CLIL - Antartica DVD worksheet - Your Space by Cambridge English

Level 3 Episode 5

CLIL: Extreme environments

Teaching notes

Ask students to predict words which complete the gaps in 2b. Play the ﬁrst part of the video again, pausing for students to complete the gaps.

Play the second part of the video (0:39:590:40:29) without sound and ask students to guess the answers to exercise 2c. Then play the clip with sound. Write The headquarters of the British Antarctic Survey on the board.

Background information

The British Antarctic Survey is a research centre based in Cambridge. For over 60 years it has undertaken the majority of Britain’s scientiﬁc research on and around the Antarctic continent. It now shares that continent with scientists from over 30 countries.

Ask students to look at the pictures and read the descriptions. Ask them to discuss questions 1–3 in exercise 3a.

Play the third part of the video (0:40:29-0:41:16) and ask students to check their answers to exercise 3a.

Ask students to read the two parts of the sentences in exercise 4. Explain the meaning of carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases and atmosphere if necessary. Play the third part of the video again, pausing after each sentence so that students can match the sentence halves.

Play the third part of the video a ﬁnal time and ask students to do exercise 5. Elicit the meaning of melt after students have watched the video.

This programme is a short documentary about Antarctica. Sophie, the presenter, tells us the Antarctic as a ‘desert’ and gives us some interesting facts about Antarctica. She also visits the headquarters of the British Antarctic Survey, where she interviews one of the scientists who work there.

BAS employs over 400 staff, and supports three stations in the Antarctic, at Rothera, Halley and Signy, and two stations on South Georgia, at King Edward Point and Bird Island. The Antarctic operations and science programmes are executed and managed from Cambridge, and rely on a wide-ranging team of professional staff.

Before you watch 1a

Warm up Ask the class to think of as many weather words as they can in 2 minutes and write them on the board. Add any from exercise 1a that the class hasn’t thought of and explain their meaning. Explain that extreme can describe very high or very low temperatures. Ask students to give examples of animals that live in hot, cold and wet climates. Ask students to do exercise 1a.

After you watch 6a

Lo tech Ask students to make notes about the information which they got from the video and to plan a short presentation using their notes. Select a few students to give a presentation to the class using their notes. Ask students to write up their presentation in a paragraph for homework.

Ask the class to answer the question in exercise 1b. They might suggest that both places have extremes of temperature and both places are windy. They may also say that both places are cold (deserts get cold at night) and dry. Avoid conﬁrming their answers at the moment, just write down their ideas on the board.

Hi tech If you have access to a video camera, ﬁlm the presentations. If students have access to a camera phone or a digital camera they can make their own short video to show in groups in the next lesson.

While you watch 2a

Students watch the ﬁrst part of the video (0:39:02-0:41:45) to check their answers to 1b.

6a PHOTOCOPIABLE

Revise what students know about global warming before asking them to do exercise 6a. You could do this by writing the three questions in the exercise on the board and asking students to discuss them in pairs. When you’re conﬁdent they will be able to complete some of the exercise, ask students to do exercise 6a.

Ask students to work in pairs interviewing each other. Level 3 Episode 5

Level 3 Episode 5

Key Before you watch 1a

Picture a (Sahara desert): 3, 5, 6, 10 Picture b (Antarctica): 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9

Student’s own answers.

While you watch 2a

Both places are deserts because both get very little rain.

1 desert 2 coldest 3 99 4 year 5 sand 6 rain 7 penguins 8 ice

1 Sophie’s at the headquarters of the British Antarctic Survey, in Cambridge. 2 Tamsin is a scientist who works at the British Antarctic Survey.

1 ice 2 ice 3 It can tell them how many greenhouse gases there used to be in the atmosphere compared to the amount today.

1d 2a 3c 4b

1 causes 2 melt

After you watch 6a

2 atmosphere 3 create 4 atmosphere 5 melts 6 rise 7 get 9 animals

Student’s own answers.

Scientist at the British Antartic Survey 0:40:29-0:41:16

Video script 1

Headquarters of the British Antartic Survey 0:39:02-0:39:15

Here’s a quick question. What’s the largest desert in the world? The Sahara Desert? No. The answer’s surprising. It’s at the South Pole. And it’s Antarctica.

