PolarTREC teacher Bill Schmoker, one of 14 teachers nationwide, has been awarded the National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship. This article describes his upcoming National Geographic expedition to the Arctic Ocean aboard its research ship 'Explorer'.
Small groups of students will establish their own phenology plots for long term study. Students will make a field sketch of a sample plot and turn it into a scale map. The map will accurately place plants the students have identified for tracking phenophases, so that the plots can be monitored long term. Phenology is a vital part of
Powerpoint presentation given at 2012 North Carolina Science Teachers Association professional development conference "Catch the Wave". Co-presenters Nick LaFave and Susan Steiner presented their PolarTREC experiences and information about PolarTREC.
Presented Powerpoint slideshow including two interactive activities for two 90 minutes sessions of North Carolina New Schools Common Practices Symposium. The presentation included activities I've used in the classroom based on the PolarTREC experience, as well as images from the summer at Toolik.
In mid-April 2012, five teachers from Denmark, Greenland, and the United States, were given the experience of a lifetime. The teachers lived, worked, and flew alongside airborne polar scientists in Greenland, and saw firsthand how remote data are collected on NASA’s Operation IceBridge. In the process, the experience provided the educators with better tools to teach students about science. Read
Density currents drive 3D movements within the world’s oceans that dwarf surface currents by volume. Density-driven movements due to temperature/salinity differences keep the world’s oceans well mixed & help to re-distribute heat from tropical areas towards polar areas. Resultant upwelling creates some of the world’s richest ocean ecosystems. Density movements known as turbidity currents are the world’s largest