The Arctic Ocean Curriculum Unit was created by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States with funding from the North Pacific Research Board. This project aimed to update and revise existing Arctic Ocean-related lesson plans originally created by PolarTREC program teacher alumni. The format used lends itself to the changes in education - providing student-facing slide decks that allow
TEK TALKS is a series of webinars that was developed to foster understanding among scientists in regard to working with Indigenous People. View archived lectures and/or sign up for future lectures through the website.
This lesson plan is designed to teach students about the importance of the benthic community in the shallow portions of the Arctic and how climate change may affect their respiration. One of the dominant benthic animals in the Arctic, the bivalve Macoma sp., is an important food source for higher trophic level organisms such as walrus and Spectacled Eiders
This lesson plan is designed to teach students about benthic biodiversity in the Arctic by analyzing data from the Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO). Although you can’t see them from the surface, the organisms found on the ocean floor are important indicators of ecosystem health and provide information about productivity. Students will explore sites throughout the Bering and Chukchi Seas
We are really looking forward to the 2020-2021 field season for the PolarTREC teams!
This space is dedicated to information about the upcoming PolarTREC Orientation that is required for the educators that were selected for 2020. It's also a space for those that are interested and/or joining the Orientation to learn more about the logistics related to the training.
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A working group was convened in late May, 2019, for the purpose of developing guidance to North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) and Alaska Sea Grant (ASG) to encourage and support outreach by researchers to Alaska’s K-12 Indigenous students in culturally responsive ways. The impetus for the working group was a disconnect we perceived between an increasing emphasis on inclusion of
Scientists are studying the effect of climate change on vegetation in the Alaskan tundra. In this activity, students will analyze data collected from control plots and plots with Open Top Chambers (OTC's) over them. An open-top chamber is like a tiny greenhouse that increases the temperature in a vegetation plot an average of 2-3 degrees, simulating the effects of
After spending 5 weeks in the Arctic learning about tundra vegetation and phenology, Alejandra Martinez wanted to have her students observe the growth of plants in their school. In this lesson, students will grow plants in multiple locations and track their growth to compare their phenology.
Objectives
Students will learn what phenology is and make observations about plant growth
PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating) is a professional development program that pairs K-12 teachers in the United States with polar researchers. Teachers engage in field research and develop long-term relationships with scientists in order to better understand the scientific process and implement the skills and knowledge they have gained into the classroom. The goal