The objectives of this lesson are:
* Students will know that climate change is happening most quickly in Arctic regions.
* Students will know that a warming climate is causing permafrost to thaw.
* Students will know that thawing permafrost is impacting infrastructure in Alaska, including roads and buildings.
* Students will design an engineering solution to create stable
Students will use a model to explore the relationships between sunlight and release of carbon dioxide (CO2) from thawing Arctic watersheds.
After studying the carbon cycle, students are asked to reflect on how natural phenomena – thawing of permafrost, interactions of soil microbes on dissolved carbon, and amount of sunlight – interconnect and influence the release of CO2
The report is written by teacher participants upon return from their field expedition portion of the PolarTREC program. It summarizes the benefit of the expedition to the teacher, a description of activities, and a summary of how teachers plan to link this experience in classrooms and communities. This is a public document that will be posted in teacher portfolios and
Article in regional newspaper describes Regina Brinker's PolarConnect event and invites readers to participate at home or as the event is projected at the main public library branch.
The students' task is to produce a brochure for both the Arctic and the Antarctic. These brochures will be used by the representatives of "Here We Go Travel" to advertise the virtues of traveling to both polar regions. The students will produce a 45 second radio spot that they will write and record as part of their overall
The website, Ice Stories, features short interviews and other interesting content live from the polar regions. This weblink has a short video interview of PolarTREC teacher, Craig Beals, while taking part in a PolarTREC expedition with Barry Lefer at Summit, Greenland.
PolarTREC Teacher, Craig Beals, talks about his experiences at Summit, Greenland in this online version of an article published by the Billings Gazette on July 21, 2008.