Thursday, 4 October 2007
Monday, 1 October 2007
Snapshot of farming in the UK
Animal health crises such as foot-and-mouth and bluetongue are just part of the worries facing farmers in the UK today.Pressures from export bans and late subsidy payments to fluctuating market prices can affect income, leave morale low and result in many famers considering how or whether to carry on in the industry. This snapshot of farming in the UK highlights some key areas of concern.
Land use
Farming Incomes
Retail Prices
Subsidies
Link to BBC NEWS | Magazine | Snapshot of farming in the UK
Saturday, 29 September 2007
Centenarians reach a record high
The number of people living beyond 100 years has reached a record high in England and Wales, according to official figures.
The Office for National Statistics says there are now 9,000 "centenarians" - a 90-fold increase since 1911.
Link to BBC NEWS | Health | Centenarians reach a record high
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
All about population
A world population of 6.5 billion in 2005... and how many in twenty or fifty years from now? For thousands of years, human beings were a rare species and their numbers grew very slowly. By around 1800 however, the population began to increase rapidly, starting in the rich countries and then, from the twentieth century, in the rest of the world. This unique period in the history of mankind will probably come to an end within a century. What are the reasons for this growth, and what factors are affecting the population today? Will the world population level off in the years to come? How will the world be populated in the future?
These pages include animations, documents and fact sheets to help you find the answers to these questions, and learn more about the world population. Discover the science of demography, Find facts and figures about a country or group of countries. Imagine the population of tomorrow by looking into the future.
CLICK on the header "ALL ABOUT POPULATION" to reveal a drop down menu that contains
ANIMATIONS - Birth and family size; Understanding length of life;Measuring Fertility; Measuring Life expectancy; Population Pyramids
POPULATION ATLAS The world population atlas gives the latest United Nations population statistics for 230 countries and regions of the world. You can use its different windows to travel from one country to another, to see how the situation changes over time, to rank countries or to compare them with each other.
POPULATION GAMES Use our interactive windows to play with the factors influencing family size, to find out where you stand in the world population or to look into the future with the population simulator.
GRAPH OF THE MONTH Every month, a different set of recent population data is presented in the "graph of the month".
How is it constructed? What does it show? Click on the title to find out more.
Link to [INED] All about population
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
Templates for TEACHERS
AST Request Form - This can be used to request resources - for other languages please attach a vocab list. Email me directly from the index page.
Noughts & Crosses
Aliens & Defenders - I really enjoy this one - one of my more inspired creations!
Brick Wall - Reveal
Find the word
Flash Memory game
Trivial Pursuit - created by Natalie Nicholson
Blockbusters
The Weakest Link - created by Mark E. Damon
Millionaire instructions
Millionaire - Not sure where this came from but I adapted it slightly
Timer - Adapted from MFL Sunderland - countdown file available if it doesn't run from here
30 second Countdown sound file
Talking Flash Cards
Picture Vocabulary Quiz - Hyperlinked Pictures - works in same way as action buttons
Action Buttons
Pit Stop - website with lots of ideas for MFL games
Wordsearch software - to print or use on a Smartboard - .exe file to download
Ideas for Flashcard and OHP Games
Ideas for Say It grids
Wheel of Fortune - spinner based on an idea by Connie Campbell
Timer - round the world in 1 minute - created by Dave Harlan
Virtual Dice - web site where you can select dice with different numbers of faces
Link to templates
Beyond Scarcity Power, poverty and global water crisis
Across the world, 2.6 billion people lack access to water and sanitation. The world water crisis is one of the main obstacles in the way of human development and of reaching Millennium Development goals. This year's Human Development Report, Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis, tackles this emergency.
Footage from: Nairobi, Kenya / West Bank, Palestinian Territories / China/ New Delhi, India / Colombia / Pretoria, South Africa / Kinshasa, Congo Videos are HERE
Link to Human Development Report 2006
Saturday, 22 September 2007
worlds largest cargo ship
African deluge brings misery to 1.5m people
According to the UN yesterday, 18 of the poorest and normally driest countries in Africa, from Senegal, Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso in the west, to Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia in the east, have been seriously hit by months of torrential rains which, meterologists forecast, will continue in places for many more weeks.
"We believe at least 650,000 homes have been destroyed, 1.5 million people affected and nearly 200 people so far drowned," said Elisabeth Brys, at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) in Geneva. "This is harvest time for many countries and there are already food shortages."
The rains, linked to ocean temperature changes of El Niño, have caught governments off guard. Many of the worst affected regions are remote from capitals and assessments are still being made.
Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana have declared an official disaster and appealed for emergency international aid. More nations are expected to follow
Link to African deluge brings misery to 1.5m people | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
El Niño Southern Oscillation
What is El Niño?
The term El Niño refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon linked to a periodic warming in sea-surface temperatures across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (between approximately the date line and 120oW). El Niño represents the warm phase of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and is sometimes referred to as a Pacific warm episode. El Niño originally referred to an annual warming of sea-surface temperatures along the west coast of tropical South America.
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, which is part of the National Weather Service, declares the onset of an El Niño episode when the 3-month average sea-surface temperature departure exceeds 0.5oC in the east-central equatorial Pacific [between 5oN-5oS and 170oW-120oW].
Show me strong El Niño sea-surface temperature and tropical rainfall patterns.
Show me the past El Niño and La Niña events by season.
La Niña refers to the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific that occurs every 3 to 5 years or so. La Niña represents the cool phase of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and is sometimes referred to as a Pacific cold episode. La Niña originally referred to an annual cooling of ocean waters off the west coast of Peru and Ecuador.
Link to CPC - Climate Weather Linkage: El Niño Southern Oscillation
educational links
Has China's one-child policy worked?
In the first of a series of pieces on China's one-child policy, the BBC's Michael Bristow looks at whether the country's controversial regulations are working.
China's family planning policy has prevented 400 million births, officials say.
Link to BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Has China's one-child policy worked?
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
What;s the carbon footprint of a potato?
Walkers Crisps is the first firm to put carbon footprint figures on its products, with nine more companies set to follow. How are these figures calculated?
Link to BBC NEWS | Magazine | What's the carbon footprint of a potato?
Walkers - reducing our carbon footprint
Volcanoes of the World
The data presented in this section have been compiled by Smithsonian volcanologists over the past three decades and represent an updated electronic version of Volcanoes of the World (Simkin and Siebert, 1994). The volcano and eruption data are freely available
Link to Global Volcanism Program | Volcanoes of the World
Monday, 17 September 2007
Sunday, 16 September 2007
UNOSAT
UNOSAT is a United Nations programme created to provide the international community and developing countries with enhanced access to satellite imagery and Geographic Information System (GIS) services. These tools are used mainly in humanitarian relief, disaster prevention and post crisis reconstruction.
Link to UNOSAT
Disease alert in flood-hit Africa
Severe flooding across Africa has wrecked hundreds of thousands of homes and left many people vulnerable to water-borne diseases, officials say.
Link to BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Disease alert in flood-hit Africa
ReliefWeb » Home Page
ReliefWeb is the world’s leading on-line gateway to information (documents and maps) on humanitarian emergencies and disasters. An independent vehicle of information, designed specifically to assist the international humanitarian community in effective delivery of emergency assistance, it provides timely, reliable and relevant information as events unfold, while emphasizing the coverage of "forgotten emergencies" at the same time.
ReliefWeb was launched in October 1996 and is administered by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
EXAMPLE: West Africa Floods
Link to ReliefWeb » Home Page
Thursday, 13 September 2007
Met Office: 1961-90 mapped averages
1961-90 mapped averages
Select the elements below to view contoured UK maps of monthly, seasonal and annual averages. The analyses are based on 1 km grid-point data sets which are derived from station data covering the latest WMO recommended reference period (1961 - 1990).
Link to Met Office: 1961-90 mapped averages
Monday, 10 September 2007
Health Expectancy
The population of Great Britain has been living longer over the past 20 years, but the extra years have not necessarily been lived in good health. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy (expected years of life in good or fairly good health) both increased between 1981 and 2001, with life expectancy increasing at a faster rate than healthy life expectancy.
Life expectancy is higher for females than for males. In 2001 the life expectancy at birth of females was 80.4 years compared with 75.7 years for males. However, life expectancy for males has been increasing faster than for females. There was an increase of 4.8 years in male life expectancy between 1981 and 2001. For females the corresponding increase was 3.6 years.
The gap in healthy life expectancy between males and females is smaller than for total life expectancy. In 2001, healthy life expectancy at birth was 67.0 years for males and 68.8 years for females, a gap of 1.8 years.
The difference between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy can be regarded as an estimate of the number of years a person can expect to live in poor health. In 1981 the expected time lived in poor health for males was 6.5 years. By 2001 this had risen to 8.7 years. Females can expect to live longer in poor health than males. In 1981 the expected time lived in poor health for females was 10.1 years, rising to 11.6 years in 2001.
Link to National Statistics Online
The Office for National Statistics measured "healthy life expectancy" - the age before ill-health strikes.