Year 13 Unit 4 Pre-release, 2012

The pre-release EXPLORE and FOCUS themes are now available on the Edexcel website. Remember, the explore idea is about the theme that you should now focus on and the research is more about the examples and case studies that you need to find.

Click the heading to be taken there, although this the information relevant to us......


OPTION 2: Cold Environments – Landscapes and Change
• Explore the processes which shaped the landscape during the Pleistocene within a
region such as the British Isles.
• Research the wide variety of landscapes and landforms created at differing scales by
glacial and periglacial processes within a chosen region.

OPTION 3: Life on the Margins – the Food Supply Problem
• Explore the need for, and effectiveness of, different strategies that are designed to
improve food security.
• Research a range of food security strategies, including ‘sustainable’ ones, at differing
scales and locations.


OPTION 5: Pollution and Human Health at Risk
• Explore the relative health risks from incidental and sustained pollution, and how and
why these vary both spatially and over time.
• Research locations at varying scales and levels of development, that have experienced
or are experiencing health risks from different types of pollution

Climate and Environmental issues to create migration issues in the future

Climate and other environmental changes will cause "major challenges" for world leaders over the next 50 years as mass migration threatens to create new humanitarian crises, a major new report says.
The report estimates there will be between 154 and 179 million people living in rural coastal floodplains by 2060 who will be unable to move away due to poverty

The government's chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, who commissioned the study, said that environmental change would hit the world's poorest the hardest and that millions of them would inadvertently migrate toward, rather than away from, areas that are most vulnerable.

“We have assumed mass migration away from affected areas, but millions of people will also migrate into vulnerable areas and there will also be those who cannot migrate out,” John Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the British government, told reporters.
“They pose different challenges to the international community,” he added.
The United Nations estimates there were 210 million international migrants in 2010. A further 740 million were internal migrants in 2009.
An average 25 million people a year have been displaced due to weather-related events since 2008, which will likely rise as such events become more extreme and frequent, Beddington said

Click on the headline to be taken to an article from The Telegraph

Click on the photo to be taken to an article from the BBC

Year 13 Human Geographers - Unit 4 (Life on the Margins)

The dates for you to hand in summaries of each Enquiry Question are laid out below. The idea is that you use all your research to sum up the over EQ in a side or two of A4. The point of the summary is so that your teacher can check that you are on the right track in terms of content and understanding. It is not designed as a way of practicing writing in exams - we'll cover this later. Remember that each EQ is made up of smaller questions (parts A, B, C and D and these should be used to help you return to the original overal EQ and write your answer) One of the skills needed is the ability to use the research and pick out what is important - so a short summary is better than something that goes on for 4 pages. You must learn to be selective with the research and information you have used. Don't worry too much about sourcing/referencing at the moment, though you can add these in if you wish. It would be useful to add a bibliogrphy for the summary.

Friday 12th November - hand in summary of EQ1
Tuesday 23rd November - hand in summary of EQ2
Friday 3rd December - hand in summary of EQ3
Thursday 9th December - the date of the pre-release materials (make sure you have got a copy)
Tuesday 14th December - hand in summary of EQ4
Tuesday 1st February 2011 - date of the exam!

Hand this work in by the date shown, preferably typed and sent to staff email addresses
ks.haba@ksn.org.uk (Mr Bains)
ks.refo@ksn.org.uk (Ms Ford)
ks.pesp@ksn.org.uk (Mrs Spooner)
ks.gipa@ksn.org.uk (Mrs Palmer)

We will be practicing and going over things like how to approach the methodology, introduction, essay/report plans and so on in the lead up to the pre-release material being made available. After the Christmas holidays we will start practicing actual Unit 4 exam questions.
Make sure you ask about anything you are unsure of - either in lessons or by email.

And finally, make sure you have looked at the shared area where there are LOADS of useful hints and tips sheets and presentstions. In particular, have a look at the powerpoints produced by Edexcel (our exam board!) as they give you lots of good ideas and information.

Good luck!

Click on the picture to be taken to Amazon.co.uk where you can buy the student guide for Unit 4 for £6.99

More useful sites to visit (in fact these are ESSENTIAL sites to look at):
http://www.wfp.org/hunger/map

http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/

Make sure you explore these sites fully. The bottom one has links to information about food insecurity, the location and prevelance of hunger, the people who are affected and so on.

Giant iceberg breaks off from Antarctic glacier

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken off from a glacier in Antarctica after being rammed by another giant iceberg, scientists said on Friday, in an event that could affect ocean circulation patterns.

The 2,500 sq km (965 sq mile) iceberg broke off earlier this month from the Mertz Glacier's 160 km (100 miles) floating tongue of ice that sticks out into the Southern Ocean.
The collision has since halved the size of the tongue that drains ice from the vast East Antarctic ice sheet.
"The break up (calving) itself hasn't been directly linked to climate change but it is related to the natural processes occurring on the ice sheet," said Rob Massom, a senior scientist.

This 97 km long slab of ice is a remnant of an iceberg of more than 5,000 sq km that broke off, or calved, in 1987, making it one of the largest icebergs ever recorded in Antarctica

Click on the headline for more detailed information