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.
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
Through this demonstration and review of the attached research documents and the expedition PolarConnect event archive you will better be able to visualize how warming deep ocean currents undermine the ice sheets of Antarctica.
Objectives
To determine, through a demonstration and review of a scientific abstract, how warm water currents speed up ice sheet loss and sub-ice
As a teacher on the NB Palmer Totten Cruise in the winter of 2014, I successfully traversed the Magnetic South Pole. This is a wandering point on the Earth’s surface where geomagnetic field lines are directed vertically upwards. As an Outdoor Educator I utilize compasses regularly to navigate. The traverse of the Magnetic South Pole inspired this lesson
This is part two of a small series following Parishville-Hopkinton Central School science teacher Glenn W. Clark’s involvement last winter in the National Science Foundation’s 2013-2014 Antarctic Research Consortium research trip to Eastern Antarctica. Since his return to the north country last spring, he has been educating the public about the excursion in a three piece presentation on science, expedition
Nanjemoy civic leader and school teacher Deanna Wheeler was honored with the 2014 Charles County Heritage Award presented by the Conservancy for Charles County during its recent annual meeting at the Jaycees center in Waldorf.