Final Project

I will be teaching a 7 week long course titled “Environmental Science” this spring (Feb-April), and intend to incorporate the digital resources listed below.  I provide some explanation (rational) for using them, along with the connection to my students.  My goal is to make the class as relevant and meaningful to them as I can, while perhaps opening their eyes (somewhat, at least) to the impact(s) we are having on the world around us, much like what this course taught me.  I don’t go into great lesson plan detail, but rather provide a summary of each of the digital resources.  My intention for integrating Alaska Native ways of knowing is to make the class materials/resources as real for my students as possible. 

I will begin the unit with this essential question: “What Will It Take To Make You Change?” which originates from the linked website where the same question was asked of the public.  I’d like to start my unit with this open-ended question & have my students ponder it for the next 7 weeks.

First we will view “Earth as a System” TD video, which will introduce my students to Earth’s integrated system of components and processes, setting the framework for what is to come.

Next, I hope to inspire my students with the YouTube Symphony of Science “We Are All Connected” video.  I am so visual and this just had my brain firing at all synapses, so I am hopeful it will have a similar impact on my kids.  Some things just hit a nerve and this is one; I really look forward to using it in my classroom.

In going more in-depth, we’ll delve first into the subject of greenhouse gases:

The TD video, Global Warming, The Physics of the Greenhouse Effect starts with a question that permeates on the Kenai Peninsula: “Why should adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere be cause for alarm?”  This is the kind of question many of my students ask when the subject of global warming comes up, so I think it’s a good beginning for the unit.

The car analogy for greenhouse gases in the TD video Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect is a great demonstration—I think it would be a helpful example for students to better understand how greenhouse gases really do have an effect.  We all hate being in an unconditioned car on a hot sunny day with the windows rolled up! 

The Nova/Frontline video clip from TD, Global Warming: Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect really made an impact with me.  A gallon of gasoline that I burn will spread throughout the entire atmosphere and show up all the way in Antarctica by next year.  What a staggering statement!  And it sticks around in the atmosphere for about a hundred years.  Then it gets absorbed into the ocean—and we know what carbon dioxide is doing there: ocean acidification.  I will offer time for discussion following this clip, so students can really process their impact.  We’ll ponder what emissions we contributed just in the last few hours:  driving or busing to school, etc., as well as days: snowmachining, flying, burning wood, etc.

The Oceans of Climate Change balloon popping video offers a great example of a classroom demo that would be easy to emulate—not much in the way of materials (costs) and yet provides a very clear explanation & visualization of the difference in heat capacity between water and air.  I’ll probably show the YouTube video first, then follow it up with an actual class demonstration (because it’s only a little messy & will leave a lasting impression!).  It will provide a nice segue into our next study. 

Next we’ll explore Water (both liquid & frozen), beginning with utilizing the USGS fill-in-the-blank questions “A drop in the bucket” and “1000 snow flakes.”  These would each make for good introductions to the lesson (“anticipatory sets”):

How much of Earth's water is in the ocean? How much is fresh? How much is in the atmosphere? How much is in lakes, rivers, or underground? How much of Earth's fresh water is stored frozen as permafrost and glaciers?


A Drop in the Bucket
How would you estimate the planet's supply of water is distributed if it were reduced to 1000 drops. Give a try before you peek!

• _____ drops are in the oceans and inland seas
• _____ drops are in glaciers
• _____ drops are in ground water and soil moisture
• _____ drops are in the atmosphere
• _____ drops are in lakes and rivers
• _____ drops are in all living plants and animals
• 1000 drops total.

(Find answers at USGS,Water on Earth)

1000 Snow Flakes
More than 2/3 of all fresh water on Earth is stored in glaciers. If all present glaciers were represented by 1000 ice snow flakes, how would you estimate the distribution of glaciers on Earth? Give a try before you peek!

• _____snow flakes in Antarctica
• _____snow flakes in Greenland
• _____snow flakes in N. America
• _____snow flakes in Alaska
• _____snow flakes are in Asia
• _____snow flakes in S. America, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, etc., etc.
• 1000 snow flakes total

(Find answers at USGS, Introduction to Glaciers)

I like the “Documenting Glacial Change” screen of actual pictures to compare glaciers now and then—WOW!  It’s remarkable how different and even absent some glaciers are in a relatively short period of time. 

I will then incorporate the “Phun Physics of Phase Change Lab” as it demonstrates all too well what will happen if we lose our Arctic ice.  I also want to use Clay’s analogy from Module VIII:

Our planet uses many of the same tricks that over-heated humans use to cool off. Our circulatory system is like the great ocean currents moving our excess heat to cooler places. We mist and fan ourselves, put on a white shirt and white broad-brimmed hat, or we head for the shade.

