Free Talk about teaching glaciers and glaciation in schools: Seds Online, 14th July

Posted on 16/06/2020 by Bethan Davies

AntarcticGlaciers.org: a tool for teaching Glaciers and Glaciation to high school and college students”.

Dr Bethan Davies – Royal Holloway University of London

4 PM LONDON, Tuesday 14^th July 2020

Information here: https://sedsonline.com/events/ . You must register (for free) with Seds Online to watch the webinar. The link will be available on the website 10 minutes before the start of the webinar. The webinar will be recorded and can be viewed later by registered users of Seds Online.

This talk targets teachers and college lecturers who will be delivering Glaciers and Glaciation as part of Geography or Geology at High School or College (post ~16 years). This could be as part of the UK A-Level syllabus, for example.

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Best practice in delivering online learning

Posted on 29/04/2020 by Bethan Davies

The full implications of Covid-19 are still unknown, but it seems that it will be with us for a long while yet. Therefore, many university lecturers will be moving to online learning, some for the first time. I thought that it might be useful to compile some resources and best-practice suggestions to help us. Here are some of my thoughts on online delivery of courses.

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The world’s mountain ‘water towers’ are melting, putting 1.9 billion people at risk

Posted on 08/01/2020 by Bethan Davies

Water tower of the Andes. Lynn Johnson/National Geographic

Bethan Davies, Royal Holloway

The year 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional heat, and is on track to be the second or third warmest year on record. While the global average temperature teeters on 1.1°C above the pre-industrial record, the world’s glaciers are in stark retreat.

In high mountain areas, the steady trickle of melting snow in spring has nourished people for generations. Today, 1.9 billion people – or 22% of the world’s population – live downstream of snowpacks and glaciers and depend on them as their main source of drinking water. These icy and snowbound mountain regions could be considered water towers, which provide a regular supply of water for drinking, irrigation and power generation, and provide a life-saving buffer during droughts.

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Curry Fund from the Geologists’ Association

Posted on 11/03/2019 by Bethan Davies

We are delighted to announce that AntarcticGlaciers.org has been awarded a grant from the Curry Fund of the Geologists’ Association. This will support further website development, and help bring the website further into line with the new UK A-Level curriculum.

Book review: The Continent of Antarctica (Julian Dowdeswell and Michael Hambrey, Papadakis, 2018)

Posted on 26/11/2018 by Bethan Davies

The Continent of Antarctica. Julian Dowdeswell and Michael Hambrey.

Antarctica was the last continent to be discovered and explored, and is sensitive and vulnerable to climate change. It is relevant to all of us, since it can influence ocean currents and sea levels. The history of the continent, both geological and human, is fascinating, with heroic attempts to map and explore the continent.

In The Continent of Antarctica, Julian Dowdeswell and Michael Hambrey provide an in-depth overview of the continent of Antarctica, covering the geography and evolution of Antarctica, its people and exploration, and its future. This book, aimed at the interested non-expert reader, is beautifully illustrated with photographs by the authors and provides a detailed introduction to readers illustrated in the Antarctic continent. Throughout the book, personal stories and reflections from the two careers of the authors in Antarctica are used to highlight and enrich key points, and make it engaging throughout.

The language is accessible, but the content is carefully and thoroughly researched. The book is strongly grounded in science, but there are sections on human interaction with Antarctica and geopolitics. Both authors are talented photographers who have been working in Antarctica for decades, with many field seasons between them. This has resulted in a rich archive of photography, used throughout the book. Continue reading →

Improvements to AntarcticGlaciers.org

Posted on 16/11/2018 by Bethan Davies

Here at AntarcticGlaciers.org we have been busy making many updates to the website. We are particularly keen to update the website to bring it in to line with the reformed A-Level syllabus, and also to update and rewrite some of the older content, and improve the website as a resource to promote public understanding of glaciers and climate change.

Since AntarcticGlaciers.org was founded 6.5 years ago, we have undergone substantial improvements and learned a lot over the years. This outreach endeavour, motivated by a desire to publicly communicate the risks that climate change and rising sea levels pose to our world’s glaciers and ice sheets, has evolved into one of the premier sites on this subject. This website aims to inspire both interested adults and also young people and school children with geology and geomorphology, and specifically targets teachers to supply them with engaging, original content that they can use in lesson planning.

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Funding from British Society for Geomorphology

Posted on 16/11/2018 by Bethan Davies

We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded an Outreach Grant by the British Society for Geomorphology. These funds will be used to support our attendance and an exhibit at the Geographical Association Annual Conference in April 2019, called “Celebrating Geography”. We hope to use this opportunity to both promote our website but also to interact with teachers and targeted end users of the website, and engage in a dialogue to help us better support Geography Teachers who teach the new AQA A-Level Geography, which has a “Glaciers and Glaciated Landscapes” module.

British Society for Geomorphology

Thinking Teaching

Posted on 11/10/2017 by Bethan Davies

Having now been lecturing for a few years, I’ve had the opportunity and time to think about what kind of lecturer I want to be. I wrote this down a while ago but decided to share it now – because thinking about and sharing best practice makes us all better teachers, and because ECRs just starting to think about teaching might find it useful.

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Antarctic Sea Ice

Posted on 19/04/2017 by Bethan Davies

Guest post by Dr Jonathan Day, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading

What is going on with the Antarctic sea ice?

March 2017 was an interesting month for sea ice. Both northern and southern hemispheres experienced record breaking low extents for the time of year. The extent of Arctic sea ice reached the maximum area of its seasonal cycle on March 7^th coming in at 14.42 million km². This was a fraction below the previous record, set in 2015 and is in line with what we expect to see in a warming climate. Meanwhile the other side of the planet Antarctic sea ice continues to confound expectations. Continue reading →

Will we enter another ice age?

Posted on 28/01/2016 by Bethan Davies

There are a number of web and news articles around surrounding the question of whether or not we will enter another ice age. Many of these questions arise from the idea that a collapse or significant melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet will produce enough fresh water to shut down the global thermohaline circulation, dropping us into a new ice age in the next 10,000 years.

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