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.
Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles profiles one of its alumni, teacher Cristina Solis who also happens to be a PolarTREC alumnus. Read about her journey to become an educator and her participation in a PolarTREC study of microbial activity in thawing arctic permafrost near Barrow, Alaska.
PolarTREC teacher Jacquelyn Hams' expedition is featured in Foundations: the Newsletter of the Geo2YC division of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers.
Students will conduct a soil study by investigating pH and water absorption.
Objectives
Students will learn:
* How to describe the composition of soil and explain how it forms.
* That soil is made up of tiny particles of rock, plant, and animal matter.
* How to determine whether a solution is acidic, basic, or neutral.
*
Students will investigate what a carbon footprint is and calculate their own personal carbon footprint. Finally, students will develop ways to reduce their carbon footprint.
Objectives
Students will know that the principles of chemistry underlie the functioning of biological systems.
Students will know that carbon, because of its ability to combine in many ways with
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.
PolarTREC teacher Cristina Solis and her team presented their work on microbial activity in the tundra to junior docents at Cabrillio Marine Aquarium. This is a one hour presentation with Cristina and her research team.
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