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
In a “March Madness” game of survival of the fittest, will your microbe and its genes survive the test of changing conditions on Planet Earth and beyond? Students choose genes from a “toolbox” and pit their microbe against their classmates’, using critical thinking and argument writing to determine the microbe with the best chance of success. Based on PolarTREC
(This is a book authored by Armando Caussade.)
A Puerto Rican in the South Pole (3rd Edition)
ISBN-13: 978–0–9971755–4–7
After a competitive review process the author was selected as a participant for the 2014–2015 Antarctic field season of PolarTREC, a professional development program geared to teachers and funded by the National Science Foundation.
In January 2015 he traveled to the
This activity is 4 of 4 in a series that exposes students to the concepts of and work done by the HERMYs Project (Historical Ecology and Risk Management: Youth Sustainability):
1. A Narrative Pantomime
2. Environmental Risk Assessment
3. Risk Hazard Identification
4. Local and Traditional Knowledge & Risk
*“Historical accounts of remote Alaska can only offer documentation
This activity is 3 of 4 in a series that exposes students to the concepts of and work done by the HERMYs Project (Historical Ecology and Risk Management: Youth Sustainability):
1. A Narrative Pantomime
2. Environmental Risk Assessment
3. Risk Hazard Identification
4. Local and Traditional Knowledge & Risk
*“Historical accounts of remote Alaska can only offer documentation
This activity is 2 of 4 in a series that exposes students to the concepts of and work done by the HERMYs Project (Historical Ecology and Risk Management: Youth Sustainability):
1. A Narrative Pantomime
2. Environmental Risk Assessment
3. Risk Hazard Identification
4. Local and Traditional Knowledge & Risk
*“Historical accounts of remote Alaska can only offer documentation
This activity is 1 of 4 in a series that exposes students to the concepts of and work done by the HERMYs Project (Historical Ecology and Risk Management: Youth Sustainability):
1. A Narrative Pantomime
2. Environmental Risk Assessment
3. Risk Hazard Identification
4. Local and Traditional Knowledge & Risk
*“Historical accounts of remote Alaska can only offer documentation
Analogs are used in science investigations to better understand systems we can’t access ourselves. In this lesson, students explore the Dry Valleys of Antarctica to better understand microbial communities on early Earth and what might have been possible on ancient Mars. Students will examine photographs, written descriptions, and artistic renderings of early Earth, the Dry Valley lakes, and