Lesson 1 - Where are the cold places and what are they like? (As cold as ice)

Lesson 1 - an introduction to where cold environments are and how varied they are. Includes Antarctica, Arctic, mountains and permafrost.

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