PolarTREC alumna Susy Ellison talks about her two expeditions and how they affected her personally and professionally. Researcher Jeff Rasic joins in to talk about what it was like to have a teacher in the field for the Early Human Settlement in Arctic Alaska 2011 expedition.
The attached PDF contains 5 different lessons and lab activities for high school earth science, environmental science and biology classes. The focus is on permafrost and related topics including the earth’s carbon cycle, the greenhouse effect, climate change, and aqueous geochemistry. The diagrams and photographs included in this manual, along with additional visual materials, are included in the attached Thawing
This one hour PolarConnect event is Nell Kemp and Bruce Taterka at Toolik field station studying wolf spiders and tundra/microbial interactions, respectively.
This activity was adapted from a TEA activity authored by:
* Sandra Kolb, Education Consultant, Poulsbo, Washington
* Kolene Krysl, Westside Community Schools, Omaha, Nebraska
* Larry Rose, Pleasanton Middle School, Pleasanton, California
* Wendy Slijk, La Costa Canyon High School, San Diego County, California
The original activity can be found at: http://tea.armadaproject.org/activity/kolb/tobesaltyseaiceornottobesaltyseaice_main.html
Students will independently explore the PolarTREC expeditions, and reflect on the scientific questions, discoveries, and outcomes of the work that is or has been done.
Description
Students will visit the PolarTREC website at www.polartrec.com, where they will find a teacher who is in the field presently, or was already in the field. You may select one expedition
Students are presented with an actual series of tundra photos, which they use to develop a hypothesis for which sort of ground cover will have the most/least permafrost depth. Then they are given a set of actual data and use this to test their hypothesis
Objective
Students will:
* understand what permafrost is and how it develops