Under Devils Thumb - The Cryosphere in Southeast

Here in rainy Southeast Alaska we probably take our water for granted. With over 100 inches of precipitation per year, micro climatic changes do not seem readily apparent. The snow capped mountains of the Coast Range are a visual indicator of the geological/hydrological processes of the cryosphere, a visual laboratory observed right from our classroom window. Water and ice are the reason this community is located where it is: abundant stream filled with salmon and glacial ice used for early cold storage facilities. It is not an uncommon sight for icebergs to follow the tides and wind right into the Wrangell Narrow and end up high and dry on the beach in front of your home.

This weeks module, filled with more information than any digital immigrant can possibly digest, hinted that climate events can occur quickly, sometimes as rapidly as 1 to 3 years. The TD video Climate Change suggested that if a particular critical threshold is crossed, the result can trigger sudden changes in the climate. These "triggers" are undefined except for the example of dramatic changes in greenhouse gasses.

Using the Alaska Climate Summaries site I was able to compare the period 1949 - 1983 to 1983- 205. Historical data show a 1.9º increase in the average high temp, a 1.2º increase in the average low temp and a nearly 45 inch decrease in average winter snowfall. Overall this seems rather substantial, especially when combined with data from further north. My students (5th grade) are currently working on a project to write a synopsis of climate data for Petersburg to be added to the Petersburg Wikipedia page. We were going to use Weather Underground but now I am planning on adding this information into the mix. This project not only helps us define what a wiki is and it's value, but it will allow us to take a peak at this data in the context of a real project and possibly look for correlations with other geo and climatic phenomena.

The dramatic changes in glaciers is the theme of the Extreme Ice Survey. James Balog and his team have mounted time lapse cameras to capture real time movement of glaciers across the planet. Added as a layer to Google Earth, it becomes a powerful teaching tool in any classroom. Here in Petersburg, our high school has implemented their own version of the Extreme Ice Survey.

Beginning in 1983, lead by geology teacher, Paul Bowen, groups of Petersburg high school seniors have been surveying the face of the Le Conte Glacier, located approx 15 miles south of town. The project web site, linked through the district web page includes maps, photos and videos, including a short synopsis by the current instructor, Vic Troutman. This is a powerful learning experience for all who participate and is another instance of students doing real science.

On Thin Ice

This week we added another strand to the web of systems that allow this planet to function. The connections continue.

The cryosphere, that part of the earth covered with snow and ice, has a function that is little appreciated by most living in the mid and low latitudes. But the fact of the matter is that the ice caps serve as the “canary in the coal mine”, crucial indicators of the health of the entire planet. From the TD video The Cryosphere: The Arctic : “Because of the interrelationships between the cryosphere and other parts of the Earth system, any change in the cryosphere will have implications for climate worldwide.” Atmospheric and thermohaline circulation patterns affect all of us, not just residents of the far north. Extreme changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level, and seasons have profound effects on culture, economy, politics, and lifestyles across the globe... maybe the reason for the title of the image below:

The Arctic is the early warning, the health barometer for the planet. Whatever happens in the world occurs here first. If you wish to see how healthy the planet is, come here to take its pulse. (Sheila Watt- Cloutier).

This quote is a lead in to the cultural videos from this weeks module. Shishmaref is just one of many communities dealing with extreme erosion problems in connection with climate change.

We also learned of the thinning of the ice, the skewing of the seasons: shorter winters, longer summers, and changes in the biotic composition of the ecosystem. Far removed from mainstream culture, native communities struggle with the rapid onset of multiple ecological catastrophes.

The upside to this is the resilience of the people like Sheila Watt-Cloutier, and groups like the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the 2009 Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change and their willingness to confront climate change on a global stage.

Finally, this weeks module was filled with great “hands on” experiments to compliment some abstract physics concepts such as transfer of energy, the albedo effect, and volume displacement of ice. These are excellent activities, as are many of the Digital Bits experiment. Some of the material in this module is outside the scope of my science curriculum but I am finding it so engaging that I am envisioning ways to incorporate it into my lesson. I might have to turn my “Sea Week” into “Sea Month”.

