Biomes and climate charts

The lanscape, as well as the animals and the plants are the direct result of the climate, so in every climate you can find some typical species. Here you can find more, and a summary Here are the climate charts we are working with

Synoptic charts and Weather conditions

As a complement of the information of your book, you have the following information from GSCE bitesize about Synoptical Charts and Weather Conditions. Here you have an introduction in Spanish about the same topic

Extreme Weather

If you click here, you can go to the activity that we did with Thomas last Thursday (19th November 2014)

Precipitations (Weather report video from ESL Video)

- See more at: http://www.eslvideo.com/esl_video_quiz_intermediate.php?id=3686#sthash.2roQO39j.dpuf

Mysterious karst in Slovenia an Power Point by Thomas

As we explained yesterday, there is a special type of relief made by the water after thousands of years. Because the water is dissolving the rock.
Here you have a touristic brochure about the Karst caves in Slovenia, where the name of this type of relief (Karstic) comes from.

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And below is the presentation done by our Speaking assistant, Thomas, about the cave in Texas and the Karst:

Drainage Basins

Usually rivers and their tributaries form a fluvial system (a system of rivers), and flow across a surface called drainage basin.
We all know rivers that flow into the sea or oceans.
But, there are also, some rivers that flow into a lake, went underground or simply evaporate.. These types of rivers are typical in desertic zones or in areas far from the ocean fall and surrounded by mountain ranges. The scientific name of this type of drainage basins is Endorrheic basins or closed drainage basins
Here you have a map showing the different ocean drainage. In dark there are the endorrheic basins.
These closed (or endorrheic) drainage basins are responsible for the biggest lake in the world: the CASPIAN SEA, where the Volga River flows into.

Activity on the effects of the tectonic plates activity

Above you have a video on the plate tectonics movement.

Here it is an activity on the effects of the tectonic plates on human civilization and infrastructure.

Finally, if you click in the link, you can read an article of an spanish newspaper edited in english for the english speaking community that lives in Costa del Sol and Andalusia, about the effects of the last deadly earthquake in Spain: Lorca, 2011

Remote sensing: Aerial photography and Space images

As appears in your book, nowadays, remote sensing is the main technique used for doing maps, and it includes several other techniques as, for example, aerial photographies.
In Spain, the first aerial photos were taken during the 1920s in the area occupied by the rivers Segura by a pilot called Ruiz de Alda, this technique was used also during the civil war, but the flight that covered the area of the entire country were flown by the americans during 1956-57.
Since then, there have been other flights, and nowadays there is a national plan on this topic called PNOA, were you can find the most recent pictures, as well as the oldest pictures taken in the fifties. This plan is carried out by the IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional), a spanish organism that collects all the geographical information of our country. (In Great Britain this organisation is called Ordnance Survey).
The space images are the other main method to obtain data from the earth. This pictures are taken by artificial satellites that orbit around the earth. The first pictures date back to the decade of the 1960s, when the first artificial satellites were launched into the space (The first satellite was a russian satellite called Sputnik  in 1957), and the first purpose of these satellite images was a military purpose. But soon this images were used for other civilian purposes, such as doing maps.
These techniques ensure the accuracy of our maps.

Test your geographical skills

If you click here, you can find an activity for KeyStage 3 Students (between 11 and 14 years old) and test your geographical skills:

Map projections

If you click here, you can see a video and do an activity on National Geographic