It was time for GlosGeog‘s second event of this academic year; a virtual, interactive speaker session aimed at Key Stage 3 students and their teachers. This afternoon, through my work with Rhianna Davies-Smith at Wicked Weather Watch, a charity based in Box in Wiltshire, we were able to welcome Hanna Yevchun, a female polar ecologist based at the National Antarctic Scientific Centre of Ukraine, who has studied Antarctic biodiversity, its distribution and conservation, as well as assessing the impact of tourism on ecosystems within this spectacular, yet fragile environment. This proved to be a very popular topic; our audience consisted of 19 schools from across the UK with more than 1000 students from Years 7 to 9 and their teachers. What a reach in an afternoon!
After welcoming everyone, I handed over to Rhianna to briefly introduce Hanna. Hanna provided further background about herself and her travels before challenging youngsters to a quick true or false quiz relating to Antarctica; always good to dispel a few myths early on. She shared a short video clip of her first view of Antarctica with us. Many were surprised to see how light it was at midnight, plus the evidence of red snow and green hills (she asked us to consider whether the green was plants or mosses).
Next, Hanna discussed what scientists do in Antarctica and why they do this. She displayed photographs of scientists in action, conducting experiments and explaining how their findings might inform us. Certainly not an easy task at times given how unpredictable Antarctica can be.
Afterwards, Hanna played a video of her and fellow marine scientists disembarking for sampling. She explained that the area was completely covered by a glacier in the 1970s. Now, the island has revealed its treasures, including the skeleton of a blue whale. She told us that it is the biggest mammal on planet Earth. This particular one was around 25 metres in length (equivalent to the height of four, two-storey houses) and 1350 years old, which meant it lived during the period of the Vikings and Maya.
Her video clip of a colony of penguins went down a treat too; we were surprised by just how speedy these little creatures are!
Finally, Hanna talked about the significance of Sir Ernest Shackleton and the recent discovery of Endurance. Whilst people may be in awe of her achievements, and rightly so, she highlighted how tough things were for those first explorers when attempting to reach the extremities of the South Pole so many years ago.
Hanna had a clear message for students: ‘You are our future. Together, if we believe in how to do things, then we can achieve.’
The audience were mesmerised throughout. During the Q&A session that followed, there were so many questions added either to the chat feed or asked directly to Hanna via unmuting their microphones … it was difficult to keep up!
Hopefully, many youngsters have also been inspired to continue studying geography beyond Key Stage 3 after witnessing where the subject might take them in the future; the possibilities are endless!
Towards the end, teachers were prompted to complete an online evaluation form to enable us to capture staff and pupil voice. This is incredibly important to us at GlosGeog and also helps us with our planning of future events.
Some of their ‘concluding comments‘ can be viewed below:
Staff voice:
Amazing; informative with great information.
Exciting; really fun; interesting.
Positive; interesting; inspirational; intriguing; amazing.
Antartica is a unique continent.
Informative; interesting; fun; inspiring; educational.
A very interesting presentation.
Interesting talk linking nature, environment, research and history.
Interesting; informative; wow factor!
Thanks for the session – the students really enjoyed it!
Thank you so much for allowing us to join the talk yesterday, it was absolutely fantastic! … Please also let Hanna know that the kids were super engaged and they really enjoyed the talk!
Pupil voice:
An inspiring and interesting experience.
Amazing; brilliant!
Educational; enjoyable; fun; amusing videos; a good way of learning.
Interesting; educational; fun; icy; cool.
Today was informative and eye-opening about the pollution and problems in Antarctica.
It was very interesting; learnt a new thing or two.
Entertaining; funny; knowledge-buildng; relatable.
It was amazing and very interesting to learn about the Antarctic and Hanna’s adventures/studies there.
Educational; fun.
The powerpoint was very informative and I learnt loads about Antartica.
Interesting; eye-catching; entertaining; factual.
A fun afternoon to learn about Antarctica.
Antartica is more than blue/white.
We learnt about climate change and the impact that it has on Antarctica. We also learnt about the people that travel to Antarctica, which can include geologists and ecologists.
It was really good and I am now much more knowledgeable.
Antarctica; ice; bones; fossils; penguins.
It was very fun and educational.
We learnt about climate change and Antarctica. We also learnt about penguins and red snow and the people travelling to Antarctica to study the animals and melting ice and glaciers.
It was a great experience to get to know more about Antarctica.
An event based on research and studies on Antarctica.
It was very interesting.
Very enjoyable and fun.
An educational event led by an expert on the topic including research and studies of Antarctica.
Antarctica is pretty cool!
Many thanks to Rhianna at Wicked Weather Watch for helping to coordinate today’s speaker session and to Hanna for giving up her time to share the wealth of knowledge and expertise that she has about this fascinating continent.