Locating the North and South Poles
I can locate the North and South Polar regions and describe some of their icy features.
Locating the North and South Poles
I can locate the North and South Polar regions and describe some of their icy features.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- The geographical North and South Poles mark where Earth’s axis meets Earth’s surface.
- The North Pole is located in the Arctic Ocean and the South Pole in the frozen continent of Antarctica.
- The Antarctic is colder because of its land mass, with high mountains and the Arctic warmer because much is ocean.
- Ice sheets cover land and ice shelves extend over the ocean.
Keywords
Glacier - A glacier is a huge accumulation of ice and snow that moves slowly over land.
Iceberg - Icebergs are large floating chunks of ice, that break off glaciers into the ocean.
Ice floe - An ice floe is a sheet of ice floating in the water.
Ice shelf - An ice shelf is a floating tongue of ice that extends from a glacier grounded on land.
Common misconception
The Arctic and Antarctica are both continents.
Antarctica is a continent but the Arctic is frozen sea ice.
To help you plan your year 2 geography lesson on: Locating the North and South Poles, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 2 geography lesson on: Locating the North and South Poles, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 1 geography lessons from the Cold places: what is it like at the North and South Poles? unit, dive into the full secondary geography curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
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