Big Science in the Northern Latitudes

For the folks conducting actual climate research, it's big math and big science to fit the pieces the puzzle together properly. (Clay Good)

Here begins the deep water. Global climate change can be framed as a complex issue, and indeed, organic chemistry and advanced physics are not for the meek. But just as citizen of our country have a responsibility to understand how our government works, as citizens of this planet, it is our responsibility to understand the basic science that allows us to survive. As teachers, we have the added responsibility of making sure our students are exposed to that knowledge in an age appropriate way. Our job is to get all kids to think like scientists.

This weeks lesson was filled with excellent resources that “even” a 5th grader could understand. One that I found quite intriguing was Soil Microbes and Global Warming. Much to researcher’s surprise, microbial decomposition does not shut down for the long winter as previously thought, and the implication for increasing CO² release is substantial. As everything is connected, this positive feedback loop causes the tree line to migrate north, which further warms the soil by holding snow like a blanket, thus allowing more plant growth and increased soil warming. It is counter intuitive to think that evolutionary plant growth is a “bad” thing but when looked at in the context of climate change, things aren't always what they seem.

All three of the global warming videos from TD: The Physics of the Greenhouse Effect, Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect, and Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect, can be shown to upper elementary kids. Their short format allows for easy playback and lots of discussion. Kids will get excited about scary thermal image of the face disappearing, masked by the added CO² and going out to the parking lot on a sunny day and letting students feel the heat trapped in the car, simple as it is, will make a lasting impression on a student.

So how do we get kids to think like scientists? Most will already come hard wired to it and if we haven’t bored them to tears with textbook lessons, turn them loose with actual research. Allow them to be real scientists. Put a weather station on your campus and start observing. Use Google Earth to visualize global weather patterns. Use Weather Underground (or any other weather site) to compare daily temperatures to you own. Collect data draw conclusions. Check out the link to the Arctic Climate Modeling Project. Here rural Arctic students participate in SNOW: Student Network for Observing Weather. This portal site allows kids to provide data to scientist investigating climate change. The site also has excellent inter-actives and media. A project that my class has participated in is called “Project Budburst”. It is another easy to implement “real world” research project that any age level can participate in. It takes little to no financial investment (although a digital camera is a useful tool for documenting activity) and a small investment of time. Our kids have already seen the early budding of willow and vaccinium due most likely to an El Niño winter.

With the Kyoto Protocol, adopted by nearly every nation but ours in 1997, global warming has been a recognized threat to our well being. Our newest challenge, ocean acidification, has come to the forefront only recently. While rising sea levels from climate change will affect many coastal Alaska communities, the adverse affects of a diminishing ocean ph to commercial and subsistence fisheries could be staggering. Check out this paper from the 2009 Alaska Oceans Science Bowl where high school students studied the impilcations of a changing ocean ecosystem on the fishing communities on Kodiak Island. Real science, done by real kids, here in Alaska.

Connecting with Google

Nothing more visibly captures the connectedness of our planet than atmospheric images of earth and nothing more easily accomplishes this than Google Earth (GE). We use it here in the elementary school on an almost daily basis. Using tools that allow us to write on maps (scribblemaps.com)
or embed video (http://jingproject.com) at spots anywhere on Earth, every point on the globe can become interactive. The essential questions of how the environment shapes our communities and how our communities shape the environment are much easier to picture when you are able to visually see the connections.

One atmospheric phenomenon I explored was the weather patterns across the tropic latitudes. The YouTube video on “global circulation” combined with GE weather overlay clearly shows the subtropical belts of high pressure with their associated dry climates. These large brown bands of arid land that resides around the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn run through Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and much of Australia. This is an incredible image that an atlas just can’t compete with and easily leads to class discussion on environment.

And from these images we can then zoom in and look at cities, towns, and villages and get a better understanding of the cultural difference and similarities we encounter.

There are some limitation with the GE weather overlay, or at least, issues that I could not resolve. GE states that the images are refreshed daily at 9:00 am GMT. It would be nice to have some sort of a time stamp to get an exact time and date. Also, there is no accompanying identification of weather systems to help describe what you are observing. For that reason, visiting MODIS Image of the Day at http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/index.php# is an essential aid to recognizing some of the natural phenomena observed from satellite images. This is an especially good tool for our introductory lesson on basic landforms. The photo below show a major phytoplankton bloom off the coast of British Columbia and the Olympic Peninsula

Across the curriculum, Google Earth has become an indispensable teaching and learning tool. Adding the TD resources from this class, as well as NASA & NOAA video, YouTube, Discovery Education, and other web 2.0 tools, our students are making global connection.