Hi psr,
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I will tell you one thing though. I have never seen my students so excited about learning. They will be putting together a powerpoint presentation as part of the program (assessment), and they can't wait to begin.
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Kids love Antarctica, so it's a great topic to do. I went to my son's primary school a couple of times to do a slide-show and dressed a couple of kids up in my Antarctic gear - they love it.
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I don't think I have anything worth sharing with you as a teacher because you have lived the experience, but if there's anything you need from Australia, please let me know
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Maybe I've not been very clear. What I would like to put on this site is a section of how teachers taught the topic of Antarctica. What assignment titles they used, lesson plans maybe, scheme of work. Not all the bells and whistles or the jumping-through-hoops-box-ticking stuff. But simple lesson ideas and titles that other teachers can use. Now that is something that you do know that is worth sharing. I can guess at it, but I don't really know how this site is used in schools. That's the feedback and "sharing" that I'm really after.
The fact you're in Oz is even better - as far as I can tell every kid in Australia does a project on Antarctica at least once if not more times in their school career. These site probably receives more hits in relation to population size from Aus and NZ than any other countries. Maybe it's because you can go to the coast - look south and know the next place is Antractica?... Gives an immediacy and mystery at the same time.
Now here's another thing you can do - seeing as you mentioned it
I rather rashly, some time ago promised a geography teacher at the school where I teach that I would do a slide-show as they are starting coursework with the topic of Antarctica. I also decided that it was about time I made this easier for me, so in the next two weeks (I'm due to run it on the 18th of May!) I'm going to put together a Powerpoint presentation of the slide-show I have given a number of times. This won't be free, I'm thinking of charging around $25 for it (downloadable from this site or posted on a cd).
How about giving me some feedback on it? I'll send you a free copy and you let me know what's good and what's bad about it? The first version will be pictures only, but then I'll add text and do a couple of different detail/difficulty levels. So the finished product will be a bundle of different versions of the same thing to be used in different ways as the teacher sees fit.
If you give me the feedback - I'll upgrade you for free when I finish the product.
Also, I'm in the process of re-writing a load of informational pages at 3 different levels. The most difficult ones for me to do are the simplest for primary/infant or special needs pupils, so if there are any primary teachers out there who could help in any way, please let me know.