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Overview:
Students will pretend they have just returned from a year in the Arctic or Antarctic. They will look at Web sites about these regions and expeditions to them, and they will create posters illustrating their experiences. Students will conclude by writing paragraphs explaining what it would be like to visit the polar region that they did not focus on in this lesson.
Connections to the Curriculum:
Geography, world history
Connections to the National Geography Standards:
Standard 4: "The physical and human characteristics of places"
Standard 5: "That people create regions to interpret Earth's complexity"
Time:
Four to five hours
Materials Required:
- Computer with Internet access
- Drawing materials
Objectives:
Students will
- research the characteristics of the polar regions and the things they would need to do to prepare for a year in one of the regions;
- create posters showing themselves spending a year in one of the polar regions;
- share their posters with the class;
- discuss the similarities and differences between the two polar regions; and
- write paragraphs pretending they are planning a journey to the polar region they did not study, basing their expectations on the things they see in the posters.
Geographic Skills:
Acquiring Geographic Information
Organizing Geographic Information
Analyzing Geographic Information
S u g g e s t e d P r o c e d u r e
Opening:
Have students look at the polar regions on a wall map of the world or on the map at the Xpeditions Arctic and Antarctic Circles activity. Make sure they can distinguish between the Arctic and the Antarctic.
Ask students what they think it would be like to visit the Arctic and Antarctic. What do they already know about each of these regions? Write their ideas on the board, and explain that the two polar regions have many similarities but are also different from each other in many ways. Tell them that they will be learning about some of these similarities and differences in this lesson.
Development:
Divide the class into groups of no more than four students each. Assign each group either the Arctic or the Antarctic so that the two regions are distributed evenly throughout the class.
Ask groups to pretend they have just spent one year in their assigned polar region. Have them find out what they might have seen and experienced by using the Web sites listed below or other Internet or print resources. As they look at the resources, they should take notes on:
- animals and plants;
- climate and seasons;
- equipment needed;
- landscape;
- people and cultures;
- special challenges; and
- things they did to get ready for the trip.
[Note: It may be helpful if students divide roles within their groups so that each group member is responsible for researching one or two items from the above list. They can then share what they have learned with their fellow group members.]
Once groups have completed their research, ask them to create posters that show the things they have seen and the conditions they have endured during their year in the polar region. Each poster should include at least one element from each of the categories students have researched when planning their expeditions.
Have groups share their posters with the class.
Label one side of the classroom "North" and the opposite side "South." Display students' posters in the appropriate parts of the room.
Closing:
Discuss the similarities and differences students notice between the posters from the Arctic and the Antarctic.
Suggested Student Assessment:
Ask students to look at the posters from the polar region that they did not study in this lesson. Ask them to determine the similarities and differences between the polar region depicted in these posters and the one they studied.
Have students write paragraphs pretending that they have just returned from the expedition their group researched and are now planning a trip to the other polar region. Their paragraphs should describe the new things they expect to see and the ways that the new region will be similar to the one they have already visited.
Extending the Lesson:
Have students research a famous historic polar explorer, such as Matthew Henson or Ernest Shackleton, and write newspaper or radio interviews with that person. In the interview, the explorer should discuss the greatest challenges of the journey and the most unique things he or she saw in the polar region visited.
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