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It's , and schools all over the country are taking part in projects to raise awareness about fair trading practice and ethical consumer choice.

I saw an example of a really innovative project at Perth Academy a couple of weeks ago when I visited their PT of English and eminent edublogger, . He introduced me to a group of Advanced Higher Computing students who were making Fairtrade-themed computer games for the younger pupils to use. They were using , which allows you to create your own interactive resources. The idea of including a whole school in Fairtrade fortnight by having the older students guide learning for the rest of the school is inclusive, progressive and perhaps most importantly, fun.

The guys who made the games were keen to tell me how they could easily be used in modern languages too, by simply changing the text in the game. They clearly had also learned something about marketing their product! They were quick to give a lot of the credit for their innovation to their class teacher, Mrs Montgomery, but the skills that they showed in creating these resources were really great to see.

If you're not lucky enough to have some budding games developers amongst your students, there are many ways you can get involved with Fairtrade Fortnight. Perhaps some of our Learning Zone clips might give you a bit of inspiration? (I enjoyed the ethical fashion ones especially!)

A huge thanks too to Val Vannet for her brilliant blogs about Mark Beaumont's American adventure. All her posts can be found under the category 'Cycling the Americas'.

Val Vannet looks at the geographical side of Mark Beaumont's journey as he reaches the final stage of Cycling the Americas...

In the last geoblog we left Mark battling through the winds of Patagonia on the last leg of his 13,000 mile journey from Anchorage in Alaska to Ushuaia in Argentina. Over the next few days, the battle with the wind continued and even got worse! Small wonder that the Argentinians have road signs depicting the wind - like this one taken by Mark and showing the side winds which drivers (and cyclists!) can expect on this road. It was so windy - buffeting gale force winds in excess of 50mph - that at times Mark was forced to get off his bike and push. Not even the relentless winds of the Nullarbor in Australia when he was cycling around the world, forced him to do that.

The people who live in this southerly part of Argentina are used to seeing the effect of the wind on any plants which push up from the shelter of the ground. The few trees which manage to grow become 'flag trees'. They develop a form which looks like a flag being blown in the wind.

Flag tree on south coast of England, identical in form to

So why is this part of South America so windy? The answer lies in the map below...

In mid latitudes (between 40 and 50 degrees N and S of the equator), the prevailing or most common winds are westerlies which come from the south west in the northern hemisphere and from the north west in the southern hemisphere. The big difference between the winds is that in the southern hemisphere there is hardly any land for them to cross. Land masses slow winds down but between 40 and 50 degrees south there is only the tapering continent of South America, the island of Tasmania and a bit of New Zealand to get in the way of the winds. The strength of the wind in these latitudes has long been known to sailors who refer to them as the 'roaring forties' - only surpassed by the 'furious fifties' and the 'shrieking sixties' which blow in the Southern Ocean closer to the Pole!

Just when it looked as if the last few hundred miles to journey's end in Ushuaia would be a sort of 'victory lap', the roaring forties threw Mark a whole set of new challenges. In addition, although Ushuaia is in Argentina, he had to go back to Chile to get there! We need another map to explain that...

Argentina 'runs out of land' at a stretch of water which separates it from Tierra del Fuego. It is called the after the Portuguese explorer who led the first circumnavigation of the globe between 1519 and 1522. His ships sailed through this strait when looking for a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. It was Magellan who first gave the name 'Land of Fire' to after the large number of fires which he saw burning on land and which were probably keeping the native Amerindian tribes in this inhospitable area warm!

In order to reach Tierra del Fuego, Mark was obliged to cross the Chilean border once more so that he could catch a ferry across the Magellan Strait. As the map shows, Tierra del Fuego is divided between Chile and Argentina with the border running from north to south through the island. Here it was on Tuesday that Mark crossed the border from Chile to Argentina for the second time on his journey (the first time was just before Christmas when he crossed the Andes en route to Mendoza) and here is the he cycled past.

