PolarTREC teacher Emily Dodson participated in a scientific expedition in the summer of 2014 at Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Emily’s book is a telling of the science story behind the teams work and Emily’s participation as an educator and field assistant on the PolarTREC expedition.
Author/Credit
To contact Emily <emily.snowden [at] fayette.kyschools.us>
Emily Dodson-Snowden, a sixth-grade science teacher at Morton Middle School, didn’t have a typical summer break. She spent three weeks in Greenland studying how climate change influences plant/pollinator interactions and plant reproduction as part of PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating).
Humans are creative. They try to solve problems in original ways. For example, some scientists are thinking of ways to decrease the amount of greenhouse gases in the air. Other scientists are thinking of ways to limit the amount of sun that reaches Earth so that the Earth won’t get so warm. Like most ideas, there are pros (good
Textbooks say that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and can make earth's climate hotter. Try this lab to see if carbon dioxide gas can really act like a greenhouse.
Objectives
Students should be able to make a hypothesis, perform an experiment, analyze data and write a conclusion based on the evidence from their experiment.
This activity was adapted from a TEA activity authored by:
* Sandra Kolb, Education Consultant, Poulsbo, Washington
* Kolene Krysl, Westside Community Schools, Omaha, Nebraska
* Larry Rose, Pleasanton Middle School, Pleasanton, California
* Wendy Slijk, La Costa Canyon High School, San Diego County, California
The original activity can be found at: http://tea.armadaproject.org/activity/kolb/tobesaltyseaiceornottobesaltyseaice_main.html
The Kuril Biocomplexity Project is a National Science Foundation-funded research project led by the University of Washington and being conducted by a team of American, Japanese and Russian scholars and students who are examining a 5000-year history of human-environmental interactions along the Kuril Island chain in the northwest Pacific Ocean. This is the link to the project website.
Students are presented with an actual series of tundra photos, which they use to develop a hypothesis for which sort of ground cover will have the most/least permafrost depth. Then they are given a set of actual data and use this to test their hypothesis
Objective
Students will:
* understand what permafrost is and how it develops
This lesson was modeled after some of the routine activities undertaken by the geologists on the Kuril Island Expedition.
Complete the following activities:
* Day 1 To measure a simple topographic profile with a level instrument or hand level and stadium rod.
* Day 2 To use the measurements from Day 1 (and/or actual measurements from the Kuril
This activity is designed to take place near or at the end of a unit on the ocean floor. Students should be familiar with the physical features of the ocean floor including the continental shelf, abyssal plain, seamounts and guyots, seafloor ridges and trenches, and submarine canyons. The students should have also previously learned about sonar methods for mapping the
In this lesson, students learn about what archaeologists do and then practice implementing these skills with "real artifacts".
Objective
Students will:
* be able to define an artifact and an archaeologist.
* use evidence to support their decisions about the origin and use of an unknown item.