NASA’s Operation IceBridge uses remote sensing techniques to build a picture of parts of our world not accessible or easily observed by humans. Flying 1500 feet above sea and land ice, the science team uses LiDAR, Radar, Infrared imaging, and high resolution digital imagery to collect information about our polar regions year after year. In this classroom project, inspired and
NASA’s Operation IceBridge, the largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice, uses remote sensing techniques like LiDAR (light detection and ranging), snow- and ice-penetrating radar, high resolution digital imaging, and infrared cameras to collect information on our changing ice sheets and sea ice. Several times each year a science team and flight crew head out on month-long campaigns in
Small groups of students will establish their own phenology plots for long term study. Students will make a field sketch of a sample plot and turn it into a scale map. The map will accurately place plants the students have identified for tracking phenophases, so that the plots can be monitored long term. Phenology is a vital part of
Powerpoint presentation given at 2012 North Carolina Science Teachers Association professional development conference "Catch the Wave". Co-presenters Nick LaFave and Susan Steiner presented their PolarTREC experiences and information about PolarTREC.
Students will use marshmallows to simulate toxins in the environment. Concentrations of these toxins will be modeled and calculated as they bioaccumulate up the food chain. Methylmercury and POPs are substances that bioaccumulate in the Arctic food chain. OASIS scientists studied these in Barrow, Alaska. (See Ocean Atmosphere Sea Ice and Snow (OASIS) Project at www.polartrec.com)
Students will discover how a simple action such as turning on a television will lead to toxins in our food supply. Many of these toxins concentrate in the Arctic because of long-range transport of pollutants in the atmosphere. Scientists in the OASIS project (http://www.polartrec.com/ocean-atmosphere-sea-ice-and-snowpack-interactions) study these pollutants in the Arctic. Students will learn about actions that they can take to