Decision Making Exam Tomorrow - Good Luck!

Hope all goes well tomorrow. If you've prepared it should be straightforward.

And remember old people have a lot to offer society! Just have a look at the You Tube link on the side bar.

Ms Rogers

DME - Ageing and migration in Europe and the UK - Update 1

Hopefully by now you have made yourself familiar with the resources for the Decision Making Paper. If the worst happens and you mislay your booklet, for an electronic version click here.

Once study leave begins you can still come and see me in school for anything you need help with but also for anything else you may find you don't have. Just in case this is a link to a PDF of the specification (course syllabus). It has lots you don't need, but just in case the link is here.

I will update this as we get closer to the exam, please keep looking.

Year 11 DME 2009

Gosh, its been a while since I used this, but hope it will help to bring together all the ideas for the Decision Making Exercise.

To get the ball rolling the theme is Population Change and its effects. The resources build from global population change and then begin to focus in on population issues in Europe and then more specifically the UK. Issues of migration are mentioned but the focus towards the end are certainly to do with ISSUES OF AN AGING POPULATION.

The first tasks to do are:

1. Read the booklet carefully by yourself. We will also look at it in lessons but it is vital you take time to make sure you understand all of the resources.

2. Find out and learn the definitions of the terms in italics.

So far I can see:

• natural increase


• immigration


• immigrants


• emigrants


• life expectancy


• net migration


• catering


• retailing


• ageing population

3. Begin to think about the advantages and disadvantages of the schemes in Figure 12.


This is very much just to start - we will need to look at the graphs and data in more detail too. If you want to do some background reading a good starting point is this special from the BBC.

Remember to look here again and to post any questions you have.

Good Luck for tomorrow Year 11!

Just a last minute message to say I hope everything goes well.

Remember:

• Try to fill the space given

• Always answer the question directly and follow the command word e.g. Describe or Explain
  

• Use located details when you write about the dreaded case studies

• Finally - remember our option units are "Weather and Climate" and "Recreation and Tourism".

All the best!

Malawi Case study

A few of you said you may need a little more on the Malawi case study – the challenges of a country with a large youthful population.

Basic facts on Malawi (From The CIA World Factbook)

* 46% of the population are 0 -14 years old
* Life expectancy is only 43 years
* GNP per capita $800 – it is one of the poorest countries in the World
* 14% of the population have HIV/AIDs
* Adult literacy is 62%
* 35% of the population do not have access to enough calories for growth and/or a healthy life


Remember that like all countries that could fall into this category, their challenges are:

1. A large and growing number of children who have to be provided with the basics for a long, healthy and fulfilling life. These include:

*access to clean water

*sanitation

*a reliable food supply with enough calories to help them grow properly and build a healthy immune system

*vaccinations against the major childhood diseases e.g. cholera, typhoid, diphtheria

*a good education – primary and secondary

*somewhere to live that is clean, dry and warm at night.

2. How can they bring about a fall in the Birth Rate so that it falls to a level nearer the Death Rate so the population is more stable?

3. How can they provide jobs for the young people when they reach adulthood. Most people in Malawi have traditionally been subsistence farmers, but because of the growing number of people there is not enough land to support all the people. What other jobs can they do? Can Malawi encourage TNCs to locate there? Or can Malawi encourage its own home-grown businesses.

4. In addition Malawi has the added problems of AIDS, in particular for this case study, this means many of the growing number of children have do parents to look after them.


How is the government trying to meet these challenges?

In 1994 they introduced free primary schooling for all. Since then young people’s literacy has risen from 63% to 71%.

The British Government has further helped the Malawi government’s efforts by giving them funding towards a new scheme called 'Break Through to Literacy' which will hopefully improve literacy further

The Government is also looking to improve the supply of clean water through small local schemes.

How are Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) helping Malawi

SOS World Villages run a sponsor a child scheme in Malawi where people form MEDCs can sponsor a child, providing schooling, food, water etc.

Save the Children are working on training local health care workers in simple strategies to increase babies survival. Also their School Health and Nutrition Program seeks to improve the health of school age children through malaria and bilharzia treatment and prevention, vitamin A supplementation, vision and hearing screening and water and sanitation activities, thereby improving school performance and completion.

The Micro Loan Foundation are an NGO which provide small loans to individual in Malawi who wish to set up their own business.

Water Aid are working in Malawi with small communities, helping them rebuild and maintain existing water supplies as well as helping them provide sanitation systems.

This should be more than enough if you have a little research of your own too.

Hope the remainder of your revision goes well. It nearly over.

Year 11 - Decision Making Update

Hope you all are enjoying being away from school and are managing to get lots of lovely revision done.

Just a few additional points for the decision making.

I missed tributary in italics so this is the definition:

Tributary - a smaller stream or river which flows into a larger one.

Also here is a link to the BBC site where hurricane formation is explained in an animation. You don't need to know this but I think watching it will help you understand how large and devastating these storms can.

I've also found a link to the BBC coverage of Hurricane Katrina which includes an animation of the storm path and maps of the flooding. This is very good material and worth a look.

Finally there are a few pages on the work being done now to defend New Orleans. This may help with your evalution of the schemes.

Make sure you do evaluate the schemes using the advantages and disadvantages tables I have given you. This is VITAL.

Good luck in your preparations and look out here for an update on Malawi for the second exam.

Year 11 - June 08 Decision Making Exercise

Now we have the resource booklet it is important that you familiarise yourself with it before the lesson on Friday. We will spend the time after school going through it and checking that you understand the information it contains. I may suggest questions that could come up and activities that you could do in preparation for the exam.

In this case I do not think there is any need to look for information beyond the booklet - there is plenty in it for you to digest without adding to it.

To start with then - here are some basic defintions. You may chose to look up some of your own. All of these terms are in italics on the paper.

Hard engineering is generally defined as controlled disruption of natural processes by using artificial structures

Soft engineering is the use of ecological principles and practices to reduce erosion and achieve the stabilization and safety of shorelines and the area surrounding rivers, while enhancing habitat, improving aesthetics, and saving money

Levées

• River embankments built by deposition as the river floods.
• High mounds of silt, which have deposited on the banks of a river during flooding and have frequently been increased artificially to protect the floodplain.
• They are usually made of earth and run parallel to the river banks

Discharge - is the volume of water (or more broadly, volume of fluid plus suspended sediment) that passes a given point within a given period of time. It is measured in cumecs (cubic metres per second)

SEDIMENT - Material such as mud and sand that has been moved and deposited by water, ice or wind

FLOODWAY - A channel for an overflow of water caused by flooding

DREDGING - means the removal of the sediment or other materials from the beds, banks or shores of, a waterbody by means of hydraulic suction, mechanical excavation or any other means.

Coastal erosion - wearing away of coastline by waves e.g. Hydraulic pressure, corrasion (abrasion) and corrosion. (you need to learn full definitions of these terms)

Storm surge - A rise of the sea, preceding a storm (usually a hurricane) due to the winds of the storm and low atmospheric pressure

Here are a couple of movies from You Tube that may help you look at the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans - there is the Led Zepplin version OR the cheesy american pop one. Hope you have a strong stomach.

Also this clip of Katrina from a satellite.