Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

This activity engages learners in exploring the impact of climate change on arctic sea ice in the Bering Sea. They graph and analyze sea ice extent data, conduct a lab on thermal expansion of water, and then observe how a scientist collects long-term data on a bird population.

Go To:

http://seagrant.uaf.edu/marine-ed/curriculum/grade-8/investigation-1.html

Alaska SeaGrant

Alaska Seas and Rivers Curriculum

Activity takes five to six class periods. Video streaming capability is necessary.

Notes From Our Reviewers

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Teaching Tips

There is an easy link to a very comprehensive teacher background section. In the NSIDC sea ice index visual, teachers should make sure that students can read and understand the bits of critical information at the top of each visual and that the right-hand visual represents a baseline at the beginning of collecting time.

NSIDC sea ice index is updated here: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Also, Arctic Sea ice is tracked daily here at NSIDC: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

About the Science

The sea ice activity is the first of five investigations in which which students explore different impacts of climate change on arctic sea ice and the Bering Sea.

After they graph and analyze sea ice extent data, students explore thermal expansion of water as a lab and then observe how a scientist collects long-term data on a bird population.

Comments from expert scientist:The lesson demonstrates how Arctic sea ice is changing and helps students understand how those changes may impact climate, wildlife, and human activities.

It would be good to add mention of another part of the world's ice whose melt does affect sea level - namely land ice - the ice sheets and glaciers, and it could be demonstrated by dropping ice cubes into the water.

About the Pedagogy

Teachers should consider all of the investigations in this unit on Arctic Sea Ice. There is a lot of flexibility built into this series of investigations.

Teachers can use specific investigations or the entire set. Additionally there are multiple resources to choose from.

The teacher background section is very comprehensive.

Technical Details

Capacity of available computers to stream videos may be a concern for some schools.