Lesson 8 - Snowball Earth and ice ages (As cold as ice)

Lesson 8 - an introduction to Ice Ages and the idea that global temperatures (and therefore the amount of ice) have varied dramatically over time. The main focus of the lesson is Snowball Earth - a period of time about 635 million years ago when scientists have hypothesised that the whole earth was covered in ice. Students are drawn in by considering the idea of whether penguins and polar bears have ever met in the wild. The outcome is that if they were alive during Snowball Earth they could have met, but actually they were not alive.

This is a scheme of work about cold environments / polar places. It is designed to work in a completely mixed ability classroom and therefore is differentiated wherever necessary and includes challenge/extension questions. It includes the following topics:
- Where cold environments are and what they are like
- How people use cold environments
- What a glacier is and how it forms
- How glaciers change the landscape by creating corries, aretes and pyramidal peaks
- A comparison of the Arctic and Antarctic and why they are so cold
- Food chains, food webs and the wider importance of plankton at the bottom of the food chain
- Snowball earth and the idea of ice ages with varying amounts of ice on the planet
- The Antarctic treaty
- How cold places are changing, focusing on ice shelf collapse and sea level rise