Discovering Antarctica

Teachers area

Welcome to Discovering Antarctica, an education resource for schools, developed by the Royal Geographical Society with IBG, in partnership with the British Antarctic Survey and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This is not a ‘scheme of work’ but a resource to dip into depending on your curriculum needs and priorities. You can download links to the National Curriculum for England, exam specifications and to the Pilot GCSE on Extreme Environments below.

Download Links to National Curriculum/GCSE Geography specifications

Download links to the 2007 Geography National curriculum

Download Links to Pilot GCSE Geography

Download links to the 2007 KS3 Science National curriculum

Download links to the 2007 KS4 Science National Curriculum

Each of the site’s ten sections is divided into:

‘Icebreaker’ Learning activities to introduce the topic
‘Go with the floe’ Main learning activities
‘Meltdown’ Follow-up learning activities to extend the topic or to review and reinforce the main activities

The learning activities are devised for individual, pair or groupwork. Many are in interactive multimedia format for use either on an Interactive Whiteboard or for students to complete individually.

Wherever possible there are text-based alternatives, usually in Microsoft Word. You can download these to use away from the computer and/or to adapt them to meet your students’ needs. Go to Accessibility for more technical help on using and adapting the site.

The opening page of each section includes:

A ‘cool fact’ that relates to the topic
A ‘cool clip ’ showing some unique video footage from Antarctica
Downloads of featured information sheets (in PDF or Word), images, and audio & video clips that could be used independently
A list of all the featured interactive multimedia activities
Appropriate links to other sites
An ‘Activity Timer’ to set a time limit for an activity on an Interactive Whiteboard
A glossary of key words – these are also highlighted in the text to link directly with the glossary

Phil Avery is visiting Antarctica in November 2007 as part of the Fuchs Foundation Antarctic Expedition 2007, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first crossing of the continent led by Sir Vivian Fuchs. He will be producing lesson plans and resources for geography and science, as well as sharing fascinating facts about Antarctica with us on his blog.