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.