Arctic Climate Systems video elaborates quite a bit on the possible outcomes of global climate change into the future, providing some interesting scenarios: significant melting of permafrost causing a “burp” of greenhouse gases, permanent alteration to or even halting the ocean’s currents,  etc.  Each of the TD videos thus far has mentioned the impact to animals (i.e. polar bears need the sea ice to hunt for food) over and over again, but this video actually went into depth about the possible (catastrophic) effects to Earth’s systems in far more detail, which I appreciate, and I think my students will, too.  I’d like to end this topic with a table discussion where paper strips are randomly drawn with each of the above mentioned global climate change outcomes for students to then debate/discuss/consider with one another through dialog.

TD video “How the Arctic Ecosystem Might Change” helped me realize how a system with low biodiversity such as the Arctic really cannot bounce back from change the way a biodiverse system can—that it’s fragile.  I hadn’t really considered the Arctic food chain before, but now in considering it for the first time I can see just how few species do rely on each other for food, so with even a slight change, it can be catastrophic to the ecosystem, and I want to share this perspective with my students.  By now everyone is aware of polar bears losing their habitat.  But the ramifications to this ecosystem can be catastrophic, and I want to be sure they are made aware of this.

And, I have to finish with viewing: The methane lighting on lakes, because what kid wouldn’t pay attention to this?!  I’m curious to learn if any of my students have ever had such an opportunity to experience methane lighting on a lake in Northern Alaska. . .

In wrapping up the unit we will revisit our essential question “What Will It Take To Make You Change?” and I look forward to hearing some articulate answers (regardless of the change or not).  I am undecided what method I will have my students use to respond to the essential question—written, verbal, I’m not sure; perhaps an individual speech (no pressure there! Ha!).  I guess I have time still to decide.  I will also replay the YouTube Symphony of Science “We Are All Connected” video, because in watching it again myself, I find it has a nice concluding message to leave everyone with.

Module IX

Essential Question:

How are climate, terrestrial ice and Alaskan indigenous cultures all connected?

1.  Explain:  What new learning or reflections have you taken from this module?

I am very impressed by Alaskool.org.  What a wealth of information!  I got caught up reading the “Longest Reindeer Herder,” fascinated by the experiences of the last century in Northern Alaska.  I learned that eating cold food during a particularly cold period can help the body stay warmer than eating warm food—very interesting.  I’m looking forward to trying it out sometime.  Though I can’t imagine it’s easy eating really cold or frozen food when my body is already feeling cold from frigid temperatures. . . we’ll see if I can muster the courage to try my experiment.  I forwarded this link to my dad, as he loves learning about Alaska Natives and especially their historical perspectives, so I think he’ll really get a kick out of this.

I really enjoyed reading the NASA Antarctic Ice Bridge Blog.  It provided a lot of different images, including flight sights as they flew around Antarctica & experiences images, which I always appreciate in order to get a better understanding of their perspective.  It sounds like they had a rough go of their mission this year, with a lot of typical frustrations happening all at the same time (illness, car accidents, weather delays, plane part delays).

The Climate Change TD video really shocked me—I did not know that the last warming period was really quite dramatic and short.  I had assumed (or maybe learned in a classroom years ago?) that it had occurred over a long period of time.  Maybe only 20 years?  Wow!!!  That’s REALLY fast! 

In this video, the scientist Kendrick Taylor talked about how some “trigger” can be tripped to cause quite a change in climate—it made me think of The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, which is an excellent read in my opinion.  It covers a variety of topics all relating to the same idea: there’s a magic number for things to drastically change or “tip.”

I like the “Documenting Glacial Change” screen of actual pictures to compare glaciers now and then—WOW!  It’s remarkable how different and even absent some glaciers are in a relatively short period of time.  I know growing up with the Mendenhall glacier out our window receding each year has been noticeable, but some of these like Muir, for example, are virtually gone now and that’s just been in 70 years.  This is definitely an example of a ‘picture tells a thousand words.’

The Fastest Glacier TD video is quite amazing.  I can’t hardly believe the Jakobshavn Glacier is traveling 113 feet per day—that’s just crazy fast!  This video mentions global warming as the likely culprit for the increase in movement over the last several years.  A comment made at the end of the video states “what scientists do know is that changes that once occurred over hundreds or thousands of years are today taking place right in front of their eyes” and it got me pondering the idea of climate vs. weather.  We have understood the two to be dependent on time differentiating them from one another—but perhaps these two are melding or overlapping as climate changes are occurring much more rapidly than in the recent past?

Thanks so much for the Extreme Ice Survey!  I LOVE the time-lapse photography of the Mendenhall.  That’s just in a year and a half—amazing.  I wonder just where the camera was placed?  I spent a lot of time out there as a kid, so it’s kinda cool to think of these guys out there studying “my backyard” so to speak.  Ha!