After the flat plains of Patagonia, there was one last encounter for Mark with the mountain chain he had followed along his journey. The is the longest mountain chain on earth, stretching from Alaska in North America to the southern tip of South America coming finally to an end in Tierra del Fuego.

And here it is... The last range of the American Cordillera with the last pass to climb (or the first if you're heading north!). We can only imagine how Mark will be feeling as he freewheels down into , the most southerly city in the world.

Val Vannet

He's made it! After 268 days, 13,080 miles cycled and 2 mountains climbed, Mark has crossed the finish line. For the latest from Mark, and how he's feeling after his remarkable journey, head on over to the Cycling the Americas site.

Val Vannet continues her look at geographical issues from Alaska to Argentina, following the journey being made by Mark Beaumont on his latest adventure, Cycling the Americas...

On the 15th of January in the middle of the southern hemisphere summer, Mark Beaumont set foot on the summit of Aconcagua. At 32 degrees south, Aconcagua is only as far to the south of the Equator as the Mediterranean Sea is to the north yet here is Mark wearing his ice crampons having a very well-earned rest on its snowy summit. He has every right to be looking pleased with himself. After 10 days of climbing, he has just reached the 6963m summit of the world's highest mountain outside Asia. If you've been following the previous geoblogs, you will already know why there is snow in summer at 32 degrees south and why there is a mountain there at all for Mark to climb! If not, you can catch up with the answers.

Although Mark sent some wonderful images of the mountain, it is very difficult to imagine how high Aconcagua really is. The facts tell us it is over five times the height of Ben Nevis with glaciers which descend almost half way down the mountain. Mark talked about the altitude sickness which many climbers suffer on the mountain which made sleeping difficult for him and gave him headaches but nothing really captures how high 6963 metres is until you see a photo like the second below, showing the shadow over the surrounding mountains...

On (where you can browse through all the images Mark has taken on his journey), Mark described this stunning view as follows

"Early morning, just before we climbed into the sunshine, this was the view of the mountain's shadow - showing how much higher it stands than its neighbours"

The idea of how much higher a mountain is than its neighbours is called prominence. A mountain with high prominence is not only high but really stands out in the landscape and so it's a great place to take in the views! Calculating prominence is quite difficult because it involves how close the nearest neighbouring peak is and how low you have to descend before you can climb it. Luckily and this is what is revealed... Not only is Aconcagua the highest mountain outside Asia but it is the second most prominent mountain in the world after Mt Everest. And the third? Well, Mark has been to the top of it too and hopefully you can remember its name. If not, have a look.

Despite the fact that Mark had been climbing through snow on Aconcagua, his return to the foothills of the Andes and to the city of Mendoza brought him back to warm and sunny weather - exactly the sort of weather we'd expect in Mediterranean countries on our summer holidays. No surprise therefore that Mendoza is surrounded by vineyards which produce two thirds of Argentina's wine.

After a brief rest in Mendoza, Mark got back on his bike for the last leg of his journey (which will end in Ushuaia) and headed towards the scrubby grassland plains known as the Pampas. "One of the biggest shocks back on the bike is the heat. Feels hotter than the Atacama out here". What Mark is describing is exactly what we'd expect in summer in areas with a Mediterranean-type climate... and it's great for ripening the grapes!

South into Patagonia, there has been one recurring weather theme - the wind. Lots of Mark's updates and 'tweets' contain something about the wind. Now, if you are a cyclist, wind is great news - so long as it's behind you!

"Stunning day in Patagonia. A whisper of a northerly so excited for more smooth cycling today"

"A blustery 90 miles. If I seem mildly obsessed with wind then it's probably cause I am! Out here it's my best friend & worst enemy in one!"

"Patagonia is stunning - it is windy tho!"

"I know I might have touched on this subject before but its very, very windy today!"

