Video created by PolarTREC teacher Kate Miller on her experience working with researcher Dr. Jim Madsen and other teachers with the Upward Bound Program in July 2017 in Rivers Falls, Wisconsin.
Ice is a medium that nearly everyone is familiar with. We put it in drinks, skate on it for hockey and scrape it off our windshields in winter. Ice can be turned into sculptures and can even make for some fantastic winter scenery. Ice can also turn into a kaleidoscope of color and patterns under the right circumstances. Science
This lesson is intended to help students make connections to polar science while discovering how and why sea ice drives deep ocean currents. Students will also learn key terminology related to sea ice and using actual salinity content charts, will graph a typical sea ice core’s salinity as it relates to depth.
A little over 1 year ago, I received a phone call that changed my life. I had been selected to become a PolarTREC Teacher and would be heading to Antarctica in the fall of 2017. Words cannot adequately describe the joy and excitement I had in that moment. I knew I was headed for
Kate Miller & Katey Shirey co-presented at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Regional Conference in Milwaukee, WI. Our presentation was entitled "Living & Working at the South Pole" and was part of the "Physics Day" set of IceCube-related presentations. About 100 people attended with several questions at the end.
Kate Miller co-presents with Jennifer Burgin, a kindergarten teacher who recently went to the Galapagos through the National Geographic Lindblad Expedition Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship, at Festival of Minds. Festival of Minds is a professional learning conference run by Arlington Public Schools that provides a diversity of sessions for all PK-12 instructional staff to hone their instructional practice (https://www.apsva.us/fom/). Kate and
Casey O'Hara, Katey Shirey, Liz Ratliff and Kate Miller put together a poster sharing the PolarTREC program, their experiences working with IceCube through PolarTREC, and details on how other teachers can apply. The poster is presented at the Knowles Teacher Initiative (former KSTF) Summer Meeting 2017 to over 300 high school math and science teachers from across the United States.