The fate of baby girls in India

Read this horrific tale here. Backs up what we did a while ago with Higher. "a man digs a hole when his wife is pregnant: if when the baby is born it is a boy the jubilant father plants a tree to celebrate. If it is a girl the infant is buried alive".

Shakeout in California

Experience an 8.0 earthquake like this. No thanks!

Primary Health Care in action

Water Aid video

Industrial Decline in South Wales

And a wee reminder of one we did in class….Steel River

Flipping Magic!

˙ǝuo sıɥʇ ɹoɟ ɔıʇsɐʇƃoǝƃ ʇɐ sıllǝ ssıɯ oʇ sʞuɐɥʇ ˙ɯoɔ˙ǝlʇıʇdılɟ sı ǝʇıs ¡ʎɐpsǝupǝʍ ʇxǝu ɯılǝɹd ɹnoʎ ɹoɟ ƃuısıʌǝɹ ǝq plnoɥs noʎ uǝɥʍ 4s sıɥʇ uo ǝɯıʇ ɥɔnɯ ooʇ ǝʇsɐʍ ʇ,uop ˙ǝsuǝsuou ɟo ʇıq ɐ ʇsnɾ ˙¡ʞuıɥʇ noʎ sǝʞɐɯ puɐ noʎ sǝsnɟuoɔ sǝɯıʇǝɯos ʎɥdɐɹƃoǝƃ ǝɹıɥsɹʎɐ

Globalisation and travel

Completely "stolen" from Richard Allaway. Here is an outline of S2 tasks for next week -assuming classroom in a box is working!
Road transport

Water


Rail



Air



Choose one of the modes of transport from above (Road, Water, Rail, Air) and produce a timeline (either using this site or on paper) to show major achievements in that area. For example: first flight, first passenger flight, first Transatlantic flight etc. Is it still used today?

Describe the impact that advances in an area of transport (Road, Water, Rail or Air) has had upon globalization. [10 Marks]

Travel across the channel

McGeography

If you want an example of globalisation in action, play the McDonald game from Richard Alloway's website. Go on you know you want to..........

Click the photo below.

The Box

The Box is an ambitious and unique year-long project for BBC News to tell the story of international trade and globalisation by tracking a standard shipping container around the world.As we discussed in class we will be looking at where this container is going and the effect of this on trade patterns in the world. How does this affect us? See over the next few weeks. The journey started in September leaving Greenock with a load of whisky going to China! If you click on the picture below you can see a video of this.

Link here

The BBC has a series of pages on this topic but I think they are a little complex for S2 at the moment. The link is here if anyone wants a look. Fee free! Link here

Marks and Spencer has just opened its largest store in Asia, and the first in mainland China.
Although most of the country cannot afford to shop at the store, there is no shortage of customers. The manager of Marks and Spencer in Shanghai said
"Digestive biscuits are an exotic draw - at 30% off, Shanghainese shoppers have been grabbing them by the armful. "

The journey is almost read to continue its route from China to the USA with a ship load of clothes. Keep watching this site to track its progress.

Banana Wars - Caribbean

Another link to Fair Trade and trade patterns. This Youtube video can't be embedded, so here is the link. Th farmers choos to grow illegal drugs rather than bananas - why? Who is to blame for this? What do you think can be done about it?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lKLXpm9nrT0

I thought I'd play about with wordle for the new S2 course. What do you think? For those who don't know this great tool try it here.

Polish in Britain

Short clip here from the BBC programme on British reaction to Polish wokers in Britain. Worth a look for Higher.

see here

Shakeout!

How would you cope if a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck? Highly unlikely in Ayrshire, but very real for people living on or near the San Andreas Fault... which is why, on 13th November, more than 5 million people in Southern California will be taking part in The Great Southern Californian Shakeout. Have a look at this video which shows what could happen when "the big one" strikes, and remember I said in class that this could happen ANY time now. Look at the ShakeOut website here and you can test your earthquake preparedness by playing the Beat the Quake game.

Greenpeace Movie

Coalfinger plans to cover the world in coal-fired power stations and destroy the climate in Operation Browncloud. Watch this the animated Bond spoof with secret agent Gaverson Green fighting to stop the evil plans of Coalfinger. (voiced of Brian Blessed) A bit of silly nonsense although a little rude – sorry folks. Thanks to Richard Allaway for highlighting this Greenpeace movie. Enjoy!

Higher Homework -Population section

dis S jst a wee remyndR dat yr hmwrk S 2 transl8 1of d migration sections N2 txt n thN u shd snd it 2 d geog dept ph. kip it short!. It nEdz 2B undR 140 chars 2 fit on 1 page. av fun!

All aboard for the Grand Canyon Flight of a lifetime

Don't ask about the last 5 seconds - I have no idea and apologise for the language.

Mud eruption 'caused by drilling'

Experts have said the eruption of the Lusi mud volcano in Indonesia was caused by drilling for oil and gas. Lusi erupted in May 2006 and continues to spew out boiling mud. For two years, the crater has been oozing mud - enough to fill 50 Olympic size swimming pools every day!!. It was triggered by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake 30,000 people had to be moved out of the area. The geologists voted overwhelmingly that drilling was the most likely cause but not everyone agreed. We are still learning about these matters. You might ask whether the cause is important or not. YES. If the drillers caused it then they are liable for compensating 10,000 families, amounting to 700 billion Indonesian Rupias (£47m).
If the earthquake was responsible, then the Indonesian government will have the burden of supporting the victims. Indonesia is a poor country. However, despite the vote, the drilling firm denies that its activities were in any way responsible for the disaster.

How to stop a volcano erupting.

Watch this video to show what is going on in Indonesia. Do you think this is worth while or a waste of time and effort as well as money?

Is this disaster natural or man made? I was at a conference last Saturday in a very wet and windy Edinburgh and attended a talk by Dr Ian Stewart on exactly this matter. This is also what I have been talking about in class to S2 and saying that this is one of the reasons I love Geography. We, as humans, think we are so smart and then we cause these disasters and Mother Nature “puts us in our place”. These are awful events but it is interesting to see what will happen in the future when people are perhaps forced to live in more marginal and “difficult” environments. Does global warming mean more people will have to take calculated risks on where they live or do we not have a choice any more? Enough philosophising – I’ve got marking to do.

Refugees in the Congo - Africa

Regional war fear as 50,000 homeless in Congo in two days
More than 250,000 people have been made homeless since the latest bout of fighting erupted. In total, aid groups say they are struggling to reach people fleeing fierce fighting between government and rebel forces. The Congolese government has refused to negotiate with the rebels.
Aid workers were unable even to reach the camp, and reports were reaching Goma that its inhabitants had begun to run away. Hundreds of thousands fled Goma, the regional capital which sits on the border with Rwanda , and the surrounding countryside in a mass exodus last week. “People are just trying to stay safe. It’s muddy and wet and a lot of people are sick,” said one local aid worker. The refugees were in desperate need of help. A woman clutching her young children and looking for shelter said: “We are helpless, powerless. “We do not believe anyone will treat us well. I am too afraid to go home, but who will feed us here? We feel abandoned.” The Save the Children charity, which was forced to pull out of Goma after government troops went on the rampage last week, sent an emergency team back into the city yesterday. A priority is reuniting families split up in the chaos.

Read more about this terrible situation here and read the excellent BBC summary, as ever here. Watch the video. WARNING! It is disturbing – think about how YOU would feel in this situation.