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Now You “Sea” Ice, Now You Don’t: Penguin communities shift on the Antarctic Peninsula
https://pallter.marine.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Now-you-Sea-Ice-Now-you-Dont-Low-RES-version.pdf

Beth Simmons, Palmer LTER

In this activity, students investigate the shifting of three penguin communities in response to climate change.

Activity takes about 3.5 hours or five 45-minute class periods.

Learn more about Teaching Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness»


Climate Literacy

This Activity builds on the following concepts of Climate Literacy.

Click a topic below for supporting information, teaching ideas, and sample activities.

Energy Literacy

This Activity builds on the following concepts of Energy Literacy.

Click a topic below for supporting information, teaching ideas, and sample activities.

Excellence in Environmental Education Guidelines

1. Questioning, Analysis and Interpretation Skills:A) Questioning
Other materials addressing:
A) Questioning.
1. Questioning, Analysis and Interpretation Skills:C) Collecting information
Other materials addressing:
C) Collecting information.
2. Knowledge of Environmental Processes and Systems:2.2 The Living Environment:A) Organisms, populations, and communities
Other materials addressing:
A) Organisms, populations, and communities.
2. Knowledge of Environmental Processes and Systems:2.2 The Living Environment:C) Systems and connections
Other materials addressing:
C) Systems and connections.

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 how CLEAN reviews teaching materials
Teaching Tips | Science | Pedagogy | Technical Details

Teaching Tips

  • Educator might want to present a map of Antarctica and locate the regions discussed in the activity.
  • In an upper-level ecology course, this could be a case study for an ecology or global change unit.
  • The lesson would also be a good culminating activity allowing students to demonstrate their grasp of how various environmental factors influence each other and impact resident fauna.

About the Content

  • Very strong description of science content: population dynamics of three species of Antarctic penguin (Adelie, Chinstrap, Gentoo) and relevant climatic factors.
  • The claim "strong evidence suggests that observed changes in Earth's climate are largely due to human activities" can be cited from recent IPCC reports.
  • Comments from expert scientist:
    Scientific strengths:
    - sound, quantitative values (as far as I researched, the temperature data in the article are still correct from latest pubs.)
    - Like the use of different "specialist" groups

About the Pedagogy

  • Activity uses the jigsaw approach to help students learn about the complex climatic issues related to shifting penguin populations on the West Antarctic Peninsula.
  • Activity has flexible structure, such that the units can be easily broken up into pre-classroom, classroom, and post-classroom activities as time requires.
  • Interesting and engaging student materials.
  • Students may need some background knowledge about Antarctica and penguins before the activity.
  • Links to references are provided to help educator prepare for the activity, or to further engage students with regional knowledge of the penguin populations.

Technical Details/Ease of Use

  • A very thorough and informative set of teacher background materials is supplied. All parts of the activity (background, student sheets, etc.) are included in the pdf. Easy to use.
Entered the Collection: April 2018 Last Reviewed: September 2016

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