The methane lighting on lakes is pretty cool!  I wonder if that’s possible on the lake near my parents’ cabin outside of Minto (northwest of Fairbanks). . .  I’ll have to ask my dad to try it when he goes there in February.

2.  Extend:  How might you use this week’s information and resources in your lessons?  What other resources can you share?

I can see myself using the USGS fill-in-the-blank questions about sea levels rising due to glaciers melting along with “A drop in the bucket” and “1000 snow flakes.”  These would each make for good introductions to the lessons (“anticipatory sets”).

3.  Evaluate:  How useful, insightful or relevant are this module’s information and resources?

I liked this module a lot—several of the resources struck a personal connection for me, which is in part the point of this class (to make cultural/personal connections for Alaskans).  I am hopeful to do the same when developing my final project for my students.  I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head, so I need to pin down just exactly what it is I’m going to do and what resources I am actually going to use. . . in the next week.  There is so much to choose from with the 9 modules!  Yikes!

I also love that you shared a personal picture, Clay!  I haven’t seen you in 15 years or so; it was great to see how youthful and fun you still are—are you standing on an iceberg yourself??? 

It’s hard to believe this is the beach in Prince William Sound in June:  that's a lot of snow! 

3 Colleagues 

Lila Lee Little’s blog provided a picture of her baby, Sawyer David Little.  What a doll!  Thanks so much for sharing a picture with us all. 

Tyler Orbison shared some cool pictures of him on the Mendenhall and aerials in his blog.  That must have been a fun experience!  You are just about directly over my parents’ house where I grew up in the picture taken from the Temsco helicopter.

Kathy East referenced an example of evidence for rapid climate change occurring in the past with mastodon and mammoth remains being found together in Colorado, which is interesting.

Module VIII

How are Arctic sea-ice, climate and culture all connected?

1.  Explain: What new learning or reflections have you taken from this module?

From NASA’s 2009 polar crash test, I was surprised to learn water was found on the moon—surprised it hadn’t been found earlier, but also surprised that it’s there in the first place.  Now my curiosity is peaked with the scientists’ theories as to just how it got there.  

I read “The Climate Fix” book summary by Brendan Barrett, “What kind of climate fix would you prefer?” in a link from Our World 2.0 and am inspired to read it.  I have found this Explore Alaska course to be mighty depressing in its focus on global warming & climate change, and am hopeful that maybe there is some solution?  I am looking forward to some free time in the future (When will that be, you ask?  June, perhaps?!), and will keep my eyes out for this book.  Has anyone else read it? 

As far as the website, it looks very inspiring for a class.  I am considering this as a guide for developing a 7 week unit “Environmental Science” and choosing several of the article links to use.  I will implement this in the final project, I think.

The TD video “Hunters Navigate Warming Arctic” displayed Jamese Mike’s notes written in what I presume to be Inuit.  I didn’t realize there was a written Inuit language—I thought it was strictly an oral or spoken language.  It looked to be very image or picture-like, reminding me of Egyptian hieroglyphics.  Very interesting!

Arctic Climate Systems video elaborates quite a bit on the possible outcomes of global climate change into the future, providing some interesting scenarios: significant melting of permafrost causing a “burp” of greenhouse gases, permanent alteration to or even halting the ocean’s currents,  etc.  Each of the TD videos thus far has mentioned the impact to animals (i.e. polar bears need the sea ice to hunt for food) over and over again, but this video actually went into depth about the possible (catastrophic) effects to Earth’s systems in far more detail, which I appreciate.

TD video “How the Arctic Ecosystem Might Change” helped me realize how a system with low biodiversity such as the Arctic really cannot bounce back from change the way a biodiverse system can—that it’s fragile.  I hadn’t really considered the Arctic food chain before, but now in considering it for the first time I can see just how few species do rely on each other for food, so with even a slight change, it can be catastrophic to the ecosystem.

2.  Extend: How might you use this week’s information and resources in your lessons?  What other resources can you share?

I will definitely use the “Phun Physics of Phase Change Lab” in my classroom, as it demonstrates all too well what will happen if we lose our Arctic ice.  Yikes!  Too scary.

3.  Evaluate:  How useful, insightful or relevant are this module’s information and resources?

Like past modules, the information overall was very valuable for my knowledge & learning but specific to what I teach, it is less appropriate.  I find myself applying this course to my daily thoughts a lot when it comes to human impact—I am constantly mentally processing this!  It’s overwhelming, but important awareness on my part, nonetheless. I keep thinking about our responsibility in all of this & how we aren’t really changing or improving our behaviors: great—companies make us feel better about buying their “green” products, but really all we are doing is kidding ourselves.  There’s another plastic bottle; there’s another car produced (though it may be more fuel efficient, there are still all the parts produced in order to manufacture it). Ugh! 

