Loci

Preparation and Planning

This lesson can have considerable impact if delivered using all multimedia resources, with students able to take on a support role for the RAF Mountain Rescue Service. If you are able, ensure you have access to a laptop and overhead or whiteboard projector. However all Student Worksheets stand alone and activities can be delivered in class with minimum scene-setting. It is not necessary to provide much contextual information for students to understand their role in responding to each situation and subsequently assess the impact of their decisions.

You may wish to photocopy sufficient Student Worksheets that all students can complete in class.

This activity commences with applications of loci with which students should already be familiar. You may wish to substitute these for local examples using Google Earth, local maps and hand drawn illustrations.

Map scales used are not representative. The actual scale of the maps employed is 1:50,000. You may wish to discuss this with your students. Similarly, map gridlines are usually drawn 1cm apart but to permit legibility have been drawn at 2cm intervals. You should make students aware of this.

Note: To ensure accurate completion of the Worksheets, they must be printed with no margins. Go to your printer settings and select 'none' on page scaling.

About the MOD Topic

The RAF Mountain Rescue Service Headquarters is based at RAF Valley in Anglesey (Wales) and supports the RAF's four RAF Mountain Rescue Teams based there and also at RAF Kinloss and RAF Leuchars (both Scotland) and RAF Leeming (Yorkshire).

Each team consists of seven full-time RAF personnel. Their high standard of training and fitness enables them to search difficult terrain rapidly and effectively in adverse conditions.

Apart from their mountaineering prowess RAF Mountain Rescue Team personnel are specialists in the management of aircraft crash sites. Once an accident site is located, they can provide first aid to any survivors, assist with evacuation and guard the area until crash investigators and assistance arrive. The mountain rescue work in Snowdonia is coordinated between Plas y Brenin, the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation and the RAF Valley Mountain Rescue Teams.

Further Opportunities for Learning

Episode 4: you may wish to add further, probing questions such as the following: what bearing would the men need to take from the Mountaineering Centre to reach the victims?

What is the distance between masts A and B? Students will need to apply pythagoras' theorem to this.
If the mountaineers reached the spot at which they are found at 1500 hours, at what speed were they walking?

Any of these activities can also be extended through the addition of more criteria (e.g. information from another source), particularly when an activity initially asks students to just identify a broad search area.

Alternatively, activities can be extended through the addition of another person / aircraft to be found, located a short distance from the first.

Students may debate the importance of logging planned mountaineering trips with the Mountaineering Office, considering our responsibilities to others (i.e. the rescue teams).

Practical examples of loci (i.e. with string and chalk) can be carried out in the school playground.

Teachers may wish to adapt the activities within this lesson plan to that effect.

Student worksheet answers

Download the teachers notes PDF to access the answers for this lesson.