Land of Fire and Ice Spring 2 2024
The Land of Fire and Ice
RATIONALE: After hearing about a competition set by National Geographic, the children are challenged to discover all about the Land of Fire and Ice: Iceland. They will use maps, atlases and globes to locate Iceland and explore the significance of its positioning in relation to the Hemispheres, the Equator, latitude and longitude. Through the study of the key human and physical geographical features in Iceland, children will develop their understanding of how to present non-fiction texts through use of non-chronological reports and fact files. Throughout the project, children will discover who the first settlers in Iceland were leading us to explore the text How to be a Viking. Using this text, the children will improve their narrative skills. Using our geopgraphical knowledge gained throughout the project the children will also learn to write persuasively. The study of Iceland, volcanoes and how the earth is formed will lead us to explore the science of rocks and soils.
National Geographic sent us some images. We used them as clues and wrote a list of geographical features. We then used the internet to search for countries which had these features. Them, by process of elimination, we researched which countries had the ALL features.
History of Iceland - after studying the Romans in Britain, and looking at who was in Britain before the Romans invaded, we ere amazed to find that Iceland had no permanent settlers until AD 847 when Viking explorers discovered the island!
Why is Iceland called the Land of Fire and Ice? We learnt about the different layers of the earth, tectonic plates and what all this has to do with volcanos and Iceland. We found that Iceland lies on two tectonic plates which are still moving away from each other!
The National Geographic had sent us a challenge to create a magazine page about volcanos and the Land of Fire and Ice... here they are below.