And spending last week in Hawaii (we flew to Honolulu & spent 9 days in Ko Olina, about 30 minutes outside the city) really got me thinking about this disconnect people living in warmer climates around the globe have with the effects of global warming.  ‘So some polar bears and seals might die, so what?’ they might think.  But once people learn the catastrophic effects losing the Arctic’s ice will have on Earth’s ability to thermo-regulate—wow!  What a sharp wake-up-call. 

I was surprised how everyone drives on Oahu—with the warm temperatures year-round I would expect to see more people walking and biking.  Honestly, I think I saw more people ride bikes in Fairbanks in the winter when I lived there than I saw on Oahu last week.  It’s sad, really.

We preferred to go strollin’, swimmin’, and snorklin’ while we were there!

By the way, that’s the ‘Black Pearl’ pirate ship from “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies in the background.  It was harbored in the Ko Olina boat harbor while we there for filming that had been done recently.  Kinda cool!

 

Here is a beautiful Hawaiian sunset. . . ah, the warm breeze of 85 degrees in November.  What a great reprieve from the mundane of home!

3 Colleagues

I visited Konrad Mittelstadt’s blog & was surprised to learn about a permafrost tunnel in Fairbanks.  I lived in Fairbanks for five years while going to college & never knew about this tunnel!  How cool to have toured it.  I’m jealous of you, Konrad!

Alicia Weaver was creative with her name of Module VIII:  “Ice Ice Baby” with a great picture of a helicopter flying by ice in Alaska—TONS of ice, I might add! 

I was just as shocked by “High Levels of PCBs in Breast Milk of Inuit Women in Arctic Quebec” as Lila Lee.  That’s crazy how much higher!  How disappointing that doing what is supposed to be best for a baby (“Breast is Best!”) is really not for them.  The article was published in 1989, so I’m curious how things have changed (perhaps worse, now?).  It gets me wondering about my diet of subsistence, as we eat a lot of Kenai River salmon throughout the year—I’d sure like to know what my blood levels of toxic compounds are (or maybe I don’t. . . ).

 

Module VII

Essential Question: How is Earth's climate connected to its geological, biological and cultural systems?

1.  Explain:  What new learning or reflections have you taken from this module?

I did not know Parrot fish create much of the sand at the bottom of coral reefs from feeding on coral polyps—wow!  I also didn’t know sea cucumbers get algae and organic matter by eating the sand.  Energy Flow in the Coral Reef Ecosystem video provided a lot of vivid sea life images—particularly the chloroplasts close-up on the ruffled sea slug.  What an amazing ecosystem a coral reef is.

I was a little perplexed by the second sentence in this paragraph:

Coal Carbon Cache
Plants take up carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and store it in their tissues. When plants are eaten or die and decay, the solid carbon stored in them is returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

How does the solid carbon return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide?  Is it off-gassing in swamps?  Or when bodies decay, they produce gases—is that an example of carbon dioxide being produced?

The Nova/Frontline video clip from TD, Global Warming: Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect really made an impact with me.  A gallon of gasoline that I burn will spread throughout the entire atmosphere and show up all the way in Antarctica by next year.  What a staggering statement!  And it sticks around in the atmosphere for about a hundred years—I did not know this.  Then it gets absorbed into the ocean—and I just learned what carbon dioxide is doing there: ocean acidification.  This is all quite depressing.  The infrared image of CO2 causing the scientist’s face to disappear is a great visual.

I had to chuckle at the question “Why so many engineers?” in the category of US climate skeptical scientists by field—my husband is a civil engineer.  Hello!  Engineers build, construct, and develop land into buildings and roads and cities.  I was not shocked in the least! 

I love that Capturing Carbon from the atmosphere stemmed from Lackner’s daughter’s science experiment—how cool is that?!  She must be one smart cookie.

2.  Extend:  How might you use this week’s information and resources in your lessons?  What other resources can you share?

The Elements: Forged in Stars TD video provided the best explanation I’ve ever seen of the formation of new elements.  It made the periodic table a lot less daunting.  I think this video would definitely be useful if I ever teach the subject of chemistry or Earth science, especially coupled with The Origin of the Elements. 

The TD video, Global Warming, The Physics of the Greenhouse Effect starts with a question that permeates on the Kenai Peninsula: “Why should adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere be cause for alarm?”  I struggle as a teacher to educate this population on “green” subjects, because they balk at such topics.  “Blasphemy!” they cry.  When a significant percentage of the local people work in the oil industry, their children have been raised to ignore the negative consequences of consuming oil, and even disagree with the physical impacts, as though they aren’t even occurring.  Talk about looking at life through rose-colored lenses!  This video may help me in tackling environmental subjects, as it might get my students to listen.  Maybe.

