I really enjoyed this lesson today, I thought we made excellent progress and there was a real sense of interest, or perhaps that was just me!

We started with a starter for ten based on the visit of Andrew Conney, I think I’m going to up the anty with this and make it into a mini-going competition, with top position recieving a prize each half term. What do you think?

The main objective of the lesson was to consider why Antarctica was so cold. We started by just considering some facts and figures about the temperature in Antarctica, for example, if you were to throw a mug of boiling hot water (don’t try this at home), it would freeze before it reached the ground.

We then moved on to look at two geographical concepts. I illustrated the process of differential heating by using a globe and a touch. I think it helped us understand that the Sun’s rays at the South Pole cover a larger surface area, due to the tilt of the Earth on it’s axis (23.5 degrees), therefore the heating is less efficient. I also used Axl’s head and a hairdryer as an analogy .

We also discussed the volume of atmosphere that the Sun’s rays had to pass through at various points on the Earth. The atmosphere is slightly thicker at the Antarctic, therefore more of the Sun’s energy is reflected, therefore less heating (also sometimes called direct insolation) occurs.

We also briefly discussed the Albedo Effect (See Japanese Image.), because the continent is mostly covered by ice, this also reflects heat. Here we had a bit of a futures discussion, about the impact of global warming; higher temperatures will result in ice melt, leaving nice blue ocean to absorb more heat!

Tomorrow we need to discuss Continentality and how the elevation of Antarctica also affects the temperature. It you’re interested, this is the temperature at the coldest place on Earth, Vostok, live!

Then onto seasons and that will really mess with your minds! It is nearly twenty hours of daylight at the moment in Spring-time Antarctica, check out the British Halley webcam.

After coming back from Ilkeston with year 11, I marked your Dry Valley’s work. Some great pieces , and I liked how everyone noted their sources; but please remember that researched work needs to be in your own words, not just cut and pasted, this is highly important for your coursework.

Finally, what shall we call our new friend?

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Posted in Extreme Environments, Lesson evaluations
Written on Mon, 09 October 2006 at 8:13 pm

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