Terrestrial Cyrosphere

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

Explain


Once again, there is some of the information from this module that really stood out to me was logical and not particularly hard conceptually but I never really thought about it.  For example, in the introduction the concept that terrestrial ice is frozen fresh water instead of frozen salt water was discussed.  Even though this makes sense I had never thought about it. 


In the activity Drops in a Bucket with 1000 drops of water I was able to guess pretty close to what the answer was going to be, but it always surprises me.  What most people consciously identify as water, atmosphere, lakes and rivers, and in plants and animals,  only makes up 3 drops.  I also liked the related activity 1000 Snowflakes.  This one really did surprised me.  I had thought there would be more snowflakes in North America.  This is one that I am going to use with my class.

The Teacher Domain video about permafrost was a good reminder that when we are talking about climate change and its effects even a small change in temperature (1.5 degree centigrade) makes a huge difference in the lives of the people.  When they were talking with the residents of Alaska Village and that the lakes were sinking because of the loss of permafrost I had never thought about that.  The ripple effect is amazing.  You start with a degree or two of temperature change, which leads to permafrost loss, which leads to the disappearance of lakes, which leads to habitat loss, which leads to less beaver and ducks that are part of the native food and clothing.  It just continues on and on. 


It also excites me because with new technology we are able to change and adapt what we know.  I think this is a real key to I thought it was very interesting but what worries me is people viewing it and using it as an excuse to be lazy.  If the change we are experiencing now if just a "blip" then why worry.  The graph that they showed was interesting on how dramatic the climate change was 8,000 BC.  Even in the average age of a persons life.


I loved seeing the videos of Dr. Kenji Yoshikawa.  My classes have been doing a service learning project with Dr. Kenji (Tunnel Man) for two years now.  In a previous blog I discussed the GLOBE program.  What I found so valuable about this program, service learning projects, is that students are out doing real science.  They are contributing to a body of knowledge that is useful.  The data that they are taking for Dr. Kenji is very simple yet important.  We have a frost tube that students go out and measure how far down the ground is frozen.  The tools that are needed is a measuring stick.  Last year when the station was put in students were able to help him and kids were surprised at how simple the materials were and yet he continually stressed how important all these stations are to him and his work.


Extend


While I think much of this information is important and could be adapted and used in my classroom I think I would have to start at a much more basic level.  I am amazed at how many students know nothing about glaciers considering they have one in their own back yard.  I have found a few resources that I think would be helpful to lay some basic ground work.  This Teachers' Domain video on glaciers gives some great background information.

From NOAA's Arctic Theme Page I found a link for Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History this page had a ton of information on atmosphere, el nino, and the arctic. There was so much information here that I recommend everyone spend some time.  Lots of great ideas for the classroom.  One of the links that I am going to use in my classroom is the climate roller coaster.  It looks at the idea of climate change in the Arctic but addresses some of the concerns that I expressed earlier about giving people an excuse and being able to say that the change we are experiencing is natural and that our use of fossil fuels etc. is not the problem. 

Another resource that I found is National Snow and Ice Data Center.  There is a great deal of information of Glaciers including the education center.  


Evaluate


The information in this module will be very useful to me.  Currently I am teaching a unit on Earth's Surface.  In January we will be finishing this unit with Glaciers.  I will be using some of these Teacher Domain videos and the other resources to compliment the unit.  One of the frustrations that I have is the limited access to technology that my students have.  The more resources and activities that I find on line the more I feel the limited access my students have to technology.  As educators I think it is our responsibility to embrace the fact that the face of education has changed and is going to continue to do so.  At what point do we allow our students to use their smartphones and other devices to support their education and face the fact that we are losing this battle.  Okay I will jump off my soapbox.


Three Colleagues 


Janet Reed



Tell your husband great picture!  I really liked your activity from NOVA "Whats Up With the Weather".  I am going to use that with my students.  I also really appreciate the comment that you made about active vs. passive learning.  I really enjoyed this module and it is a great reminder as a teacher that we need to have active learning in our classrooms.


