Earth Science Collection

This story in Discover magazine profiles the work of the WISSARD (Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling) project team and the challenges faced by drilling thousands of feet into the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to reach a lake buried for millennia.

This article summarizes PolarTREC teacher Mark Buesing’s amazing and varied career as a cyclist, engineer, teacher, and now participant on NASA's airborne mission to map and measure ice in the Polar Regions.

Organizing Questions:

1) Why is it important to collect large quantities of research data? 2) How can photographing a subject be similar to scientific observation? 3) How can one plot photographic data on a map?

Introduction:

This lesson was written for a Photography I course, to be taught in a lab with access to either a darkroom or computers/printers. The

Antarctic educator, Mark Walsh, created this video for the PolarTREC 2013 spring online professional development course. This video uses the concept of Density to explore how mountains are built as well as how to throw a good Cinco de Mayo party at McMurdo Station Antarctica. He uses the Dr. Samantha Hansen's Transantarctic Mountains work as an example of mountain building.

Overview:

Students will use the TAMMNET project and accompanying PolarTREC resources to learn about seismology in the Antarctic, culminating in the creation of an annotated map using google maps.

Objective:

Students will understand the different ways mountain ranges are formed, and appreciate the questions unanswered about the Transantarctic Mountains. Students will also appreciate the ingenuity required for doing research in

This student lesson focuses on plate tectonics and large-scale system interactions, utilizing PolarTREC teacher Brian DuBay's Transantarctic Mountains expedition videos. Objectives: The student will investigate, make observations, and analyze geologic processes of plate tectonics. Key concepts include: a) how geologic processes are evidenced in Antarctic mountains; b) tectonic processes (compressional, tensional, and transversal forces). Adapted by Michelle Brand Buhanan for

Overview

In this lesson, students will play a fun board game that teaches about the sources and types of some air pollutants, and how they affect the health of both people and the environment. Students will learn that not all pollutants are greenhouse gases. This game can be a lead-in for a discussion about climate change and what people can

Article describing the final stages of this year's Operation IceBridge, the NASA campaign to maintain and expand on Arctic ice measurements. Along with PolarTREC teacher Mark Buesing, the IceBridge team has successfully completed a variety of aerial measurements on sea ice, sub-ice bedrock and Greenland's glaciers.

This one hour webinar is for students and the public hosted by Tom Lane. The team is studying carbon balance in warming and drying tundra in Healy, Alaska.

This scientific article, focuses on one of the largest pools of global carbon that is, the organic C stored in permafrost (perennially frozen) ground, and on the vulnerability to change under an increasingly warmer climate.

Overview

Have you ever wondered how polar scientists do it? How do they really know if the planet is losing vast quantities of ice anyway? You can use pictures from satellites to monitor the surface from year to year, but the vast majority of ice is hidden from view, buried beneath the surface in some of the most inhospitable and

This one hour webinar is for educatorson the use of video and social media tools to bring polar science into the classroom. PolarTREC teacher Brian DuBay speaks in the context of his expedition to study the Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica.

A scientific report describing the results of the CiPEHR Experiment as of 2011. This report attempts to answer these questions: (1) Does ecosystem warming cause a net release of C from the ecosystem to the atmosphere?, (2) Does the decomposition of old C that comprises the bulk of the soil C pool influence ecosystem C loss?, and (3) How do

Libertyville High's Mark Buesing working with NASA in Greenland. Veteran Libertyville High School science teacher Mark Buesing packed some cold-weather gear and headed to glacier-filled Greenland, where he is part of a NASA mission to study ice in both of our planet's polar regions.

PolarTREC teacher Glenn clark is preparing for his 2013-14 expedition to Antarctica with researcher Amy Leventer.

The Geophysical Institute Permafrost Laboratory (GIPL) The Permafrost Laboratory deals with scientific questions related to the circumpolar permafrost dynamics and feedbacks between permafrost and global change. At the Permafrost Laboratory, data related to the thermal and structural state of circumpolar permafrost is collected and analyzed. The focus of our research is the development of methods to physically and mathematically model

Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles profiles one of its alumni, teacher Cristina Solis who also happens to be a PolarTREC alumnus. Read about her journey to become an educator and her participation in a PolarTREC study of microbial activity in thawing arctic permafrost near Barrow, Alaska.

Overview

Students will conduct a demonstration that will help them gain a better understanding of the water cycle and runoff in a watershed. They will be able to replicate arctic and non-arctic watersheds by varying the size of the watershed. They will be able to visualize the difference in runoff by creating hydrographs of these different locations.

Objectives

* Students

This one hour webinar is part of the online polar professional development course on physical science for educators. Dr. Hansen focuses on her research of the tectonic history of the Transantarctic Mountain in Antarctica.

Overview

Students will investigate the breadth and depth of science taking place in the Polar Regions by reading and learning about one PolarTREC expedition and sharing it with the class.

Objectives

* To expose students to the wide variety of science happening in the Polar Regions * To help students understand the process of science by examining one

What kind of rocks make up Antarctica? What geological processes are occurring today? What rock and mineral resources exist there? Learn more from this website. For a more generalized review of Antarctica you can also start here

Antarctica's Gamburtsev Province Project (AGAP) provides an overview of antarctic geologic information.

How Physical Processes Form Physical Features. PolarTREC researcher Samantha Hansen shares this resource as a background to her work and information on geologic processes.

Class notes and detailed information on mountain building. PolarTREC researcher Samantha Hansen shares this resource as a background to her work and information on geologic processes. Created by John C. Butler, July 29, 1995. Credit to: John Butler jbutler [at] uh.edu

PolarTREC researcher Samantha Hansen shares this resource as a background to her work and information on geologic processes.