Module VIII: Cryosphere Introduction

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

Explain: What new learning or reflections have you taken from this module?   
 
I had never heard the term cryosphere before taking this class so much of this week's information was new to me.  One fact that really surprised me was that 3/4 of the drinking water in the West comes from snow melt.  I'm not sure where I thought it came from as I know it's a dry environment but that figure was higher than I realized.  I wonder what that figure would be for the dry interior of our state.  We really noticed a difference in vegetation following low snow winters when I lived in the Denali Borough.  I'd love to see data showing snowfall in winter and then vegetation cover the following spring and summer.   

While I didn't find any data connecting snowfall and vegetation in Alaska this week, I did find several good resources to extend my own learning about the cryosphere.  One that I stumbled across is the Exploratorium: the museum of science, art and human perception.  If you go to the Explore tab at the top of this page and then click Earth you'll find a lot of great links relevant to climate change and the Arctic.

This image is from the Ice Stories series on the Exploratorium website.   It is of Canadian scientists working with Innu Elders to learn more about local ecology.  The article is titled  Pairing Scientific and Traditional Knowledge.

The article from which the image above was taken echos the concerns in the Cultural Connections section of this week's module.  So does the video Will Global Warming Alter the Inupiaq Way of Life?  The image to the right is of Daniel Lum who shares a few observations of how climate change has affected hunting in Barrow, the effects this has had on traditional knowledge, and his concern that his children won't be able to "experience what he's known".

The State of the Cryosphere website from the National Snow and Ice Center has more good background information related to this week's module.  The images above are from this website and indicate articles about different forms of solid water, i.e. glaciers, sea ice and snow.  I didn't consider permafrost, frozen lakes or snow as being part of the cryosphere before this week's module.  For some reason, I thought of sea ice, icebergs and glaciers of the poles alone as being part of the cryosphere. 

Extend: How might you use these resources in your classroom and community?
We have a few cryosphere-related inquiry projects happening in our district.  The resources in this week's module would support building background knowledge for these.  Kids in Chenega Bay are doing an inquiry project about whether ground temperatures are warmer or colder in areas with more or less snow cover.  The kids are convinced that more snow cover will make the ground colder.  I'll definitely be sharing resources from this week's module with Chenega teachers.

In Valdez, I'm helping some students put together an inquiry project about snowfall.  They're noticing that the weather can be very different even a short way out of town, just five or ten miles up the road.  So, they're wondering if there's also a big difference in the amount of snowfall in different locations in Valdez.  I'd like to connect this inquiry to a boarder picture of the cryosphere's role in shaping the planet's climate.  Resources like Earth's Cryosphere: The Arctic would help with this.  Arctic Climate System also had great visuals showing how wind and ocean currents distribute heat around the planet.

I would love to later branch out into anthropogenic factors contributing to climate change.  I could use resources like the Earth's Albedo and Global Warming interactive.  The Sea Ice section gives a really good visual of what a 10% decrease in sea ice per decade looks like.   I'd also like to focus on using and analyzing data.  Students will be doing this with the data they collect in their snowfall inquiry, but I'd also like to do so in relation to climate change.  NOAA's Barrow, Alaska Observatory has some almost real time climate data from Barrow.  To the right is a graph showing atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements taken over decades.


Evaluate: How useful/relevant are this module's resources and information?
According to the TD video Earth's Cryosphere: The Arctic, the Bering Sea could be ice free in the summer by the end of this century.  According to Steve MacLean we could lose sea ice within 40-50 years in the Arctic.  If either situation is true then we certainly need to be more aware of how the cryosphere interacts with the hydrosphere and atmosphere to influence our climate.  The resources in this module are certainly valuable in raising this awareness.  Also, considering that we live in a place filled with frozen water, these resources will help students better understand their immediate environment, it's structure and the implications for them of the impending changes to it.

3 Colleagues' Blogs
Below are comments I posted on others' blogs this week:
 
Explore Alaska: I really enjoy your writing style and the way you connect each week's information to your personal observations.  It makes your blog an intriguing read.  Thanks for this week's links.  It's always helpful to have more ways to look at information. 

Indian Crk: Thanks for the link to the flame test.  I never considered that wiki links may have experiments to use in  class.  Anyway, that sounds like a really good one to engage students.  Please don't apologize for the book links; they're great. 

Eric Explores Alaska!: Thanks for the reference to Living Downstream.  I agree that it's a tragedy that people in Alaska are experiencing the negative effects of pollution being produced elsewhere.  Since I live a stone's throw from a refinery and the terminus the pipeline here in Valdez, I'm very concerned about pollution being produced right across the bay here.