Amy Peeke

Amy that you for sharing that video clip.  I am going to try and use it in my class.  Like Carolyn I am shocked about the amount of money that goes into repairing permafrost damage.  Add that to the money spent on moving villages due to water level rise and erosion and it is staggering.  





Cheryl Williams 

Thank you for your blog.  I had never heard of ALISON before and was interested after watching your video to learn more about it.  I am amazed at the opportunities that are available to teachers.  These opportunities allow our students to do real science and to contribute in ways that our teachers never would have dreamed of.  

Climate

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

To address this question we first need to be able to define climate.  This is not as easy as it seems.  There is so much information that is needed to understand Earth's climate and the change in it.

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

One of the most interesting things that I learned about in this module was the role of Cyanobacteria  in the production of oxygen and how it completely changed the atmosphere over 3 million years ago.  It is mind boggling to think that something so small could be responsible for creating oxygen that would allow us to survive on Earth.  Here is an image that show the simplicity of the Cyanobacteria.  Although there are many species most seem to have them same basic appearance.

I also learned a great deal from the Teachers' Domain video the Origin of the Elements.  The idea that the nuclei of hydrogen and helium were created right after the Big Bang really made me think.  I guess I never really thought about it before and assumed that the all elements had just always been there.  Almost a philosophical concept... forget what came first the chicken or the egg it should be what came first the Big Bang or the element.  The cultural connection videos made me think about how the change in the climate affects all parts of life for various native peoples.  Although this is not new information to me I think it sunk in on a deeper level and I realize how complex and far reaching the problem really is.

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

In my years of teaching I have noticed that students often use the words weather and climate interchangeably.  Students need to have a strong basic understanding of this concept before they are ready to learn about climate change.  While reviewing various resources of Teachers' Domain I came across this resource by NOVA explaining the difference between atmosphere and climate that I think will be very useful.  This video not only does a great job at that it also connects with many of the other topics and ideas that we have discussed in this class.

Biogeochemical process are hard for students to grasp.   Lots of information that students will need to know including a very basic understanding of elements and cycles.  One activity that I think is useful in the classroom to teach about elements is called Adopt an Element.  This activity comes from the The Science Spot  website that has lots of other great ideas for teaching basic chemistry.  I found an image for the carbon cycle on Teachers' Domain that I like more than the one I usually use because it fluxes in the system.  This would lend itself to some great discussion about why.

While I was looking around I found this great video on climate as a system.  This does a great job of tying together lots of different concepts that deal with climate.  At the end it gives a great introduction to the idea of climate change.

As educators I believe it is our responsibility to present and discuss controversial issues with our students.  I found a great website that presents the opposing sides to the climate change controversy.  This information would be a great place to have kids start researching the issues and follow up with a Socratic seminar.

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

I think this weeks module's information will be very relevant to my classroom.  Some of the resources are too complex for my middle school students but the video's lead me to other links and ideas on Teacher's Domain as well as other sites.

Three Colleagues 

Dan Adair 

Dan, thank you so much for the illustration looking at the change in temperature in the various layers of our atmosphere.  I was really surprised when I looked at it especially in the upper layers further away from earth.  I am going to have my students think about and hypothesize what they think it will look like and then show them this.  I am going to have to investigate a bit further.

Marilyn Burgess

Thanks for the reminder that we can have fun in our classrooms while learning in the Element Song.  I tried to connect to it from your link and it brought me to something else.  I was able to find it though.  Here is a you tube video of the song.

Winsor Demore

I agree with you when you say Atmosphere is hard to teach.  It is not something that I have a personal interest in and I often wonder how this plays out in my teaching.  However I have found it a great time to use data in my class.  Kids can look at long term data pertaining to one place or they can look at data over places very different from their own.  Let me know if you have any great ideas that I can use!

