Antarctica Wheel Spinner

Antarctica is the only continent with no countries and no permanent population, which makes it the most interesting slice on any continent wheel and the hardest to build a country list for.

There is no list of Antarctic countries to spin, and that is the lesson rather than a gap. What the wheel holds instead is the seven nations that maintain territorial claims, which is the honest answer to "which countries are in Antarctica" and the one a geography lesson is usually reaching for. Antarctica has no government and no permanent residents. Seven nations maintain territorial claims, several of which overlap, and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty set all of them aside — the continent is reserved for peaceful scientific use, and no new claims may be made while the treaty holds.

What it does have is research stations, roughly 70 of them run by around 30 countries, some staffed year-round through a winter with no sunrise. McMurdo, Amundsen-Scott at the South Pole, Vostok, Rothera, Concordia. Those make a far better wheel than a country list would.

If you are teaching this, replace the single slice with station names and spin for research assignments. Each one comes with a country, a purpose, and usually a story about the conditions that students remember longer than the geography.

What is on the wheel

All 7 of them, already loaded:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Chile
• France
• New Zealand
• Norway
• United Kingdom