Polar Explorer
This collection includes resources linked to the Polar Explorer Programme, the educational programme linked to the RRS Sir David Attenborough research vessel. The Natural Environment Research Council is funding the design, construction and build of the new polar research vessel, which will launch in 2019. The collection will cover topics across the STEM subjects and all age groups, linking to the construction of the ship and its remote vehicles, and to the important scientific research that will be carried out at the two poles of the Earth.
RRS James Clark Ross in Antarctica
This film features RSS James Clark Ross which is primarily a marine research vessel for biological, oceanographic and geophysical cruises. It is equipped with a suite of laboratories and winch systems that allows scientific equipment to be deployed astern or amidships.
Long way down: Mariana Trench
This film focuses on Marian Trench which is seven miles is a long way down... more than a mile deeper than Mt. Everest is up.
Submarine
This short animated video focuses on submarines. The film demonstrates different parts of a submarine and shows their different sizes from midget submarines to those which can accommodate 100 crew members.
Periscopes
These materials help children to investigate light and reflection. A periscope is a simple device that enables children to see over walls or round corners. Rays of light hitting the mirror of the periscope are reflected twice. The beam of light is reflected through 90o, because the mirrors are at 45o to the path of the light ray. Card mirrors are used to make the periscope as they are cheap and can be cut with scissors.
This activity provides a template to construct the shape of the periscope out of thin card. Teacher guidance gives information on the materials required, scientific context and an outline of the activity.
Periscope
Aimed at primary level, this activity links to the topic of light. Using the fact that light reflects away from a mirror at the same angle that it hits the mirror, children follow a set of instructions to design and make a periscope to look around corners.
Design a boat
In this activity students design and make a boat to take the maximum number of passengers with the given materials.
Whatever Floats Your Boat
In this floating boat challenge, students are to build a boat that can float and support 25 pennies for at least 10 seconds —without leaking, sinking, or tipping over. Each team has access to some plastic wrap, plastic straws, paper cups, duct tape and 25 pennies. Students do not have to use all of the materials in constructing their boats. They must use the materials wisely, though: there are no replacements for tangled-up duct tape or cut up paper cups. Each team receives a tub of water that they can use to test the effectiveness of their boat.
Ticket to Ride
Aimed at primary level, this pack contains nine activities on the theme of transportation. The activities investigate topics related to friction, forces, levers, earth and space, air and water resistance and areas of design and technology.
Designed either for use in class or within a science week or club, the activities promote investigative work and communication skills. They include: the best method for carrying a heavy load, designing a paddleboat, investigating the balancing points in boats, looking at crater size and designing and making catapults.
Teachers' notes include concise summaries of the science involved in the investigations and provide suggestions for extension including longer term projects.
Challenging environments: keeping warm
This activity requires students to do an investigation to find out what type of clothing is the warmest – and most practical – to wear in freezing environments.
The Arctic Survey
On 1 March 2009, three intrepid polar explorers, Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley, set out on foot on a gruelling trip across the Arctic ice cap. The aim of their expedition, known as the Catlin Arctic Survey, was to gather data on ice thickness. This information will help to predict when the North Pole sea ice cover will melt, an event which will have dramatic consequences for the Arctic ecosystem and the Earth's climate as a whole.
The materials consist of three toolkits, focusing on some of the science that underlies the Catlin Arctic Survey, and they give students the opportunity to see mathematics and science applied to real-life problems.
Each toolkit is made up of a background article and two worksheets with guidance notes for teachers. The overview article can be read on its own, or used as motivational material for the two worksheets. The worksheets are designed to promote group discussion of the topics, as well as provide hands-on activities.
Elastic Band Boats
This activity ( on page 11) uses students' knowledge of elastic bands to create a forces, while combining it with the notion that floating occurs when the forces weight and up thrust are balanced.
British Antarctic Survey
A series of online interactive resources supporting learning about the Polar regions. Areas of learning are:
Discovering Antarctica
Discovering the Arctic
Geography
Antarctic wildlife
Antarctic Factsheet
Produced by the British Antarctic Survey in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Polar Regions Department.