Atmosphere

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

When teaching the content of Atmosphere to middle school students I have found it most helpful to start with weather.  All students come into my classroom with some knowledge of weather and how it affects their daily lives.  There are some great websites and resources that are available.  One of my favorites is called the GLOBE program.  GLOBE stands for Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment.  I have had the privilege of being involved with this program for many years both as a classroom teacher and as a teacher trainer for them.  I have even been able to train teachers on an international level in multiple countries including Kazakhstan and Madagascar.  In the atmosphere section of GLOBE kids learn about various topics including temperature, relative humidity, clouds, barometric  pressure, and water vapor, just to name a few.  Besides activities that allow kids to learn about these topics there are also protocols that allow kids to submit their local data to a website for others to use.  It is also a wonderful place to get data to have kids analyze from all over the world.  I encourage everyone to take some time and explore the website.


During the cultural connections section the bush pilots in the Arctic Haze video reminded me of the importance of observation skills.  About a mile from my house sits the Mendenhall Glacier which is receding at an alarming rate.  It is estimated that within only years it will become a hanging glacier.  For some strange reason The Ocean Temperature and Climate Patterns Teachers' Domain video made me think about extensions and how  a change in one or both of these would affect various fisheries in Alaska.  We know that different fish and marine mammals are very sensitive to even small change.  This would be an interesting project for kids to research.  How

There were many great resources in this weeks module, some that I will use in my classroom and some that I think are at too high of a level.  For example, I found the Making Ice Boiling Water You Tube video interesting although I think for middle school students the content might be too much.  It reminded me of the question  does warm water freeze faster than cold?  This is a great question to pose to students when teaching the scientific method.  It is easy for students to form a hypothesis, and design an experiment.  It also is a great diving board for lots of other topic including evaporation, convection, and heat transfer.  Another great resource this week was the vertical structure of the atmosphere interactive site on Teacher's Domain.  I really appreciate anything that kids can interact with.  The Phun Physics Phase Change Lab would be way too much for my students although I did enjoy looking at it.  There is a great website called Chem4Kids that does a great job of taking pretty complex concepts and breaking them down to a level appropriate for middle school.  I find that students have a hard time comprehending things like molecules since they can't see them.  Visuals, like the one below help students understand.

 3 Colleagues

Amy Peeke

I agree with Amy when she wrote about how scary it was that the bush pilot Dennis Miller could see the change in the density and frequency in the Artcic Haze. 

Alison Larson

I agree with what you said Alison about everyone being a contributor to the problem.  We all share this problem and it really does not good to point fingers at one another.

Carolyn Rudzinski

Carolyn your picture of the Fox River captured me.  My grandmother grew up on the banks of the Fox and told us many wonderful stories and took us there to visit.  It took me back to a wonderful time.  Thanks!

Module 5

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

Growing up in the middle of the United States left me with little or not knowledge about oceans except for the brief vacations, and what my various science teachers decided was important for me to know.  They say that experience is the best teacher and I learned a few lessons when I moved to Alaska fresh out of college armed with a degree in biology.  The first lesson was to respect the tide and learn to live by it.  This lesson came after pushing a Boston Whaler up a shallow slough which had been a part of the ocean when I left.  Out of necessity I quickly learned how to live with the ocean.  

There was a great deal of scientific information this week.  I really enjoyed the various resources that were included.  Some of them I will plan to use in my class and others were interesting because they lead me to different resources that will be valuable in future lesson plans.  For example, after viewing the youtube video What Causes Earth's Seasons I found a different video that I thought would be more appropriate for middle school students Why Does the Earth Have Seasons.  It really is almost overwhelming the amount of resources that are available.  Time would get away from me as I went from one resource to another, leading from one topic to another.  Seasons are one place where there is a great deal of misinformation and misunderstanding.  Students, and many adults, often think that it is colder in the winter because we are further away from the sun.  I think the above resources will be valuable to help with this misconception.

Latitude and longitude is a hard thing to teach kids.  I have just finished a unit in my classroom looking at the surface features of the earth.  After reviewing the district science curriculum I realize that by 8th grade they should have been introduced and taught these concepts 3 time in science and social studies.  I am always amazed how confused kids are.   I wonder if maybe teaching them one at a time would be a good idea.  After watching going over this weeks module and thinking about the importance of latitude on seasons, weather, etc I think maybe teaching about latitude would be really helpful giving them and then later teaching about longitude.  Unfortunately it is too late for this year but next year I am going to focus on latitude.  It will be interesting to see if it helps.