I also loved your random observation about homework.

Module VII: Changing Climate Introduction

Explain: What new learning/reflections have you taken from this module?
The Cultural Connections resources were really good reminders of the importance of integrating Western and AK Native scientific knowledge.  Inuit Observations of Climate Change illustrated how indigenous people provide not only local knowledge but "different ways of understanding relationships".  The evidences for climate change that local people brainstormed showed well how local people can observe subtleties that advanced monitoring equipment doesn't detect.  Observations like different types of fish being seen in an area, geese staying for shorter amounts of time in the spring, and slower freeze-ups based on observations of how late into the fall you can still boat, are diverse pieces of information that can't be picked up by instruments alone or during brief visits to an area.

This last point was echoed in Alaska Teens Help Researchers.  When enlisting local help scientists are getting insights and involvement from people for whom a study site is "home and not just a location for field studies".  Often scientists are challenged by communicating with the general public in ways that connect.  This was not the case at all for the students who were involved in the research around Nome and who felt so strongly about using the data they were collecting to preserve their environment.

La'ona DeWilde: Environmental Biologist also speaks to the importance of local knowledge.  She spoke of the vast size of Alaska and how remote and unmapped locations are in our state.  What a benefit to get information from people who live in a place rather than collecting it in compacted trips.  Her study was also a good example of meeting the AFN Board Policy Guidelines for Research which identifies the need to "make research usable and useful at a local level".  Because her research met a community need there was a great interest in the research and ready participation in it.

While viewing this module's Cultural Connections I was wishing that we had seen some of these resources, especially Inuit Observations of Climate Change, in our first module about Western science and traditional AK Native knowledge as these were full of really good, concrete examples of what that difference looks like.

While it was the Cultural Connections section that really made me reflect, I learned a lot from all sections of this week's module.  As I'm just beginning to work with high school students in the area of science, and am removed from college by more years than I'll publish, almost all of the resources in this week's module provided really good background information for me in a context that was compelling.  I'll be using my notes in the future.

Extend: How might you use this week's information and resources?  What other resources can you share?

As I have a phobia of teaching chemistry, I really appreciated the Periodic Table of Elements interactive.  It's really helpful to see the configuration of elements and the Mystery Element feature is a good application of information about how the table is organized.  Another resource I've used for building my own background knowledge is the Stop Faking It! series from NSTA.  There are lots of hands-on applications in the books that could be used with students as well.  In addition to this series, there are many learning modules for teachers and students in the NSTA Learning Center. 

The comments, especially the Twain statistics quote, on Information is Beautiful: Climate Consensus reminded me of the necessity to teach students how to interpret data.  Otherwise, they will be prey to anyone's fuzzy math or manipulation of information.  I can see using data from a site like this to teach those analysis skills.  It could be fun to change graphs units of measure or scales to misrepresent data to prove the point to students to be critical readers.  

I was introduced to a few really good climate related resources lately that I'd like to share.  One is Global Climate Change Interactive Quizzes from NASA.  We just took these quizzes at a district wide inservice and it was hysterical to here teachers critique the quizzes when they entered incorrect answers.  We adults really don't like to be wrong sometimes.  They're pretty quick quizzes and have links to good background information.

Screen shot from Virtual Classroom Resources

Another excellent tool is Virtual Classroom Resources from Unite Us.  Not all of the links are working or complete on this site but there's enough good information and cultural connections to make it worthwhile to be patient with it.  The Warmer Temperatures section of the Ever Present Change Database section has information about how people in Alaska are being affected by climate change.  The video Hunting for Methane with Katy Walter Anthony is one of several excellent ones on the site.  The interview Chief Robert Charlie Talks about the Wind is a wonderful example of indigenous ways of knowing.




Finally, if you are in the Fairbanks or Juneau area and are interested in communicating science with a focus on Ocean Sciences this class may be of interest to you.  Just click on the course flyer link when you get to this page.  It may have been better to include this with Module V but I just received the email.

How useful did are this module's resources and information?

When you live in a place where communities are literally located in the middle of climate change, you don't need to question if this week's modules are useful. 

These images are of Kivalina.  After borrowing the one on the left from my husband, I thought it would be interesting to see it from a Google Earth perspective, see image below.  My husband flies around the state and often sends me pictures of villages that are precariously perched on or right next to peninsulas, rivers or the ocean.  I'd love to know how folks in Kivalina feel about global warming.  It seems that it would be very difficult to doubt it's existence when your life is so integrally connected to the land around you.

