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
This lesson incorporates techniques and experimental designs used by researchers during the Southern Ocean Diatoms PolarTREC expedition and during post-expedition laboratory analysis. This guided inquiry lesson provides students the opportunity to explore photosynthesis and primary productivity using techniques to measure chlorophyll levels.
Objectives
SWBAT:
1. Use models to predict chlorophyll levels in the global oceans
2. Identify
Understanding Physical and Chemical Parameters of Ocean Water Using CTD Profiles
Overview
A focus of the PolarTREC Southern Ocean Diatoms expedition was to collect water samples and physical profile data using oceanographic technology. Oceanographers rely on the real-time data transferred from the water column to the ship-based computers using a CTD sensor. The CTD measures conductivity (salinity), temperature and depth
Journal article about Lesley Urasky's PolarTREC expedition, Glacial History in Antarctica, published in "In the Trenches", the news magazine of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers.
An article about Lesley Urasky's PolarTREC expedition, Glacial History in Antarctica during the 2010-2011 research season that appeared in the University of Wyoming's Alumnews.
Kevin Tavares and his fourth graders at Old Hammondtown School in Massachusetts built a website to share what they were learning with the rest of the world. Mr. Tavares installed a location tracking device on the page that assigns a red dot to the country of each visitor. The students wanted to get website hits from all seven continents so
During Lesley Urasky’s expedition, “Glacial History in Antarctica”, the team collected rock samples which were taken back to the University of Washington to be dated using cosmogenic (exposure) dating. This method of radiometric dating measures the ratio of isotopes of Beryllium (9Be:10Be) produced by the interaction of cosmic rays with minerals in rocks. This lesson will introduce the student to
Nature creates its own density column in marine systems, which is extremely important for the triggering of the spring bloom of phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are an important food source for all organisms- from microscopic zooplankton to large marine mammals such as walrus and whales. The different salinities (and therefore, different densities) of water help to stabilize the water column (by limiting