Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
http://seagrant.uaf.edu/marine-ed/curriculum/grade-8/investigation-1.html
http://seagrant.uaf.edu/marine-ed/curriculum/grade-8/investigation-1.html
Alaska SeaGrant, Alaska Seas and Rivers Curriculum
Activity takes five to six class periods. Video streaming capability is necessary.
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Topics
Grade Level
Regional Focus
Climate Literacy
About Teaching Climate Literacy
GPf 
GPfHumans can adapt to climate change by reducing their vulnerability to its impacts. Actions such as moving to higher ground to avoid rising sea levels, planting new crops that will thrive under new climate conditions, or using new building technologies represent adaptation strategies. Adaptation often requires financial investment in new or enhanced research, technology, and infrastructure.
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Sunlight reaching the Earth can heat the land, ocean, and atmosphere. Some of that sunlight is reflected back to space by the surface, clouds, or ice. Much of the sunlight that reaches Earth is absorbed and warms the planet.
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Melting of ice sheets and glaciers, combined with the thermal expansion of seawater as the oceans warm, is causing sea level to rise. Seawater is beginning to move onto low-lying land and to contaminate coastal fresh water sources and beginning to submerge coastal facilities and barrier islands. Sea-level rise increases the risk of damage to homes and buildings from storm surges such as those that accompany hurricanes.
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Ecosystems on land and in the ocean have been and will continue to be disturbed by climate change. Animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses will migrate to new areas with favorable climate conditions. Infectious diseases and certain species will be able to invade areas that they did not previously inhabit.
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Energy Literacy
The energy of a system or object that results in its temperature is called thermal energy.
1.2 Thermal energy.
Energy is a physical quantity that follows precise natural laws.
Energy is a physical quantity.
Excellence in Environmental Education Guidelines
1. Questioning, Analysis and Interpretation Skills:B) Designing investigations
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B) Designing investigations.
Other materials addressing:
B) Designing investigations.
1. Questioning, Analysis and Interpretation Skills:C) Collecting information
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C) Collecting information.
Other materials addressing:
C) Collecting information.
2. Knowledge of Environmental Processes and Systems:2.1 The Earth as a Physical System:A) Processes that shape the Earth
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A) Processes that shape the Earth.
Other materials addressing:
A) Processes that shape the Earth.
2. Knowledge of Environmental Processes and Systems:2.1 The Earth as a Physical System:C) Energy
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C) Energy.
Other materials addressing:
C) Energy.
2. Knowledge of Environmental Processes and Systems:2.3 Humans and Their Societies:D) Global Connections
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D) Global Connections.
Other materials addressing:
D) Global Connections.
Benchmarks for Science Literacy
Learn more about the Benchmarks
Light and other electromagnetic waves can warm objects. How much an object's temperature increases depends on how intense the light striking its surface is, how long the light shines on the object, and how much of the light is absorbed.
Changes in environmental conditions can affect the survival of individual organisms and entire species.
Notes From Our Reviewers
The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness.
Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about
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Teaching Tips | Science | Pedagogy |
Technical Details
Teaching Tips
- There is an easy link to a very comprehensive teacher background section. In the NSIDC sea ice index visual, teachers should make sure that students can read and understand the bits of critical information at the top of each visual and that the right-hand visual represents a baseline at the beginning of collecting time.
- NSIDC sea ice index is updated here: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
- Also, Arctic Sea ice is tracked daily here at NSIDC: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
About the Science
- The sea ice activity is the first of five investigations in which which students explore different impacts of climate change on arctic sea ice and the Bering Sea.
- After they graph and analyze sea ice extent data, students explore thermal expansion of water as a lab and then observe how a scientist collects long-term data on a bird population.
- Comments from expert scientist:The lesson demonstrates how Arctic sea ice is changing and helps students understand how those changes may impact climate, wildlife, and human activities.
- It would be good to add mention of another part of the world's ice whose melt does affect sea level - namely land ice - the ice sheets and glaciers, and it could be demonstrated by dropping ice cubes into the water.
About the Pedagogy
- Teachers should consider all of the investigations in this unit on Arctic Sea Ice. There is a lot of flexibility built into this series of investigations.
- Teachers can use specific investigations or the entire set. Additionally there are multiple resources to choose from.
- The teacher background section is very comprehensive.
- This resource engages students in using scientific data.
See other data-rich activities
Technical Details/Ease of Use
- Capacity of available computers to stream videos may be a concern for some schools.
Related URLs These related sites were noted by our reviewers but have not been reviewed by CLEAN
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