Lesson 4 - What is a glacier and how do they move? (As cold as ice)

Lesson 4 - an introduction to what a glacier is and the many different types that exist. A video and differentiated worksheets are used to help students explain how they form. Students are asked to think about how fast they move and how thick they are. There is a video clip to demonstrate the movement of a glacier.

This is a scheme of work about cold environments / polar places. It is designed to work in a completely mixed ability classroom and therefore is differentiated wherever necessary and includes challenge/extension questions. It includes the following topics:
- Where cold environments are and what they are like
- How people use cold environments
- What a glacier is and how it forms
- How glaciers change the landscape by creating corries, aretes and pyramidal peaks
- A comparison of the Arctic and Antarctic and why they are so cold
- Food chains, food webs and the wider importance of plankton at the bottom of the food chain
- Snowball earth and the idea of ice ages with varying amounts of ice on the planet
- The Antarctic treaty
- How cold places are changing, focusing on ice shelf collapse and sea level rise