Boscastle Floods Resources

The resources are all in the shared area:
Geography
GCSE
Living with Floods
Boscastle

HOW AM I DOING IN GEOGRAPHY?

All GCSE classes will be given a new target setting sheet for geography. You will be able to record your grades on these. Remember to talk through what your targets could be this term. YOU SHOULD ALL BE AIMING FOR AT LEAST A C GRADE!

TRUSTING WEBSITES

Sometimes websites are not what they may appear to be. TOP TIP: If you want to know who owns a site, you can use
http://www.easywhois.com/.

How many students have a “My Space” blog?
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php allows you to access archive posts.
Once it is on the internet, it is in the public domain FOR EVER.

Year 11 Coursework

ASSESSMENT 1: BOSCASTLE FLOODS

A case study, with your personal viewpoints, of the Boscastle floods, using any media and focusing on the short and long term causes of the flood and its impacts

FORMAT
· PowerPoint with notes to the side of each slide. Your teacher will show you how to do this.
· 30 words maximum ON THE SLIDE.

What should you include?

A brief introduction, locating Boscastle using an annotated map.


A section on CAUSES:
Long Term
Short Term
Physical or Human?

which EXPLAINS how each factor contributed to the flood.


A section on IMPACTS:
The Economy
People
The Environment (built and natural)


“Personal response”. This may include:
What do YOU think should have been done to avoid Boscastle?
Were any of the causes avoidable?
Why do you think these things weren’t done?
How could the impacts have been reduced?
What lessons can be learnt?

YOU SHOULD INCLUDE MAPS, GRAPHS AND PHOTOS WHERE RELEVANT TO SUPPORT YOUR WRITING.

USEFUL WEBSITES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boscastle_flood_of_2004
http://www.tintagelweb.co.uk/BoscastleFlood.htm
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/commondata/acrobat/living_with_the_risk_1111062.pdf
http://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupRenderCustomPage.asp?GroupID=11155&ResourceId=72869 (Wycombe High School website)
http://www.geographyalltheway.com/ib_geography/ib_drainage_basins/lynmouth_boscastle/boscastle_images/boscastle.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/uncovered/stories/august2004/boscastle_floods.shtml
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?tab=av&q=boscastle&recipe=all&scope=all&edition=d is a list of relevant audio and video clips from the BBC

Back to School

A belated welcome back to the new school year. For the first time, we now have 3 different year groups studying the GCSE Pilot Course. Well done to all Year 11 students for their exam results; let's hope you build on this with your remaining coursework!

Year 9 are now starting the My Place unit, and we are arranging a speaker from the Borough to support you with your first piece of coursework. Details to follow...

Year 10 are in the process of doing their People as Consumers coursework, which the Year 11 have just handed in. Remember to use the shared area for helpful guides.

Year 11 are being introduced to the Living with Floods unit. Your first piece of coursework will be based on the Boscastle floods. Again, watch this space.

The final straight

What type of housing would you build? Refer to resources.

The first type of housing I would build is ………………
This is because Resource 4 tells me that the number of households with single persons is predicted to increase from ……. thousand in 1991 to ……. thousand in 2021. Also, the average number of people per house has decreased from 2.47 in 1991 to 2.15 in 2021; these types of houses will therefore be suitable.

Within these, I would ensure there are some properties included in the Key Worker scheme, which is……
The situation according to Resource 5 is worse in the South West, because house prices are…….

Secondly, there will be a need for more specialist housing for elderly people. This is supported by Resource 2, which shows that the UK has approximately one in six of its population over 65. There were 1.2 million people over 85 in the UK in 2005. This large increase reflects improving survival and the post World War One baby boomers now reaching this age group.

The questionnaire results (Resource 14) suggests that the housing most needed is 2/3 bed family homes. However, due to the time the questionnaire was carried out, it may be that this is not an accurate reflection of demand; on a Friday morning the majority of people in the City Centre would be ……..


Which site would you choose to build new housing on? Explain your choice.

Of the two sites, I would choose to build new housing on the Brownfield Docks site.

The advantages of this site include…… (see Resource 14); it is located only 0.75 km from the city centre (Resource 6). This means that….

A second advantage of this site is……
This is sustainable in terms of local people because……
It is sustainable in terms of the environment because….

In contrast, the Longford site has several disadvantages, which I feel outweigh its advantages. Although it would offer the benefits of rural life, such as ………, valuable green land would be lost. This would mean that….

However, there are ways in which the plans for the Docks redevelopment could be improved. For example, it has been criticised by a local architect for a lack of atmosphere. This is similar to concerns raised in The Guardian in June about a loss of culture in the Thames Gateway region.

Therefore, I would recommend that the plans include waterfront shops and leisure facilities (Resource 11 states that this is an aim of the redevelopment). An example of this is Copenhagen, where the Dock area is bustling.

Pre-release update

Well done all of you who attended the revision class.

A useful website for the redevelopment of the docks site is http://www.crestnicholson.com/GloucesterDocks/overview.aspx, which is the company building the new apartments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/360/docks_1.shtml offers a panoramic view!

We have now looked at the two alternative sites, and examined the contrasting views of different groups of people. Remember that each site has both advantages and disadvantages!!

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/About_BAS/Cambridge/Divisions/EID/Environment/index.html is worth a look for Uses of Antarctica.