As a district and a building we are focusing on Math and Language Arts.  I must admit this is extremely frustrating as a science teacher but, that is a different story.  My task this year has been to focus on reading and writing skills in science.  One of the cultural connections that I see is not only the scientific Native Ways of Knowing, but also the myth's and legends that surround various scientific phenomenon.  There are many great resources that I found but the most helpful one is Native Languages.  You are able to search this sight by either phenomenon or by culture.

The cultural connection were very interesting.  Lately in the news we have heard a great deal about the loss of ice and its affect on the polar bear population and other animals.  It wasn't until this weeks videos and information that I really stopped to think about the affect of this one the communities.  This following video about whaling also made me think about issues that might be controversial.  What issues are facing southeast communities and villages?  One issue that I can think of that might be of interest is subsistence.

This month's NSTA magazine Science Scope is has a great activity called Save the Penquins: Teaching the science of heat transfer through engineering design.  I think
As I mentioned above one of the things that I have found valuable in the past few weeks is the various paths that I have traveled looking at all the different resources.  One of these paths this week took me to the Pacific Gyre.  The Pacific Gyre is a garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean that is estimated to be anywhere from twice the size of Texas to as large as the continental United States, depending on the source.  Below is a picture of it.

 Three Colleagues

Sabrina Sutton

I really enjoyed reading Sabrina's life experience and her enthusiasm for place-based learning.  She also turned me on to a great resource called The Alaska Tsunami Education Program.

David Wages

Like David I also have taught that the Coriolis Force incorrectly.  It made me really wonder what else I have learned and taught wrong.  It did make me do some additional research and it seems that at one point it really was believed.

Nick Pader

I was caught by Nick's picture of the sunrise in Barrow.  I  can't imagine how exciting that must be.  He later went on to say that people from the village do not even get excited about that moment.  Not me, I get excited if I see the sun even for a brief moment during the course of my day.  

Catastrophic Events and Culture

How do stories of cataclysmic events help inform students about geosciences and cultures?

On January 12, 2010 I walked into my classroom and threw my lesson plans in the trash.  You see I teach Earth science and was in the middle of teaching the Catastrophic Event unit which I had spent many hours with various colleagues designing the summer before.  We had all these great articles, experiments, and demonstrations that would teach students all about earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis.  On January 11th a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti.  As a classroom and as a nation we read articles, watched the news, and waited.  In school we learn about teachable moments and this is one that I will remember forever.  Technology changed the way we interact, learn, and respond to disasters.  When the Alaska Earthquake happened in 1964 it took days, weeks, and months for the nation, let alone the world, respond.  Forty plus years later when a disaster happens it is a matter of moments and we were receiving live feeds, sending aid for relief and watching with the rest of the world as the saga unfold.  How is this changing our culture?

I really enjoyed the Teacher's Domain videos this week.  I spent some time getting to know the website and learning how to save videos and lesson plans to folders.   I noticed that most of the videos that we have been watching were from a larger lesson called Alaska Native Ways of Knowing.  As I mentioned earlier I would like to organize a Native Knowledge Science Fair.  There were plenty of resources and ideas on this site that I can use.

Check out the November 2010 issue of Science Scope.  There are great activities about Maps and Mapping.  There is a great activity on using Google Earth to study the basic characteristics of Volcanos.  There are some parts that I will have to walk my students through (tangents) but I think it will be a great activity. 


3 Colleagues

Martha Gould-Lehe

I enjoyed reading Martha's blog.  She had two very interesting resources on Volcanoes.  One in particular was looking at art of beautiful picture of volcanoes. 

Tyler

I really liked the Global perspective that Tyler offered in his blog.  It made me really think about the globalization of our world and the affect it will have on our culture.

Kristine Owens

I really related to Kristine's blog this week when she talked about the things she learned this week being how to make a link in her blog.  Me too!!

