This lesson will provide students with an opportunity to design and carry out an experiment that mimics the conditions causing accelerated ice melt along the face of the Thwaites Glacier off the southwest coast of Antarctica. Created by Sarah Slack during her expedition to Thwaites aboard the icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer, this activity aligns with the Science and Engineering
Students will learn to:
* Observe and record weather patterns
* Process data by creating graphs/charts
* Compare actual weather data from the Siberian Arctic to local weather patterns, draw conclusions and make future predictions concerning weather patterns.
Big Idea
Why do people need to track weather over time?
Lesson Preparation
You will need a thermometer, tracking calendar, and
The objectives of this lesson are:
* Students will know that climate change is happening most quickly in Arctic regions.
* Students will know that a warming climate is causing permafrost to thaw.
* Students will know that thawing permafrost is impacting infrastructure in Alaska, including roads and buildings.
* Students will design an engineering solution to create stable
Never, in my 27 year career as a teacher, have I had so many students so interested and enthusiastic in so many broad and varied topics that they would have immediately dismissed as “boring” had I not participated in PolarTREC. I was happily mystified by the curiosity of the students and the depth of their interest in
This is an article in a local quarterly magazine (IN Shaler Winter 2018 ed.) about Mike Penn's PolarTREC deployment to Antarctica with the 2018 Automatic Weather Stations project.
My high school has a Science Club whose members visit local elementary schools and run various “stations” that (elementary) students visit for 10-15 minutes before rotating to a different one. This lesson is designed to be one those – a quick hitting, but engaging look into polar science that will stir the kids’ inherent curiosity and get them
This presentation to the District 128 school board highlighted the science and adventure of NASA's Operation IceBridge and why science, technology, engineering, and math are vital to all our students. Links and credits to videos in the presentation can all be found in the video information on YouTube.
How Physical Processes Form Physical Features. PolarTREC researcher Samantha Hansen shares this resource as a background to her work and information on geologic processes.
POLENET (The Polar Earth Observing Network) is a global network dedicated to observing the polar regions in a changing world.
The project is focused on collecting GPS and seismic data from autonomous systems deployed at remote sites spanning much of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. GPS and seismic measurements together provide a means to answer critical questions about ice
This presentation features pictures, stories, data, websites and background information that complement the 2013 Bowhead Whale Calendar. The calendar contains stunning photographs and information from both traditional knowledge and contemporary research about the natural history of the bowhead whale.