Confusion Day

Categories: s1 and s2

Back to work tomorrow after a week in the sick bed. One of the things that is really hard to do when you return from some time off is get your head round where classes are in the scheme of work. Fortunately with Higher (prelim fallout) and Advanced Higher (essay work), I don't have much to worry about, but s1 and s2 are a little more difficult. I think with s1, I'll move on to look at issues in the Amazon after some q & a on the work you have been doing in my absence. I hear that Miss MacKay was doing cartwheels during capoiera, so no doubt there will be some stories to tell. With s2, this is a bit harder as you were in the middle of some work on the laptops and I'm not sure if you would have had access to complete this. I thought as a mini topic, we could link climatic regions with environmental issues through looking at the e-base, which I've been following with interest.
I think a good starting point would be to think about the physical geography of Antarctica. For instance, I can't assume that everyone knows where it is, or how someone travelling from here would get there (and how long it would take?). There are lots of activities here and I think we could adapt a few of these for tomorrow. I'm going to start of with a blank map of the world on the whiteboard and a blank piece of paper on your desk. From that, I'm going to ask you to put a cross on the paper where you think a) we are and b) where Antarctica is. From that, we are going to have a look at planning a journey to Antarctica. First of all, how would you get there? Where would you stop? How would you travel? I think we should probably start by looking at a distance as the crow flies on Google Earth and discussing this backwards-Why not just fly straight there? This video might illustrate some of the problems, but I would also like to discuss who owns Antarctica here, as a potentially troublesome factor.

So, we assume that we get there, we draw our route on GE and we reach our base. But where should our base be and what should we have brought? Time for some climate statistics, and I'd really like students to think about reasons for the differences by location. Finally, we'll look at another clip from the e-base and ask what qualities a person going to Antarctica as part of such an expedition would need. I think we'll adapt the Antarctic passport as a homework exercise. I'd really hope that after our mini-topic, we could have some questions for the message wall .