Hot places and cold places
Geography · Early Years · The School
The middle is hot, the ends are cold
Find the EQUATOR — the line round the middle of a globe. It is hottest there because the Sun is most directly overhead. The POLES at the top and bottom are coldest. Everywhere else is somewhere in between, and Britain is a long way from both.
Animals fit their place
A polar bear has thick fur and fat for the cold. A camel stores fat in its hump and can go days without water in the desert. Neither would last long in the other's home. Living things suit the place they live, and that is why different places have different animals.
People fit too
In hot places, houses have thick walls and small windows to keep heat out. In cold places, they have thick walls and small windows to keep heat in — the same solution to opposite problems. Look at pictures of homes from three countries and see what is the same.
Shine a torch straight down onto a piece of paper and draw round the bright patch — small and intense. Now tilt the torch so the light arrives at a slant and draw round the patch again — much bigger and dimmer, because the same light is spread over more paper. That is the whole reason the poles are cold and the equator is hot: the same sunlight, spread thinly or concentrated.