A chilly start to 2009

Happy New Year everybody! Hope you all enjoyed the Christmas break and feel refreshed ready for the start of the new term.

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/powi/

What a cold start to 2009 it is proving to be – the thermometer on my car showed a reading of -6C this morning as I scraped the thick ice from the windows. Other areas experienced temperatures as low as -12C overnight, and apparently the big freeze is going to continue until the weekend. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Britain was -27C in the Scottish highlands in 1995 (you can see all of the Met Office’s extreme weather statistics here).

Hopefully it isn’t going to get that cold this winter as the arctic conditions are already proving to be problematic. Some schools in Cumbria and Wales are closed today, pipes have been bursting, and motorists struggling on the icy roads.

The example video below illustrates how people, wildlife, and landscapes around the world are affected during cold weather. It comes from the Primary Literacy section of the gallery and can be used as a kicking off point for children to plan, and then write or talk about, the next stages of a story.

Wrap up warm and take care if you are out in the snow!

Title of clip	Whiteout
Curriculum location	Primary Module B  >  Literacy  >  Year 6  >  Narrative  >  Unit 2: Extending narrative  >  Section 1: Speaking  >  Use the techniques of dialogic talk to explore ideas, topics or issues
Description	Images with accompanying voiceover illustrating how people and wildlife cope and the landscape changes when heavy snow falls: snow covered trees; frozen waterfall; people walking along streets in heavy snow, Ukraine; snow plough clearing drifting snow from country roads; Alpine scene with pine trees and ski lodge; smoke rises, above snow covered building, glowing in the morning sunshine; abandoned Inuit village; Polar bear lies deep in a snow drift protected from the storm; herd of Saiga antelope in blizzard; penguin chick covered in snow and ice, flapping wings.
Duration	2 minutes and 23 seconds

 

Please note that this is an example clip provided through our YouTube channel and does not reflect the actual quality of clips in the gallery.