I really enjoyed this afternoon and getting into the swing of the Pilot thing, a lot of work done, but a depleted class, many Geographers off in Paris! I hope they are having a great time, a good experience. Make sure to post some comments. Also we’re getting excited because the Ilkeston fair is in town! If you spot me, I’ll shout you a ride!

We started with a guess the terminology, basically a good written written answer to the question, why is Antarctica so cold? It was timed to a great piece of music called Antarctica by the band The Never. Not sure that the students linked the loss of love to a heart being as cold as Antarctica. But hey I liked it!

We then listened to Parts 3 and 4 of Palin, some interesting comments came up, especially the advice to pee near the flag and to watch out for gusts of winds! I also liked the comment about a colleague of Michael’s chipping two million year old ice off a glacier to use in ten year old whisky!

We covered a lot of new aspects of Antarctica today. We discussed blizzards and white-outs and then went onto precipitation.

We discussed at some length today why Antarctica can be viewed as a desert, it’s precipitation is lower than the Sahara, when measured in rainfall equivalent. Remember, 

Cold air is more dense,

Therefore it sinks, 

Because it sinks, it won’t cool and condense,

Therefore no rain clouds can form.

You also need to remember that for precipitation we need moisture, and much of the Antarctica’s interior is devoid of this, though obviously the coast is slightly ‘wetter.’

We illustrated this with a nice little dominoes task, which even I struggled with, despite practicing twice before!

Then onto frostbite, we looked at some nasty injuries, much to the delight of the class. We linked this to how the wind decreases the actual temperature with devastating effects. Using a couple of graphs, I think we grasped that the lower the temperature and the higher the wind, the more devastating is the potential risk from frostbite.

As we completed our work, and others caught up, the lesson kind of unraveled rather than came to an effective ending, but hey, it’s the fair and half term is nearly here. Big Ben anyone!

Happy Holiday Extreme Geographers!

Look out for our lesson resources and other links, as they are uploaded on Radical Geography over the holiday!

I’ll be in Berlin on the first week of next half term, so work hard!

 

 

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Posted in Extreme Environments, Lesson evaluations
Written on Tue, 17 October 2006 at 6:50 pm

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