This First Grade unit on the bowhead whale has been created to support the knowledge of children living within a whaling community. The unit focuses on the basic components of understanding the bowhead in a more scientific manner. Although my students know the bowhead in a uniquely intimate way because of their environmental and subsistence circumstances, our goal
This engaging topic and active game is inspired by a long-term scientific study of Black Guillemots nesting on an island near Barrow, AK. It introduces the life cycle of the Black Guillemot, how it raises its young, and the adaptations it is making to adjust to life in a changing Arctic.
The CIMSS/UW-Madison Global and Regional Climate Change course for G6-12 science teachers has been translated to Spanish and is now available online. The translation was done by Juan Botella, a native Spanish speaker who teaches high school science in Madison, WI and a former PolarTREC teacher. Read more about Juan here: http://www.polartrec.com/member/juan-botella
This polar-themed unit plan provides a resource for teachers looking for ways to integrate a variety of challenging lessons and activities into their curriculum. The lessons touch on a variety of subject areas including language arts, math, and science. The unit is designed for a 3rd grade class but can be adapted for other grade levels. A helpful media list
The Arctic Climate Modeling Program (ACMP) provides curriculum-based arctic resources for use with K-12 students. Resources include inquiry-based classroom lessons, a student network for observing arctic weather (S.N.O.W.) , digital lectures, and an interactive multimedia learning system (on DVD). The resources presented were all designed with input from 21 scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute.
This short article is an U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fact sheet about Ursus maritimus, the Polar Bear. It covers basic information, including: appearance, feeding habits, reproduction, adaptations, and protection.
John Whiteman says that most of his fun comes from thinking about how events outside an animal affect events inside an animal. For his PhD research, he’s studying how warm weather during summer can make hunting difficult for polar bears, forcing them to make seasonal adjustments such as living off of their own body fat. He’s also investigating how these
Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is an online magazine created to assist elementary school educators teach lessons about the polar regions.
From the website:
This blog is focused on helping elementary teachers become more knowledgeable about the polar regions and providing best practices on how to integrate polar concepts into their teaching. Ideas for connecting science and literacy through literature
Story from online website, military.com about the USCGC Healy deploying to the Arctic.
During the deployment, Healy will travel more than 25,000 miles and conduct more than 2,000 individual science evolutions in the course of completing seven separate science missions. Healy will spend six weeks between the second and third missions in Seattle conducting scheduled maintenance and training.
Healy's two
WHOI is the world's largest private, nonprofit ocean research, engineering and education organization. This site has information on oceans from climate to ocean life to ships and technology.