How do we know what kind of phytoplankton are in the water? The Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB) is a robot that scientists use to image phytoplankton in the water. One IFCB can take up to 30,000 pictures per hour! The IFCB can be used in the field to detect plankton blooms in real time. In this activity, students will practice
The Arctic Ocean Curriculum Unit was created by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States with funding from the North Pacific Research Board. This project aimed to update and revise existing Arctic Ocean-related lesson plans originally created by PolarTREC program teacher alumni. The format used lends itself to the changes in education - providing student-facing slide decks that allow
This lesson investigates the correlation between the rate of cellular respiration and metabolic rate of Weddell seal pups. Students will collect data of their personal oxygen consumption rate at rest and during exercise, and evaluate how collecting oxygen data can be used to calculate metabolic rate. Students will comprehend that heat is a product of the reaction of cellular
Melissa Lau spent a month in the tundra ecosystem gathering data using a device called a Greenseeker. This device measures exactly how green a plant is by calculating its NDVI or Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. In this lesson, students will explore light waves, how they interact with plants, and find out how green is green.
This lesson investigates the effects of different insulators (fur and blubber) on maintaining the body temperature of polar animals. Water balloons filled with warm water simulate the marine mammal. The blubber insulator will be simulated by covering the balloon in vegetable shortening. The fur insulator will be simulated by placing another balloon over the “marine mammal” and adding an
Scientists are studying the effect of climate change on vegetation in the Alaskan tundra. In this activity, students will analyze data collected from control plots and plots with Open Top Chambers (OTC's) over them. An open-top chamber is like a tiny greenhouse that increases the temperature in a vegetation plot an average of 2-3 degrees, simulating the effects of
This lesson allows students to learn about the Arctic through a challenging question and answer game format. Inspired by experiences in the Hidden Ocean 2016: Chukchi Borderlands expedition, the game includes “careers”, “animals”, “equipment”, “climate change”, and “geography” components. The game may be used as a learning tool, a review tool, or an assessment tool.
In this webquest, students use maps to relate global temperature change to changes in the range of insects and birds and projected changes in tree range. The activity could be used to teach a lesson via class discussion and/or written response; it could be completed by students in cooperative groups on paper or with shared computers; on the other
Understanding Physical and Chemical Parameters of Ocean Water Using CTD Profiles
Overview
A focus of the PolarTREC Southern Ocean Diatoms expedition was to collect water samples and physical profile data using oceanographic technology. Oceanographers rely on the real-time data transferred from the water column to the ship-based computers using a CTD sensor. The CTD measures conductivity (salinity), temperature and depth
One of the most important indicators of our warming climate is the extent and thickness of polar sea ice. Currently satellites measure the extent of polar sea ice but it takes more sophisticated equipment aboard a low-flying plane to actually measure the thickness of sea ice. This lesson will show students how this is done.