Blog Reviews

#1

I do not feel particularly qualified to review anyone else’s blog being such an amateur myself. So I really feel I am giving my impressions as learner or more realistically, a mere reflection of my personal taste in reading materials. With that disclaimer noted, here is my first review of Berb’s Blabber. I stopped at Mr. Berb’s on my way down the ‘Course Participants’ list because his pictures in the last blog caught my eye. I especially liked the picture of what New York Harbor would look like if all the ice sheets melted. That is the picture that made me want to see what he had to say.

His blog reads like a story. He has a ‘hook’ in his first sentence that draws the reader in. Mr. Berb is very good at compacting the information from the terrestrial ice module. Why didn’t I think of just listing all the factors in one paragraph? That little action let him focus on one major idea. His link to the NPR story that compares a stock market crash with a fish population crash was pretty cool. I need to become a better web surfer!

I looked back at his beginning blogs and he has grown and developed in his reporting like many of us have. I think the thing I enjoyed most about his blog is that he was not overly scientific. He doesn’t overwhelm us with vocabulary. His style will have a broader appeal than some of the more technical ones.

#2

I have looked here and there at other’s blogs and found many to be awesomely full of personal life experience connections in every module, Ben’s Explore Alaska Blog; and others that seemed like real blogging as pertains to what I thought the word ‘blog’ means, you know, write whatever comes into your pretty little head. But today I stumbled upon one I had not tapped before, Native Science. It is an account written, it seems, through the eyes of someone seeing Alaska for the very first time.

Alaska Native’s style is fun and informative. It seems her discoveries from studying the information from this course have made her a bit sad. She talks of ‘reality checks’ at every turn, a little burst in the bubble of seeing the grandeur of Alaska. I especially like the fact that she has quotes in all of her blogs. I may have to read Two Old Women by Velma Wallis. Hers is a more personal connectedness to the material than most of the other blogs. I always like blogs with pictures in them, and she has some different ones. I wonder if she took them herself.

She also shares a lot of conversations she has had with people living the Alaskan subsistence lifestyle. Having been ‘adopted’ by a Native family and having that experience of sharing with them must be a pretty powerful perspective of what is happening in Alaska.

Finally, she has a little rating system or vote of some kind in each blog. That makes it a little more interactive. Her glacier jokes are a welcome touch. Thanks, Alaska Native, your blog is almost like reading a diary.

Final Project: Lesson Plan

Module X: Final Project






Lesson Plan: Earthquakes

Overview

In this lesson, students will learn about the geology that makes earthquakes happen. Because we live in one of the most active earthquake areas on the planet, Alaskan students will benefit from a better understanding of this phenomenon. Through various digital resources and activities, students will explore the earth’s basic structure and how it is responsible for the ‘earth’s quaking’.

Objectives

• Identify the main layers of the Earth
• Understand that Earth’s crust is made up of tectonic plates
• Understand that earthquakes happen when the plates move
• Tie to Alaska geology

Grade Level: 2-4

Suggested Time:
Four class periods

Multimedia Resources
Teacher’s Domain (free)
Discovery Learning (site license needed)
Various websites

Materials
• Computer with Internet access
• Projector compatible with a computer
• Hard-boiled egg
• Layers of the Earth worksheet (download from HaveFunTeaching.com)
• Colored pencils and crayons
• Ingredients for gelatin earthquake


The Lesson

Part I

1. Begin with a KWL chart or discussion of what students know or want to know about earthquakes. Accept all answers and record on a wall chart or the computer.
2. Tell students they will watch a short video and when it is finished, they will try to answer the question:

• Why do earthquakes happen?

Show the Earthquakes: Our Restless Planet, Part 1, Discovery Learning Streaming Video. Collect their thoughts on the question. Add any new comments to the wall chart. (will need license to view)


Part 2

1. Let’s examine the Earth. Explain that the Earth is made up of 4 main layers, the inner core, the outer core, the gelatinous mantle and the crust. Use Geology for Kids to provide illustrations as you go through each layer. Explain that earthquakes have a lot to do with the crust and the mantle.
2. Pass out the worksheet and review each layer as you color.

Part 3
1. Start by showing the kids a hard-boiled egg. Tell them it represents the Earth.
Gently roll the egg between your hands to crack the shell. Do it in such a way that you will be able to use the shell segments to illustrate tectonic plates.
2. Introduce the idea of Earth’s tectonic plates. Show the TD video, Plate Tectonics:
An Introduction. This video is an engaging motion picture of plate movement. It vividly illustrates Earth’s plates.
3. Color and label the 7 main plates. (Depending on your grade level, this may be done whole group or as an independent activity.) Identify the plate that Alaska is situated.

