Welcome to my Geography Teaching Blog!

Hello!

This is the first of what will hopefully be a read-worthy blog for the rest of the academic year, it is linked to my Facebook Page - Richuish Geography, and for those of you who havent sussed it yet (hopefully that doesnt apply to my students) I am a Geography teacher!

This blog will be filled with updates on what I hope i have achieved in me A-Level classroom this week, and interesting things I read and think about geography and geology as and when I read or think them! This week, is the final week of the Skills exam for my lower sixth, and the Belfast unit for my upper sixth, who have had their pre-release material since november, and only have to immerse themselves in Belfasts history and development for another two weeks! I feel sure many of them are counting down the days - if thats you, attend the event on the facebook page and share your feelings about Belfast, and preferably any exciting links or resources you have found

This weekend, what has mostly been fascinating me is the new eruption at Mt Etna (see above), I do love my Sicilian volcanoes, and Etna is one of my favourites, i have been many times, three of them with college (we have an unfortunate/fortunate habit of stopping volcanic eruptions by just arriving in the country!), and this weeks NASA Earth Observatory Photo was just stunning (Takes a while to load - http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/48000/48612/etna_tmo_2011011_lrg.jpg) The video foottage showed some fabulous fire fountains, and once again the Sicilians show they are well on track with volcano management, close the airports, divert the flights and then clean up!

Lovely stuff, almost as good as the footage from Vanuatu last year, but I'll save that for another blog. Also on my reading list this week, the horrendous flooding in Brazil, Australia and Sri Lanka. The La Nina effect is in full force this year, shame it is not on the syllabus, but unfortunately we no longer cover El Nino/La Nina oscillations.

Lastly, is a small whinge on my part, if i hear one more person tell me that it was so cold this winter global warming clearly is happening I will start a public service of street lectures on why they are so wrong! Students, climate is our next module, and we do have a lesson called "skeptic bashing" which is a game where you score points for effectively countering common misinterpretations on global climate change - get your best response to that one prepared!