Landscapes

In her book of short stories titled An Unspoken Hunger Terry Tempest Williams wrote that "Each of us harbors a homeland, a landscape we naturally comprehend.  By understanding the dependability of place, we anchor ourselves as trees."  This quote appears in a short story about the authors, who is a naturalist, first experience in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.  She describes the connection of the Maasai people to the landscape..."the umbilical cord between man and earth has not been severed here."  The picture above is of my and some friends after climbing Mt. McGinnis.  Mountains for me are that umblilical cord.  They are the landscape the I naturally comprehend like Terry Tempest Williams described.

This week we were challenged to look at landscape.  Since I am teaching Earth Science, which just happens to be following the same content I decided to pose the following question to my classes,  what does landscape mean?  The responses I received varied from what you see outside the window, to the people that plant trees and shrubs.  This was a great reminder to me that we seldom all start on the same page.  So, we began by defining the word.

I have talked to my students about this class that I am taking and told them that I was going to be using some of what I learned with them.  So, after watching the various videos that were associated with this lesson I decided to challenge my students to answer the essential question for themselves:  How are landscapes formed and how, in turn, are cultures shaped by their landscape?  This will be the beginning of an on going  project.  This week we just began by defining land forms and discussing the various types including mountains, plains, and plateaus.  I then had the students do a fast write in their journals about how their lives are shaped by the landscape around them.  Most of them focused on the recreational opportunities that they have here in Juneau whether it is hiking, snowboarding, or fishing.  Hopefully I will be able to have them broaden their ideas to include the landscape affect how people make a living whether it is mining, tourism, commercial fishing, etc.  As I develop this unit over time I want them to move from how the landscape shapes their lives and the lives of others in our community today but to also look at it culturally not only here in Alaska but since I also teach US History I would like for them to be able to look at how landscape has shaped our history over time.

I have taught students about how land and its features is formed using various methods over the years  so the actual information for this module was not new.  I do want to share some other great resources though.  Here are a few of my favorite sites:

Berengia is a website for a museum that is in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.  If you ever get the change to go it is great.
 www.berengia.com 

Explorelearning has many great simulations that can be used in the classroom.  There is one that has the students putting the plates together and looking at fossil evidence.  There are also others that look at volcanos, and many other topics.  The site is organized by subject, grade and by standards.
www.explorelearning.com

The United States Geologic Survey is a great resource.  you can get up to date information on earthquakes and volcanos as well as a wealth of other information.  There is a great map here that gives the location of the location or recent earthquakes and volcanos.  Then, there is a layer you can add that shows the location on the plates.  Great visuals!
www.usgs.gov

Middle school Science is a great place for all sorts of science ideas including catastrophic events such as earthquakes and volcanos. 
http://www.middleschoolscience.com/

 I really enjoyed watching the videos on teacher's domain.  I feel like they really helped me understand the connection between a person and the landscape.  Students love to make videos and with today's technology it is easy and almost everyone has access to a camera.  It  would be a great culminating project to have the students make their own videos of how the landscape is a part of their daily lives. 

This weeks assignments made me reflect on the Rose Urban Rural Exchange Program that I have taken part of over the years.  If you are unfamiliar with the program it allows classrooms to connect through a series of defined lessons that teaches one another about life in that place and then a group of students are chosen to go to the different site and report back about various aspect of life there.  I have had the opportunity to got to Tuntutuliak and Napakiak with students, as well as host students from the villages here in Juneau.

3 Colleagues

http://www.scienceinalaska.blogspot.com/

I chose Alicia's blog because I wanted to read a fresh perspective of someone who is new to the profession of teaching.  I also really appreciated her beginning quote:  The joy of the journey is in the ride.

http://www.scienceinalaska.blogspot.com/

I chose Cheryl's blog at first because of an interesting picture that I was trying to figure out.  She talked about our landscape being our tradition and what we are used to.  She also talked about being her first earthquake.  It reminded me of the first time I experienced one and made me chuckle.


http://danadair.blogspot.com/

I chose Dan's blog because he said he was from Colorado.  I really liked that he talked about bringing in other native american groups into his class.  In my blog I talked about wanting to do this in my American History class.

