Polar Lands

Polar lands - UK£9.99 (ISBN 1 85434 497 8)

Polar Lands is part of TwoCan's Interfact series, which combine a book and CD-ROM or floppy disk*. (*Please specify PC or MacOS when ordering disks. The CD-ROM will work on either system.)

Polar Lands explores the planet's Arctic and Antarctic regions. The 48 page spiral-bound book contains a wealth of interestingly displayed information supported with coloured illustrations and photographs. It features a True or false? quiz based on the contents of the book, as well as a two page glossary, and technical information about the CD-ROM/floppy disks.

On its own Polar Lands would probably be a useful resource for a geography class. However the strength of this book (and indeed the entire Interfact series) is the way in which the accompanying CD-ROMs (or floppy disks) bring the materials to life.

Throughout the book there are Disk Links which signpost points at which students can access further information from the CD-ROM. Students can also become involved in a number of simple but extremely effective interactive activities, these include:

  • creating a polar food web
  • chill out - a polar quiz, in which you can rescue a penguin from a melting iceberg
  • snowball fight - the more questions you answer correctly the more snowballs you get to throw!
  • poles apart - discovering the differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic
  • explore the polar lands
  • time machine
  • all the answers - where Sidney the Seal is full of questions and Alberta the Albatross supplies the answers

This combination of book and CD-ROM works extremely well making the series ideal for teachers at Key Stages 2 and 3. It also helps to seamlessly integrate the use of ICT into the mainstream geography curriculum. I've seen children absolutely engrossed in this and other Interfact titles - there can surely be no higher recommendation. If you are looking for high quality but low cost resources for your classroom look no further.

Other 'Interfact' titles of interest for geography lessons include:

  • Oceans
  • Plants
  • Rainforests
  • Volcanoes
  • Weather

My thanks to Two-Can Publishing for providing a review copy of Polar Lands.

(Reviewed February 6th 1999)