3 Colleague's Blogs
I'm trying to get around to diverse blogs but revisited some this week as I wanted to read what others' had to say about this week's module.
    
Alaskanwisdom has excellent classroom ideas I'll definitely tuck in my pocket.  Thanks!  While searching for resources this week I came across a site called Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears you might find interesting.  It's on online magazine for K-5 students.  

I always enjoy reading Alison's blog as she has a great personable voice.  I agree about the Elements Forged in Stars video.  After watching that I now understand what they meant in the music video with Carl Sagan and Bil Nye when they said we're made of stardust.  That phrase surprised and eluded me earlier in this class.  Unfortunately, I also agreed about the depressing nature of much of this module.  The interactive Capturing Carbon: Where do We Put It? was the low point for me as it seemed that any possible solution for reducing carbon in the atmosphere, besides obviously using less fossil fuels, had as many possible dangers as benefits associated with it.


Thanks to Amy for the reminder about how scientists interviewed people who skin and process animals for observations about an animal's overall health.  I was impressed with the diversity of information that could be gathered about climate change from people who live in an area and observe it year round.  Seeing change through the lens of daily activities was also interesting.

Module VI: Atmospheric Systems Introduction

What new learning/reflections have you taken from this module?

In playing around with the Google Earth weather layer, I noticed the webcam layer as well.  On the left, is a screen shot of the weather layer image on Tuesday.  It's hard to see but there are little icons that link to webcams in different locations.  Below is an image of the Valdez webcam on that same day.  We were in the midst of our first good snowfall.  It's handy to have these resources in one place.

In addition to learning about the weather layer in Google Earth and gaining resources for weather-related images, much of the information in the Cultural Connections section was new to me.  I knew about biomagnification, how animals higher up the food chain have higher concentrations of toxins.  I didn't realize that most of those toxins were being carried from lower latitudes north by ocean and wind currents that increased the amount of toxins in the arctic.  Especially alarming was the assertion that Barrow has the highest levels of reactive mercury measured on earth, Contaminants in the Arctic Food Chain.  

I knew about the albedo effect but didn't know about the ice-albedo feedback loop until watching Arctic Haze.  The fact that pollutants are darkening snow and ice and so causing them to absorb more heat is new to me.  I also didn't know that aerosols in the atmosphere were causing more and smaller cloud droplets causing clouds to be more reflective so that they'd heat the earth's surface more here in the north.  All of this information speaks again to how connected we all are on this planet.

How would you use the resources in this week's module in your lessons?  How useful are the resources in this week's module?
As I work more often as a consultant to teachers and don't have a classroom of my own this year, I find that these two questions are often linked as I go through these modules.  This week I'll try answering them in tandem.  I could speak to the value of several of the resources in Module VI but I'll highlight the power of just a few. 

The TD interactive Giving Rise to the Jet Stream is good one for breaking apart all of the factors that cause the jet stream.  It's easier to process these factors (high and low pressure systems, earth's spin, movement of warm tropical air to the poles and back again, etc.) one by one.  Also, seeing created, moving visuals helps deepen understanding.  As textbook images are static, they're limited in helping students understand dynamic forces.

Not all students easily create visualizations of what they read so I really see these interactives as a tool to reach more students.   The TD 5-Day View of the Jet Stream and YouTube video Water Vapor Circulation would be good follow-ups to Giving Rise the the Jet Stream as these images allow you to see the interplay of jet stream forces in action.  Students could discuss factors they think are causing the changes they see happening. 

The Jet Stream and Horizontal Temperature Gradient could help students construct knowledge about how temperatures at the equator affect wind speeds at different latitudes and longitudes.  Textbook learning is so passive and there's real power in students being able to discover concepts for themselves.  Having student use Google Earth's weather layer, or NASA images, to search for weather pattern images could be a good constructivist lesson and a good assessment of understanding.  Speaking of assessments, NASA has some great global warming quizzes that connect to learning about atmospheric systems as information in past modules.

Finally, I appreciate the TD video Ocean Temperatures and Climate Patterns' inclusion again in this module.  It was good to revisit it with eye for atmospheric effects rather than ocean system effects this time.  Having students create a venn diagram to compare oceanic and atmospheric systems would be a good way to help students see the connection between the two systems.

As most of the families I work with use textbook-based programs to teach science, I see these TD resources being really valuable to help deepen their students' learning.  Google Earth will be a great tool to alternately bring that learning home and connect it on a global scale.

