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. . . ).