New Perspective

Whilst on my placement at the secondary school I managed to get access to a variety of text books that were used for A-levels. Within this I managed to find a small bit of information that I hadn’t previously thought about.

When teaching the subject it would be good to emphasise the relationship between glaciers and periglacial environments. They are often superimposed one on top of the other; as an ice sheet begins to retreat the space it leaves behind becomes exposed to perglacial conditions and processes. And then as glaciers advance the periglacial environment becomes glacial once again. This process recurs and can a mixture of these two environments can be seen across Northern Britain.

One other thing that I had not previously thought about was how this topic could be incorporated into other topics – especially biogeography. Recent observations lead me to realise that a good way to maybe more fully engage pupils with a topic quite alien to them would be to examine the biogeography involved in this region – the tundra. Getting students to look at this and look at the different fauna and flora as well as climatic conditions could help them to get used to the environment we would be examining and set the scene a bit better for them.

For example, maybe starting with biogeography and then leading into the topic of periglacial environments could be more beneficial for students. It did help me to put things into perspective when I looked at the different conditions and processes from this perspective as it was something that I was more familiar with. Basing it on this, for some pupils it could be much easier for them to understand the topic and hopefully they could gain more from the lessons.