The car analogy for greenhouse gases in the TD video Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect is a great demonstration—I think it would be a helpful example for students to better understand how greenhouse gases really do have an effect.  We all hate being in an unconditioned car on a hot sunny day with the windows rolled up!  I expect I would use this analogy either in discussion or show the video in an environmental class. 

The video also mentions sources of methane—even rice paddies?  I now am going to feel guilty when eating beef and rice?  OMGoodness.

3. Evaluate: How useful, insightful or relevant are this module’s information and resources?

As in past modules, much of this information was not directly useful for the classes I currently teach.  However, that by no means suggests this wealth of knowledge wasn’t valuable to me as a life-long learner and responsible citizen of Earth.  I am definitely reflecting a lot on the Carbon Connections section especially, as it more directly hits a nerve.  Overall this week’s module was the most depressing so far—I’m left with a strong sense of no way out.  It’s frustrating to hold the knowledge but lack the power to make positive impactive changes.  And in some regard, do I want to change my behavior?  I LOVE to snowmachine!  The government has taken steps to reduce emissions, but gas is still being used.  Period.  Can I give up my passions?  Can society give up so much of what (media) it has determined necessary?  I'm not sure.  I'll just toss and turn over this tonight & not get restful sleep, feeling guilty. . . 

But I did enjoy riding Saturday in the Caribou Hills--the snow was superb!

3 Colleagues

I visited Dave Sather’s blog again this week & found his Carl Sagan’s Cosmos video to be a great summary of life’s history on Earth.  It’s fun to ponder what it would be like on our planet if evolution had taken a different path!

Thanks for the recommended read, Konrad Mittelstadt.  “The Firecracker Boys” sounds interesting (and scary!).

Kathy East had some great pictures—the one of the “lobster” got a real chuckle out of me!  I love to dress my dogs up each Halloween, too.

Module VI

Essential Question:
How are the Earth, atmosphere and cultures all connected?

1.  Explain:  What new learning or reflections have you taken from this module?

I did not know industrial pollutants bio-accumulate in the fat of arctic animals.  But then, am I surprised?  No.  It’s depressing.  I just recently went all-organic with my body products: shampoo, soap, moisturizer, deodorant, etc.—what a learning curve for me!  I’m finding out a lot about what those chemicals are that we can’t even pronounce on the ingredients list of so many body products.  It’s appalling.  Some of the ingredients are manufactured outside the U.S. because the chemicals used to make them aren’t even allowed in our country.  Yet they’re allowed on our skin and in our mouths.  Would you believe one of them is a common ingredient in most deodorants (even the ones who claim aluminum free)? 

But will we ever really get away from industry & pollution?  I really wonder. . . I know what I love to do for fun, and it requires fuel & lots of plastic!  I know how I get to and from work everyday: drive!  I know production and materialism is paramount in our (western) culture—can we really overcome it?  I’m not so sure.  I just have so much inner conflict about what we should be doing vs. what we are doing everyday.  Should I recycle?  Yes, but then again, I’ve been to a Nascar race and I’ve seen how much garbage accumulates from one event gathering 70,000 people together. And the sheer quantity of tires—hundreds of tires are used & replaced in just a couple of hours.  It’s overwhelming & I feel so bad about it.

I’m a bit concerned about this statement: “It is doubly ironic that those who are the least culpable for creating pollution and who live closest to the land and subsist most directly from their immediate environment, are most at risk for suffering the effects of industrial pollution.”  I don’t know of an Alaska Native village that exists & subsists without creating or contributing to the pollution: aluminum boats with outboard motors, snowmachines, atv’s, etc. are a common sight in any village I’ve visited. Granted, I recognize the point here, but I don’t agree with the portrayal of Alaska Natives (or Arctic natives) as completely out of the contribution, too.  Just because the industrial plants are located further south, Alaskans are huge consumers of the materials coming from them. Whether it’s the thermal, moisture-wicking polyester material of our REI gear, the water-proofing layer placed on our outerwear by Dupont so we can hike the pristine wilderness, or the aluminum for our boats to access remote places on the water—we love this stuff, but it is bad news for the environment.  We are the consumers demanding the products producing the pollution.

The Youtube NASA ARCTAS Mission video was quite striking—I replayed the image for myself twice and for my husband a third time just because watching the Arctic ice shrink so drastically over the last few years is unnerving and impressive.  The time lapse video really demonstrates drastic change over a very short period, and in science this is rather unusual. 

The “Gloves” on both sides of the sun, or rainbow effect, is just ice crystals way high up in the ionosphere—what does that mean for weather to come?  I was very intrigued by this “sign maker” from nature according to Oscar Kawagley, an educator from UAF in the Alaska Native Pilots video from TD, but am left wondering what that offers for forecasting the weather.

