The webpages of AntarcticGlaciers.org hopefully provide a useful information resource for both students and teachers. However, there are also lots of free downloads and interactive resources available on the internet. This webpage has a number of resources suitable for GCSE and A-Level Geography and Geoscience teachers.
There are more ideas for student projects on the Geography A-Level Projects page. You can also see the Essay Questions page for more ideas.
Patagonian Ice Sheet (and glacial landforms)
Make sure to check out the teaching resources and interactive maps that we have developed about the Glaciation of Patagonia. There are photographs and examples of the different landforms, gifs and images, and there is an interactive ArcGIS Online map to explore, all freely available.
Glaciation of Britain (and landforms)
There is also a number of resources focused on the glaciation of Britain, including the Younger Dryas Glacial Map, another interactive ArcGIS Online webmap!
Text books
If you want to brush up on your own glaciological knowledge, then there are hundreds of text books to choose from. However, two of the best are:
- Glaciers and Glaciation. Benn and Evans, 2010
- Glacial Geology: Ice sheets and Landforms. Bennett and Glasser 2009
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report has numerous datasets about glaciers, ice caps and climate change, all of which are relevant to the schools curriculum. The Summary for Policy Makers is quick and digestible. If you want more detail, there is a whole chapter on Observations: Cryosphere.
Quaternary Glaciations: Extent and Chronology
This book by Elsevier (Ehlers and Gibbard, 2011; Quaternary Glaciations: extent and chronology, a closer look) is rather expensive, but they have made the GIS data and maps freely available to anyone. You can download the shapefiles of the Last Glacial Maximum for the whole world from the Booksite. I made the map below quickly just using the files provided on the Booksite.
NASA
Nasa produce thousands of satellite images and make them freely available. Use EarthExplorer to find satellite images.
An easier way to do it might be to use the Image of the Day feature on the NASA website. These images often are GeoTiffs that can be downloaded straight into a GIS for analysis and mapping. Here is a great example of the North Patagonian Icefield.
In the higher resolution image from the website, the moraines and geomorphic features around the ice mass are clearly visible, and are easily mapped directly in the GIS.
There are lots of great pages for you to explore here. For example, here is an explainer, with figures, of the Larsen Ice Shelf collapse.
LIMA: Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica
A number of maps of Antarctica are available to download and print off for free from LIMA. They include the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica, a beautiful map you can explore in a GIS.
IBCSO (International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean)
The IBCSO website provides information on sea floor topography. Users can download a PDF chart or Geotiff data of the entire ocean floor.
When using any data from the IBCSO project please cite:
Arndt, J.E., H. W. Schenke, M. Jakobsson, F. Nitsche, G. Buys, B. Goleby, M. Rebesco, F. Bohoyo, J.K. Hong, J. Black, R. Greku, G. Udintsev, F. Barrios, W. Reynoso-Peralta, T. Morishita, R. Wigley, “The International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO) Version 1.0 – A new bathymetric compilation covering circum-Antarctic waters”, Geophysical Research Letters, doi: 10.1002/grl.50413
Websites
Glaciers Online
The Glaciers Online website has an excellent photo-glossary that you can encourage the students to explore.
Other web resources
- There is a wide variety of teacher resources on the NSIDC website.
- All about Glaciers (NSIDC)
- Discovering Antarctica
- Your Climate Your Life
See more suggestions on my Links page.
Making Glaciers
One way to get students involved and engaged is to get them to make a glacier using Glacier Goo. This tried and tested method is fun and exciting, and you can encourage the students to think about deformation and glacier movement processes, as well as ablation and accumulation.
There are many glacier goo recipes around. The National Association of Geoscience Teachers has some good resources.
Purchase printed maps
You can buy lots of maps of Antarctica cheaply from the British Antarctic Survey. You can also browse and purchase photographs.