Most of the time the winds in Patagonia are blowing in Mark's favour, coming roughly from the north, 'pushing' him along and helping him to cover the miles that are left. The prevailing winds in this part of South America are actually north westerlies which come in from the Pacific, blow down from the Andes and then cross the flat plains of Patagonia. You can see how flat it is in this image which Mark sent back recently.

Patagonia, like the Atacama in northern Chile, lies in a rainshadow and receives very little rain. If you want to understand rainshadows, you can read about them in the last geoblog. The rainshadow effect explains why most parts of Patagonia receive less than 250mm of rain and so are desert dry.

They are, however, very windy and to conclude this geoblog I am going to direct you to an article on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News website which describes - including children in school who may now be able to read this blog because of the wind!

Next time - journey's end.

Val Vannet

A quick post to let you know that the animations from our recent Food Stuff programmes are now available on , so there's yet another way to access these little nuggets of content online. The clips cast a surreal eye over different aspects of food - including cravings, acquired tastes and comfort eating.

There will be a dedicated site for the programmes launching later in the year, and you can find all the Food Stuff films in our Learning Zone.

Sunday, 7th February 2010 is the 75th anniversary of the death of Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Gibbon (real name James Leslie Mitchell) is one of Scottish Literature's great novelists, thanks to his trilogy A Scots Quair. Well-loved by students and avid readers alike, the opening book, Sunset Song, has firmly established its place in the Scottish literary canon (although my personal favourite is the second book, Cloud Howe.)

You may remember that last year Radio 4 broadcast a new dramatisation of Sunset Song by . It's being repeated on Sunday night on Radio Scotland. For those yet to hear it, I'd say tune in, it's a treat.

To mark the coming anniversary, Radio Scotland has produced a new range of programmes about Gibbon's life and work, as well as this evocative audio slideshow of his part of the world in the . I'm sure the programmes will be of great interest to students learning about the novels in school, but as simply a fan of Gibbon's writing I'll be tuning in to listen too.

That's just a small sample of words used by pupils to describe Pinball, a new site from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland Learning, when we took it out to schools during its development. Producer Rachel Duckhouse met young people from all over the UK, demo'ing prototypes and showing early designs to them and their teachers, and their responses were diverse to say the least!

Pinball is all about creativity - about 'bouncing your ideas about' and getting inspired - whether it's brainstorming ideas at the beginning of a project, mixing up ideas for a new story or play, or helping to make quick decisions against the clock.

Pinball is new and different and therefore we have to check that teachers and pupils understand it. So user testing is vital.

But it's difficult sometimes to know what to do when one class loves the design of a site, and another can't stand it. What do you do when one group of pupils is captivated and can't be pulled away from creating all sorts of stories and project ideas with your prototype, and another group is bored stiff?

The answer - keep going, keep testing. We ended up getting so much feedback from pupils and teachers up and down the country, (everyone had something to say about it!) that we were able to spot patterns and could pin-point design elements and features that were successful, as well as several things that needed to change.

For example, with Dot Dash - tool to help with brainstorming ideas - lots of pupils became frustrated that they couldn't move their ideas around to create an arrangement that worked for them. So we added that feature. Now you can drag ideas around the screen to position them wherever you like. Many teachers and pupils also said they wanted to be able to change the colours, to help with colour coding ideas into groups. So we added that too.

We're pleased with what we ended up with, but development continues. We're working on two more tools right now, and so any feedback you may have, please send it in. We're always keen to hear from users and find out what they think. Please take a look at Pinball and let us know how you would use it and how we could improve it - I know you'll be honest!

Rachel Duckhouse

Dot Dash prototype - most pupils enjoyed creating colourful mind maps based on their school projects.

Whilst other cheeky monkeys preferred to just press 'ENTER' a million times to create this beautiful, but unexpected effect. Something we'd never considered trying ourselves, but interesting to see. Testing with school children always means testing to the limits. And it didn't break!

A wireframe of Wild Reels, used by a Technology student to mix up ideas for a new design. The tool works, but no graphics have been added yet.

The final version of Wild Reels, with graphics.