I visited NASA National Space Science Data Center Image Resources and found myself out of touch with much of what was linked to here.  My strength in science is definitely not space!  But I decided to choose something that struck me as interesting when I started viewing all these images (with Greek names!).  I’ll be honest, I felt like a man viewing a woman’s ultrasound baby picture!  I saw a lot of blobs. . . Anyway, I decided to explore Saturn in depth a bit more on my own while examining the pictures more closely—the photos are really quite breathtaking. 

I am left wondering how on Earth, no, wait—how in the Solar System—did someone figure all this out?!  It’s so amazing to me that there is the wealth of known information out there about Saturn when it can’t even be visited. It’s such an extreme environment: wind speeds of 1800 km/hr, interior pressures and temperatures are beyond what can be reproduced experimentally on Earth (Wikipedia), for example.  Really fascinating.

The Vertical Structure of the Atmosphere is an excellent visual.  It’s an easy-to-interpret representation of multiple aspects of the atmosphere all on one image, which makes it very user-friendly.    

The YouTube video “Reveal Earth’s Atmosphere” provided great video footage; the narration is rather comical, however! I think my students would find it a relevant video, especially with the air surfing.

Another YouTube video that really got me thinking was Making Ice by Boiling Water.  I’m curious what the cost difference would be to use pressure change to freeze our food instead of electricity (or gas, as some people use propane) to drop the temperature of a refrigerator/freezer?  I’m guessing pressure change is the flash-freeze method for seafood? 

2.  Extend:  How might you use this week’s information and resources in your lessons?

I don’t envision using this week’s information and resources in my subjects of math and life sciences, other than in casual conversation or the random questions that sometimes arise from students.  I see this being more applicable is general discussion opportunities & adding to my knowledge base.

3.  Evaluate:  How useful, insightful or relevant are this module’s information and resources?

Overall, I found this week’s module very informative, more from a general learner’s perspective.  I have never been a natural learner when it comes to the physical world of science around us, while my husband is (he just gets barometric pressure, weather change, high and low pressure systems and their effects).  I appreciate this opportunity to improve my understanding of the world around me that I’ve long chosen to ignore. 

As far as the cultural connection, I feel there’s a gap between the native knowledge of the weather & western science’s understanding and predictions:  at least I’m left thinking so—perhaps there really is a strong understanding of the weather and the ability to forecast it in the native cultures of Alaska & the Arctic, but it wasn’t clearly communicated in the video links this week.  Certainly cultures who have survived the most extreme weather on Earth for many generations have weather forecasting skills?  But, maybe this knowledge has been lost like much of the stories with the ancestors who died from viral infections of the early 1900’s.

3 Colleagues

I visited Eric Ellefson’s blog and he found a Stats link which graphs visitors to his blog—it shows an increase of visits on Sundays.  Interesting!

Dave Sather explains a possible theory for the vivid orange background of “The Scream” by Edvard Munch which relates to the atmosphere—I had never heard this before and appreciate the info.

I actually found the ALISON link from Dan Adair’s blog, but it originated from Cheryl’s site.  How cool—an acronym spelled the same as my name!  It seems like a great way to get kids involved in “real science” and teachers, too.

Module V

How are climate, cultures and oceans all connected?

I like this image of global surface ocean currents because of the connected, ribon-like visual aid.
from: spacestation-shuttle.blogspot.com

1. Explain: What new learning or reflections have you taken from this module? 

I was intrigued by the animated image showing Alaska in the Global View of the Seasons and was left wondering why part of Alaska has white representing less vegetation in the area around Cordova/Yakutat area during the summer season?  That seems a bit strange. 

Overall, it's quite striking how much the Northern Hemisphere experiences seasonal changes when compared to the Southern Hemisphere. 

Also, I had heard of the toilet example and was shocked to learn it is not true!  Bummer—it seemed like such a great working example of the Coriolis effect!  Oh well.

2. Extend: How might you use this week’s information and resources in your lessons? 

I like the Interesting Ocean Facts list—I printed it out and hung it up in my classroom today, as it gets everyone thinking . . . especially about the math involved to calculate some of these statistics.

The Oceans of Climate Change video was a great example of a classroom demo that would be easy to emulate—not much in the way of materials (costs) and yet provides a very clear explanation & visualization of the difference in heat capacity between water and air.  Or, I could simply play the TD video for the class, too!  Awesome example!  

I will definitely perform the Destiny of Density Differences Lab (man, I can't even type that without typos!  Saying it is even worse!) with the blue and red food coloring—what an easy and affordable demonstration with a lot learning and discussion potential!  Cool. 

