PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating) is a program in which formal and informal educators spend 3-6 weeks participating in hands-on field research experiences in the polar regions. The goal of PolarTREC is to invigorate polar science education and understanding by bringing educators and polar researchers together.
Students will collect soil samples and analyze them with some of the same procedures used by researchers in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Soil microfauna (e.g. nematodes) will be extracted from the samples using a Baermann funnel. Students will compare their own data to published data from researchers working in Antarctica.
Interview with PolarTREC teacher Paula Dell and her students from Lindblom Math & Science Academy about their underwater camera probe called "Fish Spy 2" to study icefish in Antarctica.
Article featuring PolarTREC teacher Paula Dell (Biology of Antarctic Fishes 2011, 2013) and her students from Lindblom Math & Science Academy high school in Chicago, Illinois who have created a Fish Spy robotic camera to study icefish in Antarctica.
PolarTREC has been an amazing experience, wow! The heart of the PolarTREC program is the field expedition, which allows the teacher to be embedded in a field research team. STEM educators are passionate about what they teach but often lack access to meaningful opportunities to participate in basic research. Programs like PolarTREC provide that missing
This lesson focuses on adaptations as a driving force in evolutionary diversity. Adaptations are characteristics within a species that enhance its chances of survival and reproduction. Adaptations can be behavioral, structural, or functional. Students must understand that these adaptations are not acquired in the course of the organism’s lifetime, but are inherited traits that have been passed down
This National Science Foundation Press Release details how PolarTREC teacher Paula Dell's students designed and built their own underwater camera rig to observe and record Antarctic Fish. Their device was successfully deployed this year in the waters off Antarctica.
PolarTREC teacher Paula Dell accompanied researcher Kristin O’Brien’s team to Palmer Station in Antarctica for two
months in 2011 to conduct research on antarctic fishes. This article describes their expedition, their evolving collaboration and includes interviews with both Paula Dell and PolarTREC project manager, Janet Warburton.