Ice that forms in the polar oceans is an important driver behind the global climate. This ice is physically different from frozen precipitation in a number of different ways. In this brief inquiry activity, students make qualitative observations about two types of ice cubes and deduce ice composition based on their observations. This activity may serve as an introduction to
The U.S research community is conducting a deep ice coring project in West Antarctica for studies of climate, ice sheet history and cryobiology. This project is collecting a deep ice core from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) ice flow divide and integrating approximately 20 separate but synergistic projects to analyze the ice and interpret the records.
The website, Ice Stories, features short interviews and other interesting content live from the polar regions. This weblink has a short video interview of PolarTREC teacher, Craig Beals, while taking part in a PolarTREC expedition with Barry Lefer at Summit, Greenland.
This video was shot by Mike Etnier at Makanrushi Island, Russia in July 2008. This is underwater footage of one of several large schools of Atka mackerel that were feeding on krill at the surface. See "Atka mackerel and krill" for surface footage of one of the schools of fish and underwater footage of the krill. For more
This video was shot by Mike Etnier at Makanrushi Island, Russia in July 2008. There are several thousand Atka mackerel feeding on krill at the surface. See "Atka mackerel school" for under-water footage of one of the schools of fish. For more details on the feeding aggregation, and its relevance to our archaeology studies, read the journal entry