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 conduct a demonstration that will help them gain a better understanding of the water cycle and runoff in a watershed. They will be able to replicate arctic and non-arctic watersheds by varying the size of the watershed. They will be able to visualize the difference in runoff by creating hydrographs of these different locations.
Students will investigate the breadth and depth of science taking place in the Polar Regions by reading and learning about one PolarTREC expedition and sharing it with the class.
Objectives
* To expose students to the wide variety of science happening in the Polar Regions
* To help students understand the process of science by examining one
This one hour event by Melissa Barker explains the research being done at Toolik Field Station, Alaska on nutrient transport in arctic watersheds. She is joined by team member Dr. Sarah Godsey.
The journal assignment involves students in current science research. Through the teacher’s journals, they will learn about how the research teams work together, design their research, tools that are needed and how they live and work in an extreme environment.
Objective
Students will be able to:
1. Understand how scientific research is conducted in an extreme environment
Working in groups, students will use common materials to create layers of snow and ice representing thousands of years of stratification. Groups will exchange their ice layers and extract core samples to analyze them.
Objective
Notice the phenomenon of stratification.
Notice that layers can tell a story of change over time.
Gary Wesche, a PolarTREC teacher and board president of the Blue River Watershed Association, operated a community cleanup along with more than 30 of his students at St. John Francis Regis School. The head of the EPA was also on hand for the event.