Antarctica is a place of extremes. It’s the coldest, driest and windiest place on Earth. But although ice covers over ninety nine percent of the land, there’s only one to two centimetres of snowfall every month. And that makes it a desert. Because you don’t need sand for a desert. A desert gets very little rain. In spite of the extreme conditions, some land animals have learned to survive, such as the Antarctic penguins. You won’t ﬁnd many humans though. But international scientists come here to study the wildlife and the ice.

Tamzin To ﬁnd out what happened in the past you can drill down through the ice. I call the drill a time machine because you are collecting snow that fell millions of years ago. And when that snow falls, it traps bubbles of gas. So, you can see in this thousands-of-years-old snow, like, tiny bubbles. And those bubbles are capturing the atmosphere: the air as it was when the snow fell. So we can ﬁnd out things like how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases there used to be in the atmosphere and compare that to how much we’ve got now. Some people think life in Antarctica could be a bit boring because you can’t, you know… Go out to the cinema, or anything like that. But you can go skiing, you can go climbing, and … I like snowboarding, personally. That’s my favourite. There’s really plenty to do.

Antartic footage 0:39:15-0:39:59

The store room tent 0:39:59-0:40:29

Brrrr … I’ve never been so cold in all my life...OK, OK. I’m not really in the Antarctic. I’m actually in Cambridge inside the headquarters of the British Antarctic Survey. This is an environmental research centre which has three bases in Antarctica. Tamzin is one of the scientists working here.

PHOTOCOPIABLE

In the cold room 0:41:16-0:41:45

I’m now in the cold room – and it really is cold in here. The ice in these tubes was taken from Antarctica. And some of it is thousands of years old. This ice can show scientists how the climate has changed. If global warming causes this ice to melt, it will affect all of our lives. So let’s hope Antarctica stays as cold and as beautiful forever.

Level 3 Episode 5

CLIL: Extreme environments

Level 3 Episode 5

Before you watch 1a

Match the words to the pictures. 1 hot

2 cold

6 sand

3 windy

7 ice

4 snowfall

8 penguins

5 dry

9 seals

10 camels

How are the two places similar?

While you watch 2a

Watch the ﬁrst part of the video and check your answer to exercise 1b.

Watch the ﬁrst part of the video again and complete Sophie’s notes.

ANTARCTI CA

is the biggest

in the world

driest and windiest place on earth Ice covers

% of the land

Snow 1–2cms every

Desert Don’t need

for a desert. A desert is a place that gets little

Animals Some land animals, for example Antarctic

People - not many! Scientists go there to study the wildlife and the

Watch the second part of the video and answer the questions. 1 Where is Sophie in the ﬁrst scene? 2 Who is Tamsin?

PHOTOCOPIABLE

Level 3 Episode 5

Look at the pictures and answer the questions.

1 Picture a is of a drill. It makes holes in hard materials. What material is it drilling? 2 Picture b is of tubes. What do scientists keep in the tubes? 3 Picture c is of a block of ice. What does Tamsin say it can tell scientists about the environment?

Watch the third part of the video again and match the beginnings of the sentences (1–4) to the endings (a–d). 1 Scientists drill down through the ice 2 When snow falls 3 Scientists can ﬁnd out how much carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases 4 Life in Antartica isn’t boring because

a a it traps bubbles of gas. b you can go skiing, climbing and snowboarding. c were in the atmosphere. d to ﬁnd out what happened in the past.

Watch the third part of the video again and complete Sophie’s warning. Sophie

If global warming 1 ice to 2

this , it will affect all

of our lives.

After you watch 6a

Complete the answers to these questions with these words. animals atmosphere x2 get create earth increase melts rise What is global warming? It is an 1 increase

in the Earth’s temperature.

c What is the greenhouse gas? Gases like CO2 are released into the 2 (by cars, factories, animals, plants). These gases 3 heat, making the 4 warmer. What happens next?

Watch the third part of the video and check your answers to exercise 3a.

PHOTOCOPIABLE

Global warming 5 snow and ice 6 and this causes sea levels to . 7 Countries too hot; for people, 8 plants and .

Work with a partner. Take turns to interview each other using the questions and answers in exercise 6a. Level 3 Episode 5