A Scottish Mystery 1

A Scottish mystery 1 Where it is a) In the north of Scotland there is a deep valley that runs right across the country. Its name is the Great Glen and it stretches from Fort William at its southwest end to a city at its northeast end. (Find it on a map of Scotland.) • What is the name of the city at the northeast end? b) Some parts of this valley are filled with water that runs off the hills all around to form lakes. The Scottish word for lake is loch. The loch at the western end, near Fort William is a sea loch, that is, it has salt water and is open to the sea. It is about 50 miles long. At the eastern end is another long loch, about 23 miles long, but not even 2 miles wide. This loch has fresh water and is linked to the sea by a small river. It is very deep and holds a lot of water. • What is the name of the eastern loch? What is the name of the river? c) The lochs along the valley are linked to one another by small rivers which are not big enough for ships. There is also a canal, the Caledonian Canal, which joins them together so that ships can travel from one end to the other. It is very popular with tourists because this part of Scotland has beautiful scenery. • Find some photographs of the Highlands of Scotland – look at tourist brochures or on the internet. Perhaps you know someone who has been there on holiday and has good photos. • Make a collage or a poster with pictures and information about the Great Glen and its lochs. 2 What is there Because the big fresh-water loch at the eastern end of the Great Glen is very dark and very deep, people think there could be caves under the water and ways through to other lochs and rivers that nobody knows about. Some people think that a strange creature lives there. • What do the media call this creature? 3 What do you think? Many people have looked for the creature in the loch. They have used cameras on the banks and under the water. Divers have gone down into the dark water of the loch and boats with sonar* have tried to find out what the bottom of the loch looks like. The first – rather unclear – photograph of a creature in the water appeared in a newspaper in 1933, but people now think that it was a made-up picture. There is even a story that in the year 565 St Columba, an Irish priest who spent many years in Scotland, stopped a monster in the river from killing one of his followers. But there are many stories in Scotland about creatures from the sea or lakes and rivers. * Echolot • Do you think there is a creature in the loch? Talk about it in class. • Write about 250 words on one of these topics: a) How we could look for the creature in the loch b) What the creature is and where it comes from c) The day I saw the monster © Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2013 | www.klett.de Autorin: Jenny Wood, Bristol Von dieser Druckvorlage ist die Vervielfältigung für den eigenen Fotoquelle: iStockphoto Unterrichtsgebrauch gestattet. Die Kopiergebühren sind abgegolten. 1 Teacher’s page: A Scottish mystery 1 All over the world people believe that they have seen mysterious creatures and try to prove it with smudgy, out-of-focus photographs. Since 1934, when the first photograph of the Loch Ness monster appeared in a national British newspaper, people have been trying to prove that the monster exists. But in spite of the number of tourists who visit the loch and various scientific investiga- tions, “Nessie” has never posed for the cameras. The various tasks offer your pupils an opportunity to look at the geography of this part of Scot- land and wonder about the mystery of the Loch Ness monster. A good map of Scotland that includes the names of the lochs and rivers should be made available in the classroom, either as a wall map or OHP projection, or online, where any of the usual map sites cover Scotland and may offer different types of map (e.g. Ordnance Survey) as well as aerial views and the sites of web- cams. 1a) The city at the eastern end of the Great Glen is Inverness. It is the northernmost city in Bri- tain. It has a population of about 58,000. b) Loch Ness. Because of its great depth, the loch is estimated to contain more water than all the lakes in England and Wales together. The ruins of Urqhart Castle stand on the shore of the loch and are often shown in photographs of Loch Ness. The River Ness flows from the loch to enter the Beauly Firth at Inverness. c) Pupils can work individually or in groups at collecting material and creating an interesting display. A long-distance footpath, the Great Glen Way, follows the Great Glen for 117 km, offering spec- tacular views in clear weather. It runs to the north of Loch Ness, but there is also a trail along the southern side. The Great Glen canoe trail is about 60 miles long. Both the Scottish Tourist Board website for the Highland area (http://www.visitscotland.com/destinations-maps/highlands) and the Loch Ness Visitor websites (http://www.visitlochness.com) offer a variety of photos. 2 The Loch Ness monster, or “Nessie” 3 A class discussion about Nessie will probably show how many of the pupils are ready to believe in the monster. The writing task offers a choice of topics: one for the more scientifically-minded, one for those who love myths and legends, and one for pupils who want to write their own fantasy story. © Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2013 | www.klett.de Autorin: Jenny Wood, Bristol Von dieser Druckvorlage ist die Vervielfältigung für den eigenen Fotoquelle: iStockphoto Unterrichtsgebrauch gestattet. Die Kopiergebühren sind abgegolten. 2.

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