Frozen Oceans: Primary
This collection consists of five lessons:
Mission one: what organisms live in the Arctic?
In this activity students develop their understanding of simple food chains or webs and scientific vocabulary through making an Arctic life mobile.
Mission two: how do you train like an Arctic explorer?
In this lesson students simulate the training of Arctic explorers to learn how lifestyles can affect physical and mental health.
Mission three: how do you eat like an Arctic explorer?
In this resource students learn about diet and the importance of a balanced diet through the experiences of polar explorers.
Mission four: how do humans and animals keep warm in the Arctic?
In this lesson students investigate the insulating properties of materials and consider how the adaptations of Arctic organisms help develop these.
Mission five: how is the Arctic changing
In this lesson students learn about the impacts of ice in the Arctic melting by watching a series of demonstrations.
Arctic live 2016: ocean experiments
A series of simple, practical experiments based on the research work of scientists to introduce more marine and ocean life to classrooms as part of Arctic Live 2016. Use the experiments as part of topics covering geographical processes, global energy exchange, chemistry and carbon dioxide, and exploring ecosystems and what affects them.
Classroom Antarctica
Ideas contained in Classroom Antarctica will stimulate students’ interest in real-world applications for science, mathematics and studies of society and environment, inspiring and engaging your students in learning.
Discover Antarctica
This is an interactive map allowing students to discover Antarctica and enjoy the sights and sounds of penguins, seals and other wildlife.
Animals Over Winter (Age 7 to 11)
This resource, produced by ARKive, is designed to teach Key Stage Two children about the strategies animals adopt to survive winter in temperate zones and about the adaptations exhibited by animals in the polar regions.
Children compare these strategies and identify similarities and differences in the ways animals are adapted to survive throughout the winter. They then sort different animals according to whether they migrate, hibernate, store food or grow a thick coat in order to survive over winter.
The final activity involves looking at two case studies on species that are adapted to cold environments, then producing their own case study choosing from a given list of species. Included are a classroom presentation, activity sheet and answers, extension activity ideas and detailed teachers’ notes.
Web of Wildlife (Age 7 to 11)
This resource, produced by ARKive, is designed to teach Key Stage Two children about food chains, food webs and interdependence in different habitats around the world. A presentation using high quality images introduces the structure of simple food chains, food webs and how different organisms within ecosystems depend on each other for food.
Children carry out activities in small groups to identify sort and construct food chains for five different habitats. These are British woodland, British coastal waters and the less familiar habitats of African savannah, Arctic tundra and Antarctic. There is also a key words activity in which children become familiar with the key scientific vocabulary used in the topic.
Included for each habitat are: activity worksheets, images of different species, information texts on species, examples of completed food webs and arrows for constructing food webs. There are also detailed teachers’ notes on how to run the activities.
Cartesian Divers
From the Centre for Science Education, and with support from Shell Education services, these materials help children to consider questions relating to gases, pressure, floating and sinking.
A Cartesian diver is a simple toy that works using the same principles as a submarine. It modifies its buoyancy to make it dive or sink. The diver can be made from simple household objects, but it needs to be carefully assembled.
Teacher guidance gives information on the materials required, scientific context and an outline of the activity.
Nice Ideas in One Place: Volume One
Page 11 contains Centicube activity in which students try to make plasticine boats that will hold the maximum amount of centicubes without sinking.
Danger: Rogue Waves
This Mathematics Matters case study, from the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, looks at how mathematical models try to understand the causes of rogue waves. These huge waves appear without warning, towering high over ships and oil rigs. Traditional mathematical models could not predict the occurrence of these dangerous waves, but the latest techniques let oceanographers make accurate forecasts. The research helps to protect our trade, energy and food supply routes. The resource can be used by teachers to guide their students or shared directly with students to inform them about careers using mathematics.
