Students will collect soil samples and analyze them with some of the same procedures used by researchers in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Soil microfauna (e.g. nematodes) will be extracted from the samples using a Baermann funnel. Students will compare their own data to published data from researchers working in Antarctica.
PolarTREC has been an amazing experience, wow! The heart of the PolarTREC program is the field expedition, which allows the teacher to be embedded in a field research team. STEM educators are passionate about what they teach but often lack access to meaningful opportunities to participate in basic research. Programs like PolarTREC provide that missing
We are all teachers and students throughout our lives – even as adults we are students and even as children we are teachers. As adults, we are often afforded unusual opportunities to learn as we push ourselves in our interests and abilities. Through these opportunities—both expected and unexpected—our own understanding of what is possible expands as well as our desire
Teacher Josh Heward discusses research with the "Tough Tardigrades Team" in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica where they search for tardigrades and other microorganisms that live in the soil.
Teacher David Thesenga and the Ice Shelf Flow and Fracture Dynamics Research Team discuss field work on the McMurdo Shear Zone (SZ) live from Antarctica.
The Follow A Researcher (FAR) website from the University of Maine will be releasing weekly videos starting the first week of October closely following the Ice Shelf Flow and Fracture Dynamics Expedition in Antarctica.
Have you ever wondered how polar scientists do it? How do they really know if the planet is losing vast quantities of ice anyway? You can use pictures from satellites to monitor the surface from year to year, but the vast majority of ice is hidden from view, buried beneath the surface in some of the most inhospitable and
Libertyville High's Mark Buesing working with NASA in Greenland. Veteran Libertyville High School science teacher Mark Buesing packed some cold-weather gear and headed to glacier-filled Greenland, where he is part of a NASA mission to study ice in both of our planet's polar regions.
PolarTREC teacher Tim Spuck presented on his experience with the IceBridge project, monitoring Greenland's glaciers and how they are being affected by climate change.