It's All About Connections!

"Perhaps it was just understood that over time we'd put the pieces together on our own as we processed the information; or that specific content is learned more effectively as discrete components".  This statement from our reading this week really jumped out at me.  As a teacher I have struggled with this idea of putting the pieces together but far to often I dismiss this uncomfortable feeling saying that I have to much to teach and not enough time.  After this weeks module I am beginning to see that by combining what I usually focus on, The Western Scientific Ways, and the Traditional knowledge that I can begin help students make those connections and put those pieces together.  

This weeks module is all about connections.  Hopefully each and everyone of us has felt connected to something or someone.  Whether it is to a place, like we explored last week, a person, or belief, we as humans value being connected on a basic level.  By first examining the importance of connection and then looking at the different ways of knowing (Western and Traditional)  I became excited about the places that there is overlap, besides I love Venn Diagrams.  The idea that two seemingly divergent ways of knowing actually have common ground is exciting to me.  I particularly liked that there were four main groups including organizing principles, habits of mind, skills and procedures, and knowledge.  These groupings reminded me there is so  much more to education than knowledge. 


In thinking about how I will use the information from this weeks module I am thinking about how to organize and implement a school wide Native Science Fair.  I think many of the science teachers are trying to incorporate various traditional ways of knowing into our curriculum but I think if we were able to get together as a group and get organized it would be much more intentional and in the end much more powerful.  The Juneau School District has implemented Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) and early release days every other Monday.  This would be a time when we can meet together and get organized.  It would be even better if we could meet with the teacher's from Dzantiki Heeni  which is the other middle school in Juneau and do something together.


As a district and as a state, we know that we are not meeting the needs of all of our students.  I believe that if we can make some of the connections for our students whether they are native or not, they might see value and relevance of what they are learning.  I think it is also important that students see role models like Dustin Madden and Dolly Garza who is another native educator that has a video on Teacher's Domain but we also need to find people in our own communities who want to come in and share their stories and give us insight into what we can help our students make some of these connections.

Here are a few resources that I found interesting:



http://ankn.uaf.edu/index.html


 

Geneva Glen

Nestled in the foothills of Colorado is a place that is as familiar to me as the beating of my own heart.  It is a place the is a part of my history as well as a  place that is a part of my present.  Geneva Glen is a summer camp.  Each summer kids from all over the country and at times, all over the world, come to hike, climb, swim, ride horses, and just enjoy being a kid.  Even as a child I knew this place was special.  I knew that it was a part of my heritage.  My great grandfather was a part of the story from the beginning.  He spent weekends there building the first lodge that still stands today.  There is a sense of coming home, of belonging to this place that even though it was been many years since I spent my summers there.  Some might say it is in blood.  I don't know if it is, but I do know that it is a place that gives me peace.  It is a place that connects me with family and it is a place that I find myself visiting even if I am thousands of miles away.  My children are the 5th generation of my family to walk these mountain trails.  Can they feel it in their blood?  I hope so.  We all need a place to call home.

When asked to describe the landscape of the place that I was born in Module 2 I automatically started thinking of the formation and geology of the place that I described above and then I remembered that although this is the home of my heart, it is not the the home of my birth or the following years.  I was born outside of Chicago, Illinois.  Most of the Illinois is part of the Central Plains.  In my mind I had to struggle with a way to describe a plain so I thought about what it meant to me.  In my mind a plain is a flat area.  This doesn't really fit because I remember rolling hills.   Like much of our landforms these plains were carved out from Glaciers during the Ice Age.  I know I learned this idea that the place I lived some how was carved out by a massive sheet of ice years ago.  Now though, years later I live only a few miles from a glacier that I have watched retreat over the years.  I can go up and touch the rocks that only a few years ago were covered with ice, now I can understand the power and the force that created this landscape of my childhood where I played and lived... now that is a connection!