"What Causes Earth's Seasons" You Tube video link provided good visuals of Earth's tilt that I envision using in my classroom.  I just got a SmartBoard hooked up in my room this week, so I'm thrilled to show Google Earth on my widescreen Smartboard to the kids and have them "travel around" the world. 

3. Evaluate: How useful, insightful or relevant are this module’s information and resources?

I really enjoyed the review of science concepts overall, but much of it is beyond where my students are at educationally so I’m still waiting for more appropriate material that I can use . . . Not that this wasn’t good stuff, and a few things are appropriate for my classroom.  But overall this module doesn’t meet my students’ needs very well (think LOW, very low—more elementary and middle school for 17 & 18 year olds).

3 Colleagues
I enjoyed Ernestine Hayes' blog post from last week (Module IV), particularly her point about artificial light.  It's quite a pondering experience to imagine what our lives might be like without artificial light. 

Again, Matt Hunter provides a wealth of science review & trivia for us on his blog that's very educational.  I enjoy reading his blog each week after I complete the Module assignments for all the information he shares. 

Tracy Pulido had me chuckling over her comment about what being a science teacher in "conservative North Pole" might be like--I live in "conservative Kenai" and am a science teacher, to boot. While I haven't found a lot of Palin supporters in my classroom lately, I do find my students are truly uninterested in environmental topics.  Period.  It's as though when this topic is raised they blow it off like I'm speaking heresy.  Quite different from my high school (Juneau) & college (Fairbanks) experience, for sure. Thanks for bringing me a smile!

Module IV

What new learning have I taken from this module?

I did not know about the two different waves of earthquakes:  P waves & S waves (Predicting Earthquakes video)—but having just experienced a local earthquake at the end of school today, it got me thinking more critically about earthquakes.  Each one I've experienced has felt different & unique.  The video talked about how the P waves are experienced first, but they have less energy while the S waves follow.  The S waves are slower, but are more powerful & that has often been my experience in feeling earthquakes—except for today's quake.  It was really instantaneous & somewhat powerful followed by the subtle waves afterwards.  Was that because the quake originated only 30 miles away?  Curious & interesting.

I was really interested in what a "smoot" is—quite a fun story!  I like stories such as this—history built right into a science lesson so that it all has meaning!  Thanks for the little tid-bit.  I was left wondering, how in the world did Google folks know to incorporate smoots into Google Earth's measurement???  Crazy!

I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't know that Augustine is on its own island and I live just across the inlet!  And I wasn't aware that Alaska is home to 80% of the US' volcanoes.

How can/will I use this week’s resources and/or others in my community in my lessons?

I can definitely see using Real-Time Earthquakes in my classroom:  the first thing I wanted to do was check and see if today’s earthquake showed up or how long it takes—sure enough, there it was:  4.4 magnitude.  It was a decent quake and very nearby!  We’ll have a fun time checking local earthquakes out using this resource.

In general I have found these Teacher Domain video links very helpful in adding to my virtual library of classroom resources—many of them I don’t have specified to a particular lesson, per se, but I consider them valuable for future units that I have yet to dream up.  I get bored teaching the same lessons over, so I’m constantly developing new units/lessons and these Teacher Domain videos are an invaluable resource for me to rely on.  I really appreciate this exposure to what it has to offer.

How useful, insightful or relevant are this module’s information and resources for me?

As I mentioned above about P & S waves, living in Alaska we experience earthquakes all the time—so often I frequently don’t notice them or wake for them in the middle of the night.  But learning about the different waves and the ability to notify the public about an event 10 seconds out is really valuable, especially living ½ mile from Cook Inlet where the consequence of a large earthquake—tsunami or tidal wave—is very plausible.  I often envision such an event in my mind and imagine if time would slow enough for me to load my daughter, dogs, and cat into the car and allow us to drive away, would we really make it before the water came?  And would no one else in our neighborhood know, or would the streets be suddenly jammed with traffic?  Or would we load into our boat (the cat would simply cooperate here, I’m certain!) unhook the boat from the trailer, hoping/praying the wave would simply lift us up gently and push us inland and back without any harm, much like in the You Tube video of Lituya Bay, “BBC Nature: Mega Tsunami-Alaskan Super Wave-Amazing Survival.” 
 

3 Colleagues

I really enjoyed reading Matt Hunter’s “New World” vs. “Old World” blog, thanks to Clay’s suggestion.  What an anthropology review!  I wholeheartedly agree with his quote from Frederic Chaffee, Director VM Keck Observatory: “It’s very easy in science to become completely absorbed in what we’re doing.”  I get completely absorbed in what I’m doing whether it’s teaching science or taking care of my one year old—I have forgotten a lot of human history over the years and appreciate the mini lesson.  I was left wanting to hear more from him on Alaska—maybe we’ll get that next week. . . 

