Learning Activities

1) Where is Svalbard and What is Svalbard like?

Connect 2

Be a Thinker

Think – where is this place? (Look at the picture below).

Source: Public Domain image – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fareskilt_38.PNG

Once you have thought about it, choose one of the colours of the placemarks on the map below. Your teacher could wait until the whole class has guessed, and click on each placemark to reveal the right answer.

 


View on Google Maps.

 

Be A Communicator

Describe this place. (See the instructions below).

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Visit the excellent 360 panorama of the Svalbard by Witek Kaszkin which is on the Worldwide Panorama site. Choose “View in Full Screen” for best effect.

1) Create a document and give it the title Svalbard – add your name and save it.

2) Write 10 adjectives which describe the scene.

3) Now use those adjectives to write a paragraph to describe Svalbard.

Explore 2

Be An Inquirer

1) Locate Svalbard on a map (Google Maps is an obvious place to go) and add a screen shot to show the location on your document.

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Describe the location of Svalbard. You can refer to:

  • Compass directions
  • Countries around it
  • Seas

Extra:

  • Can you give its longitude and latitude?

2) Visit the wikipedia article on Svalbard:

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Make a short fact file in your document under appropriate headings e.g. language, population, currency etc.

Try to use Geography key words where possible (e.g. population, climate, relief, employment, transport, settlement, vegetation)

Demonst 2

Be A Communicator

Visit http://taggalaxy.de/.

1) Type svalbard into the tag box.

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2) Zoom in on Svalbard (which will be the largest ‘planet’) by clicking on it but think about the other planet names first.

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3) Explore the images

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4) Imagine you are an explorer who has visited Svalbard. Choose five images and write an account of an imaginary visit you have made to Svalbard which describes the Fantastic Geography of the place, including some information which you have already researched above. Create a new leaflet style document to do this.

When you choose an image you click on it and then click on it a second time to get a description and a link to the Flickr Page. Make sure you add the website reference of any image you do use.

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Plenary

Be a Thinker

A seed vault has been built to ‘save’ (preserve) as many of the world’s unique food plant seeds as possible. Why has Svalbard been chosen as the location?

Image: Some rights reserved by Dag Endresen

Once you have thought about this ‘plenary’ question and discussed it, you can view the following to find out more:

Footnotes 2

Activities here owe much to the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Fantastic Places’ teaching resources.

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