Antarctic Dad

Year level: Middle primary Learning outcome Students will explore how people separated from their families keep in touch them. Read Antarctic Dad by Hazel Edwards and Kevin Burgemeestre. Discuss What are your impressions of the book? What have you learnt about working in Antarctica? What have you learnt about families keeping in touch when they are separated? What sort of work is the boy’s father doing? How is the information from Antarctica and Australia represented in the book? How do the pictures contribute to your understanding of the information? Why might the book have flaps? Use the map at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/reference_maps/antarctic.html to work out which Australian Antarctic Division base the boy’s father works at. Use the map at http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=104 to work out how far away this base is from Hobart. List some other jobs or situations that might take adults away from their families. How might families who do not have access to email keep in touch when they are separated? Choose one of the pictures and name the features showing how the boy is keeping in touch with his father. Add a box of information describing what might happen to these features if the boy lived on a tiny, remote Pacific Island country with few mail deliveries, little electricity and few shops. Assessment task Write a poem or make a table comparing how children whose parents are working in places away from their families, one who has access to the Internet and one who does not, might feel and manage.