Lesson video

Hello, my name's Ms. Gilliot and I'm gonna be your geography teacher for today.

Today we are doing the third lesson of the "Cold Places" topic.

What is it like at the North and South Poles? Our lesson title for today is the "North Pole and the Arctic".

We've got loads of interesting stuff to look at, so we better get going.

So we've got loads of stuff to get through.

Today, we are going to be looking at the North Pole and the Arctic.

So by the end of the lesson, you should be able to locate and talk about the Arctic Circle using maps, looking at globes, and you should be able to describe the seasonal changes, so how the Arctic changes throughout the year.

Now we've already had two lessons of the "Cold Places" topic.

On the first lesson, we learned about why areas such as the North and South Pole are colder.

So that will really tie into thinking about how the Arctic changes throughout the year.

And then last lesson, we made sure we could locate where the North and the South Pole were, which will help us for today.

And also we looked at how the Arctic is different to Antarctica.

So we've already learned a little bit about what the Arctic is like, and we'll be adding to that in today's lesson.

We've got four keywords that we're going to be using throughout today and for the rest of the topic.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to say the word, and when I go like this, I would like you to repeat it back to me to make sure that we are getting the pronunciation right.

First, Arctic Circle.

Arctic Ocean.

Permanent ice.

Midnight sun.

Well done.

So these words we'll be using throughout the lesson and the Arctic Circle is kind of the main one really.

The Arctic Circle is a line of latitude, so a horizontal line that runs across the globe and above that line, you are classed as being in the Arctic Circle.

So we're going to be locating that.

The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's ocean, and much of it is actually frozen during the winter months.

And in the summer it can shrink, it can melt, and then in the winter it refreezes.

So we're gonna start to talk about that.

Permanent ice is ice, which never thaws.

So thaws means melts.

So this is ice, which is always completely solid, even in the summer.

And midnight sun is the 24 consecutive hours of sunlight during the Arctic or Antarctic summer.

Now, if you remember last lesson, our earth is tilted on something called an axis.

So when it orbits the sun at parts of the year, the North Pole is tilted away from the sun, whereas the South Pole is tilted towards the sun and vice versa.

Now that means when either is tilted towards the sun for periods of the year, the sun doesn't set because it's literally looking at it the whole time.

And then in which case, you can have sun at midnight, which is pretty cool, isn't it? These keywords will be highlighted throughout the slides if you need to go back to them.

We have got two learning cycles today.

First of all, we're gonna learn where the Arctic Circle is and make sure that we can locate it on a globe and a map.

And then second, we're going to look at how the Arctic changes throughout the year.

So let's get going with learning cycle one.

Now, if we have a look at my diagram here, the red circle is the Arctic Circle.

So I've just put that on top of the globe.

Now the Arctic Circle is an imaginary line.

It's not real.

If you went to where that red line is in real life, there would be nothing there to suggest that you had now gone into the Arctic Circle.

However, that is the line that we define as it.

Now, most of the area within the red circle is actually ocean or sea, as you can see.

So the light blue colour is ocean and a lot of that is actually frozen throughout the year.

However, the northern parts of North America, Europe, and Asia are also classed with being within the Arctic Circle.

So on my slide I have got a world map.

Now, across the map there are lines that run vertically, so straight, and there are lines which run horizontally.

The horizontal lines are called lines of latitude.

Again, these aren't real.

If you went to that place on earth, there would be no line there.

They're imaginary.

But we use these lines to help us locate places on planet earth.

Now you may have already heard of a very special line of latitude called the equator, which is marked on the map there, right in the middle.

It runs across the centre of the earth.

But there are also other special lines of latitude.

So a little bit above the equator, you've got something called the Tropic of Cancer, and that tells you how far that's north of the equator.

Now when we are measuring these lines of latitude, we measure it from the equator.

So we either say we're so many degrees north or so many degrees south of the equator.

You've got another tropic there called Tropic of Capricorn.

If you go further down, again, you've got the Antarctic Circle.

But the line that we are interested today is the one that I have highlighted with a red dash.

That one is called the Arctic Circle.

Anywhere above that line, you are classed with being within the Arctic Circle.

So what I'd like you to do, pause the video, just have a quick chat with the person you sat next to.

Can you name any places that you would class as being within the Arctic Circle? So either it could be part of a continent or do you even know a country maybe that would be part of the Arctic Circle.

Did you get anywhere? I'll name a few for you.

So on the left, you've got the continent of North America.

Now at the top of that, you have got the country Canada.

So northern parts of Canada are being classed within the Arctic Circle.

Then a bit further right, you have got Greenland, which is like the triangle shaped one.

If you keep going right again, you get the northern parts of Europe.

So parts of Sweden or Norway are classed as being in the Arctic Circle and then into Asia, the northern part of Russia is classed as the Arctic Circle as well.

So let's review our learning.

Which of these continents does not touch the Arctic Circle? Is it A, Europe, B, North America, or C, Africa? The answer's Africa.

Africa's mostly centred around the equator in the centre of the earth, and a lot of the continent is actually pretty warm.

On the slide, we have got task A.

So what you need to do, first of all is name the area that I have highlighted within the red circle.

So what's that area called? I would then like you to name the continents highlighted as a, b, and c.

You can write your answers on the line.

If you do that, there is a question for you at the bottom.

What do you think it would be like in the Arctic Circle? So what kind of temperatures, what do you think you might be able to see and what do you think you might be able to hear or even smell? Pause the video and have a go at the activities.

Let's check our answers.

The area within the red circle was? The Arctic.

The continent a? North America.

The continent b? Asia.

The continent c was Europe.

