Lesson 6 - How different are Antarctica and the Arctic? (As cold as ice)

Lesson 6 - students hunt for information about Antarctica and the Arctic that is hidden around the room. A fully differentiated task gets them to compare the two places and decide whether they are more similar or more different. The aim is to combat the common stereotype that they are both exactly the same. Then students explain why both are so cold. There is a possible extension at the end to explain why Antarctica is colder than the Arctic.

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