This article and associated video describe the findings of researchers who undertook core drilling at Lake El’gygytgyn, a lake that sits today inside a basin formed by a meteorite that struck the earth 3.6 million years ago. An associated video allows us to hear the enthusiasm and details as researcher Julie Brigham-Grette describes the findings of this remarkable discovery.
This article describes the remarkable efforts of a team of scientists to extract cores from deep under a frozen lake in Siberia, Russia. PolarTREC teacher Tim Martin joined the project which will provide an astounding record of past climates preserved in layers of lake bed sediment. The sediment, withdrawn in cores and shipped to labs in Germany, represents a continuous
PolarTREC teacher Michelle Brown writes for the Austin American Statesman about her upcoming expedition to Antarctica. Michelle outlines her plans to travel to Antarctica to work with researchers at the remote McMurdo Station and the automated geophysical observatory at the South Pole Station. In addition to helping researchers study the human impacts on the southern continent, she will also install
PolarTREC teacher Michelle Brown writes an article in the Austin American Statesman about her upcoming expedition to study human impacts in Antarctica. Michelle details her motivation to apply for the PolarTREC program and how it has already changed her teaching practice and students' lives.
The sediment in Lake El'gygytgyn, (pronounced EL-ge-GIT-gin) located in NE Siberia, holds one of the longest records of climate change anywhere in the continental Arctic. How does sediment (clay and mud) tell us something about past climate? Proxy data! By studying the microfossils of diatoms and pollen in the sediment, we can re-construct the lake environment millions of
This data plotting lesson compares different stratospheric ozone data collected at the South Pole in September 1969, September 1998, September 2008, January 1999, and January 2008. This ozone comparison activity allows students to make conclusions about the annual and seasonal ozone hole as well as overall ozone concentration changes over Antarctica. Students use authentic data collected at the
Given sets of graphable data students will show that various viewpoints can be supported depending on how data is presented and interpreted. These may or may not be accurate or relevant representations of data results over time. This lesson contains basic graphing components, interpretation of information and communication to others of findings depicted in graphs. Teachers may choose
This data plotting lesson is about temperature changes throughout the atmosphere. The data was collected together with the ozone data in January 2008.
The temperature vs. altitude profile allows students to make conclusions about annual and seasonal temperature changes in the atmosphere up to about 35 kilometers in the stratosphere. The best part of this lesson is using
This is an online broadcast of Tim Martin being interviewed about his upcoming expedition to Russia. Click the link provided to access the website and to view the broadcast. Here is the online summary of the broadcast:
Greensboro, NC -- Ever wonder what it's like to live and work in minus 40 degree temperatures?
Doctor Julie Brigham-Grette has been researching
We all know that Antarctica is a very cold place, and the scientists who work there are not the only ones who have to worry about staying warm. The animals that live in Antarctica have to protect themselves from the frigid conditions on a year-round basis. In order to keep heat they produce from escaping into the environment