This one hour webinar is a great look at the PolarTREC 2014-5 Antarctic expeditions. Each teacher presents on the research projects, implementation in the classroom, and outreach into communities.
Note: This event was not for our typical classroom-based education audience.
WAIS Divide (West Antarctic Ice Sheet), where the Velvet Ice team conducted its research, has recently be found to be one of the most vulnerable areas of Antarctica to global climate change. If recent predictions hold true, major glaciers in WAIS could collapse within 100 years, triggering massive shifts
This one hour event is an introduction to the expedition with Yamini Bala and her team. They address life at McMurdo and what it will be like at their remote field site at WAIS Divide (West Antarctic Ice Sheet).
Researcher Egbert Schwartz and PolarTREC teacher Justin Kendhammer will travel to the Dry Valleys of Antarctica in search of life in the seemingly barren soil. One of the questions they will attempt to answer is whether microbes in the soil are native to Antarctic soil or whether they have been blown onto the continent from elsewhere in the world.
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.
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