This is an activity to use with students as they are learning how to read a map and decipher continents and oceans. This activity is intended for high school students and can also be used as a check for understanding.

This is an activity to use with students as they are learning how to read a map and decipher continents and oceans. This activity is intended for high school students and can also be used as a check for understanding.

This is an activity to use with students as they are learning how to read a map and decipher continents and oceans. This activity is intended for high school students and can also be used as a check for understanding.

Place and Location are two of the five themes of geography and a natural starting point for a study of the Arctic and Antarctica. Location answers the question, "Where am I?" while the study of place asks, "What kind of a place is it?" and, "How does this place connect to my hometown?" This issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears examines how you can introduce the Arctic and Antarctica and use science, geography, literacy, and technology to help your students compare and contrast these two dramatically different areas as well as their own home. Get ready for an adventure as you and your students develop your polar sense of place!

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is an online professional development magazine for elementary teachers which focuses on preparing teachers to teach polar science concepts in an already congested curriculum by integrating inquiry-based science with literacy teaching. Such an integrated approach can increase students' science knowledge, academic language, reading comprehension, and written and oral discourse abilities.