3 Colleagues' Blogs
I related to what Dave said on his Explore Alaska blog about meeting many people in Alaska who don't believe global warming is a real phenomenon.  I work with many people who are skeptics.  The free iphone app Skeptical Science was just recommended to me to help when negotiating this issue with students and families.  There is a corresponding Skeptical Science website as well.  I agree with you that I want to be respectful of others' values and opinions; however, I don't want that to diminish teaching opportunities for students.  There's a careful balance to be achieved in many concepts we come across in the classroom.

I, like Dan Adair, was also embarrassed that I hadn't realized that industrial pollutants from the south were being seen in animals here in Alaska.  Especially since I knew that there were high levels of things like mercury in fish in the arctic.  Thanks for the tip on adding external links to Teacher's Domain folders, very helpful.

Like Tyler mentioned on his Alaskanwisdom site,  I also have spent time in and around Fairbanks and easily pictured haze coming from our own car exhaust and wood and coal stoves.  You made a great connection between weather patterns and subsistence when talking about deer hunting. 

Module V: Ocean Systems Introductions

Essential Question: How are climate, cultures and oceans all connected?

Explain: What new learning or reflections have you taken away from this module?
This module, and past modules, are giving me tools to help students see concepts as a part of earth cycles and systmes and how the components of each work together.  Having been educated in a compartmentalized educational system, I think I learned a lot of isolated terms and processes without putting them together and seeing how they interact with one another.  It seems the end goal was to learn material to pass a formatted test.

So it's important that students see how processes like evaporation, condensation, heat capacity, etc. combine to form a cycle, like the water cycle.  Then they can see what that cycle's role is a broader system like the hydrosphere.  Finally, students can build on that foundation to linking earth systems together to see how it's all about energy transfer; the sun's heat and the earth's internal heat driving cycles that move energy and material through the components of the earth system.   

Having more ready resources to help make these connects is very valuable. Also, I don't think we often looked at global patterns and interactions in my own educational past, perhaps because global warming wasn't such a well-known or accepted phenomenon at that time.  It seems we have a much more compelling reason to do so now.

Another reflection that this module sparked was that of the impact of global warming on native Alaskan cultures.  I've thought of the effects on subsistence harvests but I hadn't thought of the impact on traditional knowledge.  In the TD video Global Warming Threatens Shishmaref the point is made that "traditional knowledge about weather patterns and ice conditions has become less reliable due to the accelerated pace of climate change".  Living from the Land and Sea speaks to how subsistence communities abide by certain rules in order to sustain the harvest.  Besides making hunting more challenging and potentially more dangerous, what does this change mean for how knowledge is passed between generations?  Are codes of behavior as relevant in a shifting landscape where subsistence harvests are changing? 
 
Extend: How might you use this week's resources in your lessons?
I can see using YouTube videos like Coriolis Effect and the TD video Ocean Temperatures and Climate Patterns as part of a study of how solar heating, wind, gravity and coriolis effect cause ocean currents.  Other sites I found this week that could help build background knowledge are Oceans Alive: Oceans in Motion and Ocean Motion, from NASA .  

I would want to start these studies with hands-on inquiry.  Oceans Alive has great hands-on ideas that could help students begin asking questions and constructing knowledge about ocean currents.  The TD Interactive Sea Surface Temperatures would be really helpful in teaching students how to observe climate data and pick out patterns.  Graphs like the ones included in this module would also help students learn to analyze data and search for patterns.  Questions generated from this activity could then be answered with the resources mentioned above so the patterns could then be analyzed and explained. 
 
Evaluate: How useful, insightful, or relevant are this module's information and resources? 
I see the videos from this week's module reinforcing and extending learning about ocean systems.  The visuals would help students really see these systems in action.  Seeing features across the globe on Google Earth can add to that experience.  I like Google Earth features like real-time data, historical views and National Geographic article links that can add background information to the images.  Resources from the Cultural Connections section make learning this information relevant especially as the arctic is a place where global warming effects are being seen first and first-hand.

3 Colleagues' Blogs
I like what Eric says in Eric Explores Alaska! about connecting with students' experiences.  He makes great connections between storytelling traditions in similar geographic locations.  Finally, great connections between geography, migration and culture.  

Thanks to Cheryl for the Arctic Time Lapse link on Explore Palmer!  What a great idea to make just such a video with kids in our area.   


Great pictures on Exploring Alaska with Kenai Kathy.  I also love the current events links in the sidebar.  Thanks for sharing how you used Google Earth in tracking crane migration, also a great idea.