Monthly Archive for July, 2009

The Zones

Not digital geography at all – but I thought I’d publish these song lyrics by two Year 8 students. The work is one of the outcomes from the choose your own assessment activity from a few weeks ago and reveals a great many of the ideas from the preceding lessons.

Volcanoes,
With the magma chamber underneath,
The magma flows up through the layers of ash,
And lava,
But people died cuz,
Of the poisonous gases,
And the pyroclastic flows of pressured hot ash,
And tar,
I-I don’t know,
Why they live in danger zones,
They live by volcanoes cuz of tourists and farmland,
What about earthquakes?
How do people live there?
They build strong buildings, it’s cuz of tectonic plates.

(Chorus)
Tectonic plates are moving,
All of the countries used,
To be all together,
All together,
Don’t trust the zones,
Never trust the zones,
Don’t trust the zones,
Won’t trust zones,
Tectonic plates are moving,
All of the countries used,
To be all together,
All together,
Don’t trust the zones.
Never trust the zones
Don’t trust the zones
Won’t trust zones,

Earthquakes,
All around the world,
You never get a warning, there is no way to tell,
And buildings,
Collapse and fall down,
Bits inside break off and liquifaction occurs,
Liqui-liquifaction,
Is when buildings,
Turn to liquid,
What about tsunamis?
Tsunamis?
Earthquakes under the sea,
Produce big waves which get bigger by the shore.

(Chorus)

Move guys!
Move right now!
I know you have a reason for living there,
I said move guys!
Move right now!
I know you have a reason for living there,
I said move guys,
Move right now!
I know you have a reason but I don’t really care,
I said move guys !!!!!
Move right now,
I know you have a reason for living there.

(Chorus)

By Rachel and Lauren ( Year 8 )

Augmented Reality iPhone app

Dan Swick kindly shared this YouTube video with me.

The app by developers acrossair will also be available for the London Underground and is currently awaiting approval from the App Store. It looks as though other cities including San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Madrid and Barcelona are in preparation.

Yorkshire landscapes as QTVR images

I’ve made some spherical panoramas of some classic limestone features of the Yorkshire Dales.


Malham Cove, Yorkshire Dales National Park, UK in England

Malham Cove
Limestone pavement above Malham Cove
Gordale Scar

These images will be added to my geographical panoramas page at Juicy Geography. I’ve managed to wear out my trusty tripod and need to buy a new one – so the usual plea about not embedding etc, without a donation applies. I’m working on an alternative way of displaying these images with more features, and without the distracting thumbnails when viewing at full screen.

Wellington Stories

Fox's Factory Wellington (26)

My Year 8 project Wellington Stories aims to create a series of geo-located, short stories, poems and videos; and is reaching maturity. The students have created a really interesting series of short pieces that explore their relationship with place. These have all been mapped and the real-world locations tagged with QR codes. The final stage of the project is to publish a photographic record of the QR codes, and to contact the local press with details of the project. Thanks to all those who’ve commented on the work so far.

For those who haven’t seen “Wellington Stories” yet – here’s a short sample:

GC’s poem: Upon Cloud 9
KC’s video poem: The Wellesley Cinema
JV’s story: My story of Woolworth’s
GA’s movie: Wellington Youth Centre
EB’s story and videos: Bike Jumping

google link Download all the stories as a Google Earth file

Related posts here and here.

Geography Flash Meeting – the Music

I couldn’t attend the most recent geography Flash Meeting but it served up another great slice of CPD. One outcome has been Kenny O’Donnell’s creation of a Spotify playlist for Geography – related songs while Jerry Swiatek added a Google spreadsheet to collate further ideas. Visit the Geog FM Music page to contribute.

63699209_4893b260e8_m photo: Flickr user Alvazer