculars, the girls approach from 2 km away!) they stopped for a break strategically directly below our observation perch… We shouted them, and waved before scrambling back to ground level and treating them all to a crafty ice lolly. Off they went again, around the difficult terrain near the lake… down to the second camp site.

Day 3
What a windy night!!! I don’t think we got 10 hours between us in the exposed valley of Gwern Gof Isaf. Anyway… the girls were up early and ready to go by 7.30 a.m. They set off, and we joined them a bit later in Capel Curig. Here we taught them how to navigate using the GPS PDA. They found the equipment useful and so continued alone towards Bews-y-Coed. The finish came relatively early at 2.00p.m. After a total of 45km… they deserved the treat of a cone of chips! Well done to all 4 girls. it is amazing what you can achieve when you set your mind to it!

Looking forward to the GOLD expedition… fancy the Pyrenees???

In the mean time… the students need to complete their write-up.
The project is based upon the Weather! Below is a number of links which you may find useful to help you complete the task:

Click here for a link to the Met Office…

Click here for a link to the BBC Weather page…

For further information about the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme click here! http://www.theaward.org/