Glaciers: Knowledge Specifications
According the Geography curriculum, KS3 students should 'understand, though use of detailed place-based exemplars at a variety of scales, the key processes in physical geography...including the change in climate from the Ice Age to the present; and glaciation'.
Students will need to learn about the following for KS3:
Students will need to learn about the following for KS3:
- How much of Earth's surface is covered in ice and where it is located.
- The different form of ice including ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers.
- The meaning of interglacial and glacial periods.
- Where ice has been located in the past and how long ago this happened.
- How glaciers form and the factors that influence this including latitude, altitude, relief, aspect and distance from the ocean.
- An understanding of glaciers as a system.
- How and why glaciers move.
- The erosional landforms of a glacier such as arêtes, pyramidal peaks, ribbon lakes, hanging valleys, U-shaped valleys and cirques.
- The erosional processes of a glacier such as plucking and abrasion.
- The depositional landforms of a glacier such as various types of moraine, drumlins, outwash plains and erratic's.
- How to identify glacial landforms on an OS map and to notice the differences between them.
For KS4 students will also need a detailed understanding of the following:
Please click on the following link to find a detailed specification for GCSE 'Ice on the Land' based on AQA paper A: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-9030-W-SP-14.PDF
Click 'Next' to go to the third page on 'Glaciers'.
- The last Ice age in relation to a geological timescale and an understanding of the extent of ice coverage.
- The differences between ice coverage now and from the last Ice Age in the Pleistocene period.
- The glacial budget: ablation and accumulation, advance and retreat.
- A case study of a glacier that has recently begun to retreat.
- Detailed seasonal variations and their impacts on glaciers.
- Glaciers weathering, erosion, transportation and deposition including truncated spurs, bulldozing and rotational slip.
- Glacial environments as tourist attractions, the reason for this development.
- Social, environmental and economic impacts of tourism in an Alpine area.
- Tourism management strategies in an Alpine area.
- The potential for avalanches as hazards.
- The effects of glacial retreat on tourism and an understanding of the concept of fragile environments.
Please click on the following link to find a detailed specification for GCSE 'Ice on the Land' based on AQA paper A: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-9030-W-SP-14.PDF
Click 'Next' to go to the third page on 'Glaciers'.