Early Antarctic Explorers
Learning Sequence
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Introduction With Gavin
Watch the Video with Jeff and Gavin and discuss the elements of the content explored. You may wish to allow the children to take notes and make any jottings they require as the video is being played.
Once the video is finished, allow your class to ask questions and make a note of these so they can be addressed as the lesson progresses.
In this short course, we will delve into the experiences of Shackleton and other early Antarctic explorers, examining the difficulties they faced including extreme weather, limited supplies, and dangerous terrain. Shackleton and five other crew members made a daring 800-mile (1,287 km) journey in an open boat to seek help, crossing the stormy waters of the Southern Ocean to reach a whaling station on South Georgia island.
We are going to follow in the footsteps of some of the world’s most famous explorers and think about how we can learn from their experiences and live a life of leadership and adventure.
Short Course Keywords
Introduce the spelling word list and choose from this list of tasks that can be repeated and expanded upon if necessary.
Copy the words into a spelling list/vocabulary book for later reference.
Put each of the new words into a sentence and underline the new vocabulary in red pencil
Place the words in alphabetical order in a list.
Use a dictionary to define each of the words and place them into a vocabulary book.
Try to represent each of the words using a picture or a symbol and play the guessing game. (which image is matched to which word)
Write a paragraph containing all of the new vocabulary.
Make a vocabulary wall containing all of the new words.
Use a thesaurus to find synonyms for the words and create a synonym list.
These words will help you during this course. You may already know some of these words however practice makes perfect!
First, read the words and then try to define them as simply as possible.
An example has been completed for you. You can write these into your books, and draw a picture to match or simply complete the task card.
Quote Activity - Capt. Robert Falcon Scott
As an introduction to this course, we will start by reading a quote, talking about what it means to further understand how we can use these words as lessons to learn from.
Read the following quote and discuss it with your class.
Read this quote and think about what it means and what we can learn from it to make the world a better place!
You may want to note it down in your notebook and draw a nice picture next to it!
Comprehension Activity - The Geology of Antarctica
This activity can be done independently or tackled as a guided reading activity with your students.
Once the children have read the relevant information, they can then work through the comprehension questions until they become too hard. The four levels of questions allow for your students to push themselves until they become too difficult. They may wish to use classroom resources to solve the questions they find too hard or they can be used as extension activities to be completed in free time or at home.
Read the information opposite on the geology of Antarctica and use the information gained from the video above and attempt to answer as many of the comprehension questions as possible.
You may talk to the people in the classroom and use any resources available in the classroom to get the answers. You may even wish to continue your research at home on the questions that you could not solve.
Remember to answer the questions in full sentences and make notes of any diagrams that may help you remember the facts at a later date!
12 Goals to Save Our Oceans Activity
Encourage your students to work collaboratively by allowing them to read and discuss the task card together. Once they have a clear understanding of the goals and challenges, students can form a team and plan the specific goals they will aim to achieve first.
It’s important to discuss which goals may require more collaboration compared to those that can be tackled independently. Students can plan and prioritize the goals by considering which ones they perceive as more difficult or feasible.
This task will take several weeks but is a worthwhile activity. With careful planning and collaboration, students can make a significant impact in achieving SDG 14 and the conservation of life below water.
This activity involves completing your very own SDG 14 challenge card! Your mission is to create your own copy of the card and, over the weeks ahead, work towards achieving as many of the goals as possible.
By working together and taking action, we can protect the wonderful marine creatures that call our oceans home. Take a moment to review the card and plan out which goals you and your team will tackle first.
Choose your team wisely and get ready to embark on an exciting journey towards protecting life below the water!
Bringing Mathematics to Life - How Far is 1000km?
In this task, we will link our research on Antarctica to mathematics. Our aim is to allow your children to use numbers and allocate them to real world statistics in the natural world. In this course, the activity involves investigating numbers lower than 1.
Encourage your class to write their numbers in decimal notations using mm.
When Ernest Shackleton sailed 800 miles or 1.287km to reach South Georgia in 16 days, on the roughest ocean in the world in a tiny boat, it was one of the most amazing rescue missions ever documented.
In order to truly understand how for it is, we first need to understand how far this distance is.
Use the task card to help you understand more about this distance Shackleton travelled and research similar distances based on the examples on the task card.
You may want to plot these paces on a map and compare them with your friends? Were there any places that were exactly 1287km apart?
Real World Learning - Leadership Challenge
Inspire your children to follow in the footsteps of Ernest Shackleton by embarking on their own leadership journey. We encourage your children to work towards achieving all nine leadership goals, and to reflect on their experiences once they have completed the challenge.
After finishing the tasks, ask your children to reflect on which goals they found particularly challenging and why. This will help them identify areas where they may need to work on their skills and encourage them to persevere through challenges.
Finally, ask your children how they feel now that they have achieved some of these leadership goals. Celebrate their accomplishments and encourage them to continue developing their leadership skills by setting new goals and challenges.
Becoming a leader is a challenging but rewarding journey. As you have seen, leadership requires a diverse range of skills and, in this activity, we want to give you the opportunity to begin your own leadership journey.
