A number of nations, including the US, UK and Venezuela, are gearing up to send aid. Key buildings such as hospitals, the presidential palace, peoples homes and the prison have all collapsed in the earthquake.

Already one of the poorest nations in the world, Haiti now has to face up to the aftermath of another natural disaster. Four hurricanes and storms killed hundreds of people in 2008.

Year 13 should follow this story closely over the coming days to support your work on tectonics.

Read more about this tragedy at the websites below

• BBC News
• The Guardian
• The Times
• The Independent

For those of you who use the social network Twitter. Search ‘Port-au-Prince’ to read real-time tweets about the disaster

Montserrat Pyroclastic Flow

Year 9, as you know you are currently learning about tectonic activity and associated hazards.  Before Christmas and more recently we were looking at Montserrat as a case study of a volcanic eruption and you have used some excellent resources from Juicy Geography that enabled you to work effectively as a team to respond to events and make decisions around a volcanic eruption on Montserrat.

On online colleague of mine drew my attention this evening to the Montserrat Volcano Observatory website, where the hazard level for the island now stands at level 4. The Observatory are reporting increased amounts of volcanic activity recently. Why don’t you check the website over the coming weeks to see whether activity on the island increases in the future?

You will find the PowerPoint that I used, along with hyperlinks to many of the websites mentioned and files to download.

Initially we talked about producing flash cards for ‘key terms’ and ‘key processes’. The website that I talked about to produce your own flash cards was classtools.net. Why not have a go at making your own flash card games?

The flash card quiz that I used in the session can be downloaded from here Just remember that you will need an internet connection to play the game.

Podcasts were mentioned during the session. We had time to have a quick look at gcsepod. Remember that these podcasts are not free. You may want to invest in some of the podcasts to put onto your ipod or mp3 player? We had a look at this excellent website from Lochaber High School Although these podcasts do not relate directly to the AQA examination that we follow, the ‘Geography’ contained within them is still relevant for your revision. Geocrest Podcast has three case study podcasts that you could use; Bosch in South Wales, Mt St Helens and Kobe Earthquake. GeoBytes contains six podcasts that look at coasts.

Geography At The Movies contains many videos produced by teachers and students that you can use for revision. Some videos are purely informational videos, whereas some are quizzes that you could complete as part of your revision program.

GeoTube is an especially excellent website for videos to support your case studies. Many videos have been sourced from YouTube or the BBC. There are videos on GeoTube covering the Italy earthquake, that would make an excellent case study of a tectonic hazard in a developed country.

GCSE Geography Case Study Card is available for download from here. You may wish to photocopy these onto different coloured card to associated with different topic areas.

GCSE Geography Bitesize is an excellent revision site with a message board and many more podcasts for you to use

S-cool is similar is some extents to Bitesize, bjut it allows you to print off what you complete as another set of revision notes.

Finally, I asked you to sign up for email alerts from ClassPress.net. You will recieve regular emails with relevant news stories that you can then use as case studies in your final examinations

The coasts and rivers revision quizzes that can be used on your ipods or mobile phones can be downloaded. You will need to ‘unzip’ the compressed folders to access the images. You will then need to upload the images onto your mobile phone or ipod.

If any of you come across any other revision sites or materials then please email me at maghullhighgeography@gmail.com

Use the GCSE Bitesize Geography website to investigate globalisation.

Produce a PowerPoint presentation that includes the following information:

1. A definition of globalisation
2. The role of MNS’s
3. Positive impacts of globalisation
4. Negative impacts of globalisation
5. Effects of globalisation on the environment.

“Why is Dai Willliams involved in the building of a new Japanese restaurant in Bridgend?”

Your ‘write-up’ to this needs to be handed in on Thursday.

Think to the future, think GEOGRAPHY!