This content has been created with the intent for the teacher to develop it to best suit their classroom setting. In its most basic form, students are asked to analyze wet and dry berry data to determine how water content changes (or doesn’t) for several berry species over the course of one season.
This lesson has multiple stages or
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
The night before I left Alaska I stayed up chatting with some of the scientists in the Toolik dining hall talking about my return to “normal civilization”. We spoke about the little habits that you pick up while at the field station and aren’t sure you’re going to let go (wearing sunglasses 24/7) as well as
This is the archive of the PolarConnect event with teacher Liza Backman and the team from the Phenology and Vegetation in the Warming Arctic 2021 expedition who presented live from Toolik Field Station in Alaska on 15 June 2021.
News article on teacher Liza Backman and her experiences preparing for a trip to the Arctic to work on the phenology of arctic plants in a warming climate.
This is a STEM-based lesson that can be taught in class or online. Students will analyze Weddell seal pup growth data, collected by the Growing Up on Ice, B-030, research team. To use this lesson virtually, include the data cards and have students either construct graphs and upload an image of their graph, or construct a graph and share
This American Public Media Educate podcast features PolarTREC alumni, Melissa Lau. She talks about how her experiences in PolarTREC has influenced how she approaches teaching climate change in the classroom. Here's the link to the Education podcast:
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