Janet Reed’s blog has a couple of great photos—I’m very jealous of the snowfall in Valdez last year.  Five feet in one dump is amazing!  I bet that kept you busy!  And the plane’s dashboard picture with the “never” sunset and “never” sunrise is great!  Alaska is known for its extremes, for sure. 

Doug Armstrong has posted some incredible photographs of Volcanos from the "ring of fire"--they are absolutely breathtaking!  I drive by Mt. Redoubt every day, but rarely does it look as gorgous as his photo depicts.  Definitely worth seeing his pics. 

Module III

Module III:  The Landscapes of Life

This week, I really enjoyed the Cultural Connections section the most—all the videos were useful in sharing village stories.  I love “watching” as opposed to just reading text—I am a very visual learner, so the images combined with the audio is very helpful.  (One correction, though:  Fairbanks is on the Tanana River which connects downriver to the Yukon. . . ).  I was really impressed at the fish species ID by the biologist when they were just minnows —wow!  Those fish were less than 2 inches long!  That’s learned skill. 

The “Spirit of Subsistence Living” made me want to get up from my computer and go outside!  While I appreciate the resources provided in this class, this video absolutely made me want to do what the Natives were/are doing:  go outside and experience this the “natural” way myself instead of reading, watching, and typing all afternoon and evening.  That being said, I think I will keep my post brief this week and do just that with my 1 year old before our evenings  are shrunk to nothing but darkness.  Same with my kids at school—we need to get outside before ice & snow hit and appreciate Alaska’s fall season.

I didn’t experience the same “ah, ha” as last week, but this module was noticeably shorter, too.  I think overall I just felt a strong sense of pride that I have many of the same or similar experiences as our Alaska Natives.  Growing up here and living a subsistence lifestyle in a remote, one-room cabin for 4 months every winter with my parents and brother 20 miles from Minto (Athabaskan village North of Fairbanks), I really can appreciate what the land has to offer.  Accessible only by plane, dog team or snowmachine, this upbringing was unique and my fondest memories growing up without a doubt came from this time and place with my family. 

The Cabin at Lynx Lake

And now, as an adult I fish and we consume a lot of salmon, shrimp, crab and halibut as well as berries (Alaskan blueberries are my daughter’s absolute favorite!).  But doing this seems somehow different.  Hauling water from a lake & boiling it on the wood stove prior to drinking and cooking; dog mushing as a child zipped up completely inside the sled while my parents trained dogs for the Iditarod; eating beaver tail and beans—these experiences are something I cherish from my childhood, yet I worry my daughter will not get that, even when we go camping, fishing/shrimping/crabbing or stay at our nearby cabin on the Kenai Peninsula.  Somehow driving/boating to it & having all the urban conveniences of home takes away from the spirit of true subsistence, it seems.  I think Native Alaskans really have had something special.  Do they sense the same loss as I when they see their children and grandchildren utilizing more Western means of accessing and using the land, I wonder? Nonetheless, I still deeply enjoy exposing my daughter to nature by experiencing it as best we can, so here we are:

Prince William Sound 2010

Big Shrimp!  Yum!

Skiing last spring

I like to ski in the nearby swamp after school—the snowmachiners pack me a trail :-)

Landscape Forces provided some useful tools for in the classroom—I may consider using them when I teach environmental science next spring.   Rock Cycle Animation and Mountain Maker, Earth Shaker were decent, but perhaps a bit elementary for high school students (their attention span for this would be too short, I suspect).  But Pangaea “Plate Tectonics: An Introduction” is perfect.  Short, sweet, to the point and visually memorable.  I will definitely use this in the future.  Upon reading the intro to “Tectonic Plate Movement in Alaska” I was thrilled to learn about “the surprising finding that there are still aftershocks being measured decades after the 1964 earthquake.” But upon watching the video, nope, that was the extent of the learning.  What, how, why?  None of these were discussed.  I was bummed.  But it is cool to know that aftershocks are still being measured, I suppose.  I’m just a “who, what, where, why, when?” kind of person. 

I loved hearing about Dave’s “WTH” moment in college—that was great!  Thanks for sharing.

Cheryl’s picture of her father-in-law standing up to his elbows in a crack left by the 1964 Earthquake is incredible! 

Thank you for the video link Living on the Coast, Alicia.  I enjoyed seeing Nanwalek, a community in my own school district and just across the inlet from Kenai, but a place I’ve never visited.  It got me thinking, how exactly do the Natives get a sea otter?  They’re pretty big!  And the portion on New Bedford, Massachusetts was fun—what great accents they have!  I loved the pronunciation of scallops.  I have never heard it spoken that way before.  Fun!  But not that work schedule, whew.  Those are hard, long hours at sea.