This is an ad that Shackleton ran in the newspaper to try to recruit men for
his Endurance expedition:

What is an expedition?

Where do you think the expedition is heading to? Imagine a place on the globe that is
dark, cold etc.

See the world map, and try guessing. (Next page)

Why would the continent you have chosen

fit the description in the ad ?

(e.g., sea , land ).

To describe the continent, we would use two aspects:

Location
Physical Features

So, the first question we are going to ask is about location.

Where is Shackelton’s expedition heading to?

We are used to looking at location from the point of view of city/country/continent.

Sometimes we even refer to geography (north, south , center)

At the level of the globe, we will use some new terminology :

longitude
latitude

Watch a clip on longitude/latitude:

Look at a globe.

A globe shows us what the Earth looks like.

It is a model of Earth. Earth is shaped like a ball or a sphere.

What colors do you see on the globe? You see a lot of blue. That’s the water in Earth’s oceans.

Earth has more water than land.

There are five named oceans.

There are seven large masses of land called continents.

Around the middle of the globe, you will see a line called the equator.

The equator divides the Earth in half.

The equator is like a belt that goes around Earth’s middle.

The top half of the Earth is called the Northern Hemisphere. (The word “hemisphere” means half a sphere.)

The bottom half of the Earth is called the Southern Hemisphere.

Lines that run across the globe from side to side are called lines
of latitude.

Lines that run from top to bottom are called lines of longitude.

These lines are like a ladder.

Lines of longitude are like the sides of a ladder.

Lines of latitude are like the steps on a ladder.

Let’s review the vocabulary

equator, globe, Northern Hemisphere,

Southern Hemisphere, Prime Meridian,

Eastern Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere,

South America

Antarctica is a continent. Of all the continents in the world Antarctica is
the 5th largest.

It is found at the south on the Earth. It covers the South Pole with a surface area approximately twice the size of Australia.

The other continents that are closest to Antarctica are South Africa,
Australia and the closest is the southern tip of South America which is only 1000kms away.

The size of Antarctica changes in the winter as the edge of the ice grows
around the coast due to the sea ice.

Its size doubles during the winter months.

Antarctica is the coldest and windiest continent on earth.

Blizzards and wind speeds greater than 100km per hour are common as
are temperatures below -50degress C.

The Antarctica weather is much colder than the Arctic temperature at the North Pole.

This is because the south pole and its ice covers a large piece of land and is much higher than the North Pole, which is a large flat piece of ice with no land that covers the ocean.

Antarctica is cold all year round; it is the coldest place on earth.

In the winter the temperature ranges between -80 – 90 degrees Celsius

and in the summer the temperature can reach up to 15 degrees Celsius.

What are the expected physical features of Antarctica (Based on its location and the ad)?

Is Antartica a landmass or an ice sheet or iceberg?

TAKE THE WILDERNESS CHALLENGE

take the WILDERNESS CHALLENGE

BEING THERE ACTIVITY

ANTARTICA THE MOVIE

THE SOUND OF SILENCE