How did you do? If you got any wrong, maybe change your answers.

Did anybody have a go at the third question too? So we've got here, the Arctic Circle is very cold and there is lots of ice, and that's absolutely right and we're gonna learn a little bit more about that.

We're now onto our second learning cycle.

So how does the Arctic change through the year? Now we learned last lesson where the North Pole is located.

Now, if you remember, the North Pole is actually located within the Arctic Ocean.

However, you can still stand at the North Pole.

And the reason for that being is that actually the top of the ocean is frozen sea ice.

Because it's so cold up there, the top of the sea, it basically just freezes.

Now most of the sea ice is about two to three metres thick.

In some places it's quite a bit thicker.

It can get to about seven, eight metres and in some places it's really, really quite thin.

And often, well, what we'll learn is that a lot of it actually melts in the summer.

If you were to get a big pole and you were to stick it through the sea ice, eventually your pole would reach the ocean again.

Okay? And a bit of an interesting fact for you is that they do often put a pole at the North Pole, but because the sea ice is floating, it means that it does move.

So they have to move the North Pole every once in a while just to make sure that it's in the correct place in case the sea ice has moved about and it's not quite in the exact same right spot.

Now, if you have a look at my picture I've got here, you can see that the frozen sea ice, now actually it's got a fine layer of dusty snow on it as well, which makes it look quite pretty.

For parts of the year, in the Arctic, the sun doesn't set.

We learned last lesson and the lesson before that earth is tilted on an axis.

So that means for part of the year then, the North Pole in the Arctic is tilted towards the sun.

And that means they either have really long days and even part of the year the sun just doesn't set and it's always out.

You can actually see the sun at midnight.

How cool is that? So sometimes a lot of people have to use eye masks and have blackout blinds to get to sleep who live in the Arctic because it's so light.

But it can be useful as well.

A lot of mountaineers would choose to go hiking mountains and rock faces in the summer because they know that they're gonna have extra long days to try and get up the mountain.

I'd like you to pause the video, have a quick chat with your partner.

If you had a 24 hour day, what would you do? Would you try and go to sleep or would you just stay up all the all night? What would you end up doing? Now, the flip side to having some parts of the year with 24 hour sunlight means that as some parts of the year, you have continuous darkness.

Continuous means it goes on.

So in places like Tromso, they have to put lights on in the streets in the middle of the day, they use these super bright lights so that people kind of feel like they're outside in natural light, even though it's a bit fake.

Let's check our understanding.

In the Arctic summer, you can get continuous sunlight.

That's true.

Can you justify your answer? A, the North Pole is tilted to the sun, or b, the Arctic is closer to the sun? A the North Pole is tilted to the sun.

In the Arctic summer, some of that sea ice melts.

Because the temperatures go up because the area is in the sun for most of the day or even at all the day, at some points it means that that sea ice starts to melt, but not all of it.

The patch in the middle tends to stay there basically.

And we call that permanent ice.

If you have a look at my picture, you can see this.

This was taken within Arctic somewhere.

We can see that some of the ice is still there, but some of it has started to melt away.

Now in the summer it melts and the whole icy patch gets smaller.

However, when it gets to Arctic winter again, the ice starts to grow because the temperatures drop, the sea cools down and that top layer starts to freeze again.

And you kind of get this really cool pattern of every winter, the ice growing, and then every summer, the ice shrinking again.

Let's check our understanding.

So what happens to the Arctic sea ice in the summer? A it grows, b, it melts, or c, it changes colour? The answer is it melts, Task on the slide.

What I'd like you to do is on your worksheet, I want you to write down three ways that the Arctic summer is different to the Arctic winter.

So things to think about.

You might think about the temperatures, you might think about the amount of daylight there is, you might think about how much snow cover, you could even think about how people live their lives.

So if it's more sunny or darker, how do you think that effect might affect the way that people decide to live in that area? Second question, would you prefer to visit the Arctic in the summer or would you prefer to visit it in the winter? Think it about it again.

Would you like to see it in total darkness for the whole day? Or do you think you'd like to see complete or midnight soon? Once you've told me which you'd prefer, I want you to explain why you have chosen either the summer or the winter.

So pause the video and have a go at the tasks.

We've got the answers here.

Three ways the Arctic in the summer is different to winter.

It is darker in the winter.

The sun never sets in the summer and more ice melts in the summer.

There are other things that you could have put on that list.

Pause the video.

Is there anything extra you could add or what did your friend get? Have they got any different ideas? Now the answer we've got here is I would prefer to visit the Arctic in the summer so I could see the sun at midnight.

What was your answer? On my slide, we've got a summary of what we have learned today.

The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line that runs around the Arctic and it includes the northern edges of North America, Asia, and Europe.

Now, as a reminder, that Arctic Circle line is a line of latitude.

So those lines are lines which run horizontally across our planet and they tell us how far north and how far south we are.

Much of the Arctic ocean is frozen sea ice, which is two to three metres thick.

Below that ice we have got ocean again.

In some parts of the Arctic, it's a little bit thinner and some parts, it's quite a bit thicker.

In the summer, the sun never sits in the Arctic and you can sometimes see the sun at midnight.

However, that means in the flip side, in the winter, in the Arctic, it's almost continuous darkness so the sun doesn't come up, which means, and that people have to live their lives in the darkness, which can be quite tricky.

They might be using alternative lighting or spend a lot of the time inside.

That's it for today's lesson.

I think you've done an absolutely fantastic job of thinking about all those things and especially thinking about your own opinion of whether you'd prefer to live there or visit there at the summer or the winter 'cause that can often take a good bit of an imagination.

Well done and I will catch you next lesson.