This PolarConnect event on Antarctica Day (December 1) 2022 was broadcast live from the Dry Valleys of Antarctica with teacher Lucy Coleman and researcher Rachel Morgan-Kiss.
This lesson allows students to consider navigation around Antarctica, where longitudinal lines converge at South Pole. Through this study, students should learn about polar stereographic projection, satellites, navigation using various instruments, Antarctic geography, and NASA’s Operation IceBridge airborne mission. In the first part of this 55-80 minute lesson, students will be faced with a dilemma. Their task will be
NASA’s Operation IceBridge (OIB) flies airborne missions each year over both Polar Regions, collecting ice thickness and extent data on glaciers, ice caps, ice shelves and sea ice. This data is useful to many disciplines studying climate, weather, ocean circulation, sea level and many related fields. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) houses and organizes the data
The Revitalizing Power of Teacher-Researcher Collaboration
The nature of science is continually moving us forward; from a fresh set of findings we rush ahead excitedly to the next batch of questions. From this continual pursuit, new ideas, methods and instruments are designed by scientists and technicians at a rapid pace, in turn yielding new data. As science teachers, we need
In a “March Madness” game of survival of the fittest, will your microbe and its genes survive the test of changing conditions on Planet Earth and beyond? Students choose genes from a “toolbox” and pit their microbe against their classmates’, using critical thinking and argument writing to determine the microbe with the best chance of success. Based on PolarTREC
Copy of online article from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Operation IceBridge. NASA’s airborne survey of changes in polar ice, is closing in on the end of its eighth consecutive Antarctic deployment, and will likely tie its 2012 campaign record for the most research flights carried out during a single Antarctic season. Maggie Kane and PolarTREC are both mentioned
Analogs are used in science investigations to better understand systems we can’t access ourselves. In this lesson, students explore the Dry Valleys of Antarctica to better understand microbial communities on early Earth and what might have been possible on ancient Mars. Students will examine photographs, written descriptions, and artistic renderings of early Earth, the Dry Valley lakes, and
The students' task is to produce a brochure for both the Arctic and the Antarctic. These brochures will be used by the representatives of "Here We Go Travel" to advertise the virtues of traveling to both polar regions. The students will produce a 45 second radio spot that they will write and record as part of their overall