A good lesson today, apart from a few minor expectation raising moments at the beginning ;alternatively, just tell me otherwise! A couple of students were away on a visit to the army barracks in Chilwell, so it is very important that you read this summary. For those involved in the army visit, I hope you had a good time.

We started off by having a quiz using Antarctica half a minute. After this I summarised our learning from the last lesson. A quick go over of Differential Heating, Atmosphere and Albedo.  Axl’s head came in use again!

I then asked students to guess which area would be coldest in winter, when comparing the South Pole to a station on the Antarctic Peninsula. Some great answers about the impact of latitude on temperature.We then went onto discuss the impact of continentality on Antarctica. Areas near the sea tend to be slightly warmer in winter, because the sea takes longer to cool. We then threw Vostok into the equation, we looked at a live weather report and discussed why this place was the coldest in Antarctica. Finally, we came to the conclusion that its interior location, free from the influence of the sea and its elevation, results in an extreme temperature.

Overall, I think we came to realise, that though Antarctica is very cold, there are three main climate areas, the interior, coastal, and peninsular. Each of these areas will have a slightly different temperature due to continentality and the relief of the land.

We then started to look at seasons. Now I’m not sure that I taught this particularly well, and to be honest it completely spins me out! We used this animation to look at how the tilt of the Earth affected light, during the Earth’s yearly orbit around the Sun. We marked on a sheet the areas in shadow as the Earth orbited the Sun, but we also had to consider that the Earth rotates, hence light and day. After a bit of a close up IWB examination, (Not liked by Ricky ) I think we came to the conclusion that Antarctica in June, because of the Earth’s tilt (23.5 degrees), is completely in the shadow of the Sun, even though the Earth rotates, Antarctica will gain no sunlight. Get it! If you do, please explain it to me! Just to prove that Antarctica is at this present time light, we used a webcam from the South Pole Base. Oh and I forgot to show you a mini seasons video showing the shadow on a flat map projection , one for next time.

The rest of the lesson was taken up doing some traditional graphing and source based questions. I really thought the work rate was excellent and I enjoyed the opportunity to look individually at your work. It also allowed some of you to progress at a pace much quicker than the whole class. Well done!

Next lesson, it’s mess up your brain, with an Antarctica winter or summer ‘most likely exercise’. Here’s one to start off with, ‘It’s Christmas’.

For those away, we have decided to have a continuous boys vs girls ’starter for ten’, watch out for a twist next week. My bet is already with the girls! Also, we’ll be doing some active listening, as we are introduced to the adventures of Michael Palin, Geography Ambassador. Have a look at his website, seeing as there is no homework this week. Michael some time ago made a trip from Pole to Pole. There is a nice little video of Michael going around the world in eight seconds on the site..

The Penguin, still to remain nameless, is a constant source of interest, though I don’t think I’ll be mob blogging Josh’s interaction with it.

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Posted in Extreme Environments, Lesson evaluations
Written on Tue, 10 October 2006 at 8:16 pm

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