Mapping the Sea *suitable for home teaching*
This film, from Twig World, looks at how the oceans can be mapped. Charting the waters around the Scottish island of Orkney was a pivotal moment in maritime mapping. But a reliance on outdated maps places modern ships in danger.
The key points made in the film are:
•Before mapping of the sea floor began, hazards hidden beneath the waves were responsible for destroying hundreds of ships and killing many sailors.
•In 1743, Murdoch Mackenzie mapped the ocean floor around the island of Orkney and invented new mapping symbols.
•Today, sound waves can be used to accurately measure the depth of water.
•Mapping the seabed is important for uncovering hazards, which ultimately saves lives.
The Longitude Problem
This film, from Twig World, looks at the relationship between time and place. In an age before satellite navigation and GPS, one man found an ingenious solution to the problem of determining a ship's location at sea.
The key points made in the film are:
•Lines of latitude circle the Earth horizontally; lines of longitude run vertically from pole to pole.
•Calculating your latitude and longitude gives you your position in the world.
•Sailors use latitude and longitude to calculate their position at sea.
•John Harrison built an accurate portable clock, called a chronometer, to allow accurate naval navigation.
Taking a Risk
This resource from the Department for Education is designed to use and apply the uncertain and difficult nature of probability calculations in the real world through the work of an actuarial trainee. Students are provided with data on sea piracy, and use this to calculate the annual cost of piracy to the shipping industry, the probability of piracy for a particular company, and recommend to an insurance company the annual premium they should charge the company as protection from losses incurred due to piracy.
The activity is best conducted in groups or pairs as the data and ideas need considerable discussion to help students make decisions on the way of proceeding.
KS1/2 Antarctica: Teachers in the Freezer
From Teachers TV, this video follows a group of British teachers on a four-week expedition to Antarctica. It helps to illustrate the conditions in cold environments and how animals are adapted to live in such conditions. It demonstrates what humans need to do to be able to live at the South Pole.
Designed for use in primary school geography and science lessons, the programme begins with an explanation of where Antarctica is, what the climate is like and what it takes to live there.
The teachers then show what clothes people should wear in Antarctica, how they should travel and what food they should eat in order to survive such cold conditions. They also explore a science project that tests what effect the cold has on their bodies.
Welding with Chocolate
This activity gives students the opportunity to build structures made from chocolate. In the example given, a box-section is compared with a flat plank of chocolate, to see which is the strongest when spanning a gap. The structures are readily related to the context of bridge-building.
Students join flat pieces of chocolate using 'welds' made by melting the chocolate using a bottle of hot water.
The activity is simple and can be used to demonstrate ideas such as the strength of structures, welding, melting, reversible change, strength testing and the properties of materials. It is suitable for primary and secondary school students. The complexity of the task, and the structures built, can be readily tailored for individual groups.
EO Detective
The EO Detective activities aim to demonstrate how a vantage point in space, such as the International Space Station, provides a unique perspective from which people can monitor environmental processes and change.
Importance of exploration
The Northern Lights have been the subject of wonder for millennia. In this film, physicist Melanie Windridge explores the arctic in her search for the aurora borealis, or Nothern Lights. She briefly explains how the Northern Lights are formed and the links between science and exploration.
Ice and beyond: climate science with CryoSat
The European Space Agency (ESA), together with the scientific community, developed the CryoSat mission - ESA’s ice mission - to deliver precise measurements of sea-ice thickness and ice-cap changes.
CryoSat, with its high-precision Synthetic Aperture Interferometric Radar Altimeter, delivers observations with unprecedented accuracy and resolution, and has helped scientists to better quantify the state of the cryosphere and narrow down the uncertainty in climate modeling.
The Eduspace Image Catalogue Viewer
The Eduspace Image Catalogue Viewer offers access to ArcExplorer which is a freeware used to display and analyse layers of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). ArcExplorer is a geographic data explorer developed by Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI). ArcExplorer can be used to view and query geographic data stored on a computer or on the Web.
