Searching using Google

I know this is very American but these ideas may come handy to start off Adv Higher searches this year. A lot more needed though - in case you are thinking "I know this already"!

Micro ways to develop

Microfinance has crucial objectives: it allows people to escape from the vicious circle of excessive interest rates, promotes equal rights for women, helps to overcome some of the failings in the traditional banking system and provides a financial safety net for those wishing to invest. Thus, for its 130 million beneficiaries throughout the world, it responds to a real need. Read here

No to Wind Turbines

Plans to build one of Europe's largest onshore wind farms in the Outer Hebrides were formally rejected today after Scottish ministers ruled the £500m scheme would devastate a globally significant peatland. Read why this was rejected here and about the loss of jobs to the area too. Good argument for adv higher in an exam question.

Hydrosphere

River Measurments
This is designed for a different course to ours but looks good for advanced Higher and is also suitable for Highers to “dip” into.

Click logo for link.

Spearman Rank

How And Why To Use Spearman’s Rank

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Will this help with revsion folks?

Advanced Higher

Useful free site
Good one here for your study. Save this one in your favourites to use when necessary.
http://www.printfreegraphpaper.com/
This is also a good one about the use of basics graphs – what type, where to use etc and also about different types of maps. See the Statistical Maps section on the left. Link here.

Statistical Terrors Two

Chi Squared

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Hope this is a help with some tests for your Study.

Tesco Bashing?

For and Against Supermarkets. A special for Jennifer! Watch out the others. Yours coming soon!
Read here and here.

Read Tony Cassidys summary here for a starting point. Look also at this blog here. Read also this blog on Sat 24th Nov on Tesco for a more positive viewpoint.

Statistical Terrors!

Good site here to help ease the burden of Advanced stats. Hope it explains things better than me.
http://www.geography-site.co.uk/pages/skills.html#Statistics
http://www.geography-site.co.uk/pages/skills/fieldwork/stats/spear.html
This site is on Spearman Rank
http://geographyfieldwork.com/SpearmansRank.htm
and so is this.
http://www.geography.btinternet.co.uk/spearman.htm
and this is a wee powerpoint to tell you how to use it.
http://geogonthespot.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-use-spearmans-rank-for-your-gcse.html
This site is on what can go wrong using Spearman Rank
http://books.google.com/books?id=lVAXo3kfiIsC&pg=PT26&lpg=PT26&dq=when+to+use+spearmans+rank+geography&source=web&ots=o2u1Sz2k0v&sig=qsxlIyiNAmQAc4MPU5eVeUcpxh8#PPT28,M1

Global food crisis looms as climate change and fuel shortages bite

Soaring crop prices and demand for biofuels raise fears of political instability. In a new report, the UK charity appears to be joining a growing number of concerned people talking about the side-effects of the drive to get fuel from plants.
The European Union wants to cut the CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and is planning 10% of all transport fuels should come from plants by 2020. But Oxfam warns poor farmers risk being forced off their land as industrial farmers cash in on the biofuel bonanza. To make it worse, he added, valuable rainforest is still being cleared to make way for fuel crops like palm oil. Read the rest of this scary article here.
See this Youtube video also on the impact on Orangutans. How can we live with ourselves as a species if we do such a thing as this?

Read also the Guardian article here on the political impact of biofuels and how food riots may be on the cards as a result of this.

Use of Biofuels is a crime

A UN expert yesterday called the growing practice of turning crops into biofuel "a crime against humanity" because it has created food shortages and sent food prices soaring, leaving millions of poor people hungry. Using biofuels instead of petrol in cars is generally considered to cut carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming, although some scientists say greenhouse gases released during the production of biofuel crops can offset those gains. Read the rest of this article and see what you think. Click here. If you are not sure what biofuels are then check the link here.

Retail habits

Good links here for a study of retail shopping habits. See the links for Tesco – some very anti Tesco and some for. A good geographical topic!

Tesco around the world

Tesco currently operates in 12 countries and has plans at various levels of development to enter a further 3. Read the article here.

Advanced Higher Searching tools

Read Ollie Bray's excellent advice on Internet searching here.

Three Gorges Dam is a disaster in the making, China admits

Vessels emerge from the five-stage permanent ship lock, illustrating the immense scale of the project
Residents leave Fengjie, a historic town that was submerged by the rising water level of the reservoir
For more than a decade China has promoted the world’s biggest hydro-electric project as the best way to end centuries of floods along the basin of the Yangtze and to provide energy. Now those same officials who oversaw construction of the £13 billion dam admit that surrounding areas are paying a heavy, and potentially calamitous, environmental cost. Hundreds of thousands of people may have to be moved. A total of 1.3 million have been displaced by the dam already. Read the rest here.

Pylons cause controversy in Highlands

Read the article below as a possible topic for adv higher issues essay - or even better find a local one about which people are equally passionate - dare I mention the Maybole bypass!!!!!!
Ruin the landscape or providing much needed services?

EU policy on Biofuels

Good article on this topic and how it is leading to further deforestation and an imbalance of the carbon cycle.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6949861.stm