Take a look at the task card provided, and over a week, set out to achieve all nine goals listed. Some of the goals may be easy for you, while others may be more challenging, but remember that leadership, like Shackleton’s journey, is not always easy.
Be courageous and do your best. Once you have completed the challenge, share your experience with your classmates, reflecting on the ups and downs of the journey. This will give you a chance to celebrate your accomplishments and inspire others to take on their own leadership challenges.
The James Caird - Elephant Island to South Georgia
Ask your class to watch the following extension video regarding the voyage of Shackelton from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
Allow them to ask questions, take note and inform them that these will be used later in the learning sequence.
Watch the extension video to understand more about the amazing journey of Ernest Shackleton and his men, as they journey across one of the most dangerous seas in the world!
Take some notes as you will need this information later!
Developing Endurance - Elephant Island to South Georgia
During this activity, we want your children to revisit the story of Ernest Shackleton and his men and start to understand that if we want to be successful in the world, we must have an array of skills to use in different situations.
Ask your children to read the 8-part story and in pairs they must start to allocate specific skills to help Shackelton and his team solve the problems at hand.
In this activity, we will delve into Shackleton’s remarkable journey to South Georgia and explore how determination and loyalty played a pivotal role in his and his men’s survival.
As you read the 8-part story on the task card, pay attention to the skills employed by Shackleton and his team to overcome the arduous circumstances they faced. At the bottom of the card, you will find a list of skills. Simply match each skill to the appropriate section of the story.
Choose an Explorer - Comic Strip Creation
Following your children’s research on the explorer of their choice, ask them to attempt to depict the story as a comic. This is the perfect opportunity to include the use of speech and thought bubbles in your delivery and once completed, your class may wish to collate their stories to create a class booked named ‘The Greatest Explorers of all Time!’
For this task, we encourage you to draw inspiration from the videos and stories you’ve encountered today to choose an explorer that inspires you.
There may be explorers in your own country, or ones who have helped shape our world today. Maybe they have discovered a new country or climbed the tallest mountain? Your job this week is to research them and turn their story into a comic strip to share with the rest of your class.
Once finished, you may wish to collect all of your stories together and make a class book for the school library on the greatest explorers of all time!
Let's Sketch With Jordan
This activity involves drawing a fascinating animal from the Antarctic using simple sketching techniques and just a pencil and paper.
We’re incredibly fortunate to have Jordan Brun from Young Art USA as our guide throughout this process.
Let your students take a look at the task card with Jordan’s example, and then they can use the video below as a guide to attempt to draw the same thing using Jordan’s techniques.
Once your students have mastered the technique, you might want to let them make a final version on special art paper, which could be used as a portfolio piece or framed and given as a present.
This activity explores an amazing picture taken in Antarctica. We want you to try and recreate it using simple sketching techniques and shading. Our friend Jordan will be helping you along the way, so don’t worry!
To help you get better at drawing, we have a task card that you can use. Once you become an expert at sketching, you can transfer your drawing onto nice paper and give it away as a present.
Remember, you don’t have to make your drawings look exactly like Jordan’s. Make them special and be proud of what you create!
Sketch With Jordan - Video
Let your students watch the video as a visual aid to help them create fantastic sketches. It’s also a good idea for you to watch the video and learn from Jordan alongside the students.
For this sketch, talk to your students about beginning with basic shapes that they recognize to create the simple overall form of the goose. Have them create the larger areas before focusing on the smaller ones to get proportion down.
Details and differences between dark and light portions should be the last things they focus on.
If the students see that you’re invested in the project too, they’ll be even more excited to complete these tasks as a team.
Jordan has created a brief video to aid you in your drawing and shading. Watch the video to improve your drawing abilities, and remember that you can continue practicing your sketching outside of class to become a skilled artist like Jordan.
Best of luck!
Create With Jordan - Ice Flow Landscapes (Short Video)
Through this project, students will understand the size, overlap, detail, and placement aspects to create the illusion of depth. They will also be able to create realistic forms using appropriate changes in values.
Goal: Students will be able to create an accurate depth of field with foreground, middleground, and background.
Elemental Foci: Color, Space, Texture
Principle Foci: Unity, Contrast, Movement
Criteria:
– Establish a horizon line in the vertical center of the composition.
– Create organic shapes for clouds above your horizon line, growing smaller as they move closer to the center of your piece.
– Create geometric shapes beneath your horizon line, growing smaller as they move closer to the center of your piece.
– Use simple cool colors as well as white and black to color and add value to your composition.
– Use smooth value transitions for your clouds, and direct value transitions for your ice flow.
This is an opportunity for you to enhance your artistic abilities and learn more about amazing things that exist in the Antarctic region.
Jordan’s video provides a creative way to showcase what you’ve learned about Antarctica during this short course, while also doing some good for the world.
Take a look at the video and then do your best to follow Jordan’s guidance to make the world a better place with your creative skills.
Let’s get creative!
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Create With Jordan - Full Video
Watch the video with your class and support them as they use the skills demonstrated in the video in their own work tasks.
Watch Jordan’s full video here before starting your creative art project and remember that your work does not need to match Jordan’s exactly. Use it as a guide and try to make your work unique and be as creative as you