3. Use Google Maps/Google Earth to explore these boundaries visually. Discussion.
Question. Exploration.

Part 4

1. Introduce the idea of plate movement by showing the TD interactive source, Tec-
tonic Plates, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes.

2. Further explore the movement by viewing Discovery Learning video, Earthquakes: Our Restless Planet. The segments in this video can be broken down into smaller lessons. The full video takes you through the entire process of moving plates to cracks in the crust to damage of buildings.
3. Phun Physics
Plate Movement Model

Make a pan of gelatin according to the directions. Steps 1-3.
(4) Cut some of the plastic wrap in half and lay the two halves on the counter so that they're touching each other.
(5) Take your pan out of the fridge, and warm it up a little bit from below so that the gelatin will come out. Don't heat it too much. Just so that it comes out.
(6) Slide the gelatin out of the pan and onto the plastic wrap so that each side of the split wrap gets half the gelatin mix.
(7) Using a knife, cut the gelatin slab along the same cut in the plastic wrap.
(8) This is the actual demonstration part! Slide the two chunks of gelatin past each other (with slight pressure between them. The chunks of gelatin will act like Earth's plates. When they slide past each other, you will see an earthquake form along the "fault," and see little seismic waves jiggle the gelatin.

OR Google plate tectonic models to find a variety of ideas.

Part 4

1. Now it is time to tie this to Alaska. Watch the TD video, 1964 Alaska Earthquake.
Discuss. Other pertinent videos from TD would be Tectonic Plate Movement in Alaska and Alaska Tsunami.
2. Revisit the wall chart and add or delete to the student provided information.
3. If a computer lab is available, students can independently explore earthquakes at
the USGS site for kids on Earthquakes.



***Brainpop and Brainpop, Jr. are also excellent digital resources. The format uses animated images to explain and illustrate a variety of subjects. Both require individual or site licenses.

Module IX
Essential Question :

How are climate, terrestrial ice and Alaskan indigenous cultures all connected?
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Only 2.8% of the world’s water supply is fresh water. Some fresh water is in lakes and streams, ground water and cells of plants and animals; but most is stored in a frozen state in the form of glaciers ~ 75%. The glaciers along with permafrost are what make up terrestrial ice. Glaciers need a combination of moisture and cold temperatures to form and maintain a glacial mass balance. Permafrost, by definition, is ground that has been frozen for two years or more. In this module, we are looking at what changes are happening with permafrost and glaciers and how that may affect life in the Arctic.

A brief study of glaciers gives us a lot of interesting facts. There are nine different types of glaciers. They are defined by solid and liquid contents as well as where their final destination is after years of flow over land. Not all glaciers are retreating. The Lamplugh Glacier in Glacier Bay and the Harvard Glacier in Prince William Sound are both advancing. But with warming temperatures, scientists and the world are looking at glaciers in the arctic and Alaska as precursors to what may lie in store for glaciers worldwide. We want to study Alaska because it holds a small amount of glacial ice relative to the total amount on earth. If all the glaciers melted here, sea level would not change by much, less than a foot. But if glaciers in Antarctica all melted, it would result in sea level changes of 20 feet or more.

In addition to sea level change, loss of land ice is also loss of a reflective surface. This means the oceans or dark land surfaces absorb radiant heat from the sun rather than reflecting it, a reduction in the earth's albedo. This leads to more heat being released in the fall when air temperatures cool. Greenhouse gases trap this heat and we are in the snowball effect of warming our earth.

The decline in permafrost poses a water problem, but also a soil and gas problem. Many of the TD videos we have seen throughout this course address problems that villagers are having with the decline in the permafrost layer. Their fishing and hunting are altered because the melting permafrost has either channeled lake waters away or the slits left in the land just absorb it! Where once food could be stored in the frozen ground and building upon the stable ice was the norm, people have had to develop new ways to build homes and store food. Images in The Permafrost Photo Gallery give face to some of these problems.

But perhaps the biggest problem with melting permafrost, is the release of methane gas. Warming permafrost sets the biological processes of decaying matter into motion which in turn releases methane into the atmosphere as a by product. We now have more methane in our atmosphere than ever before. As a greenhouse gas, it stays in the atmosphere approximately 9-15 years and is 20 times more effective than CO₂ at trapping heat.

Though on a much smaller scale, lake and river ice play a factor in our climate too. Their seasonal freezing and melting contribute to the albedo effect, our water cycle and they are storehouses for heat. The ALISON website, Alaska Lake Ice and Snow Observatory Network, provides additional information on this subject.

Villages like Newtok, Alaska on the Yukon River delta have been faced with flooding from eroding shorelines. The permafrost of the tundra is warming and the land is water logged. Villagers have begun the process of a possible move and fear their homes may disappear in 3 years. They are calling people affected by this phenomenon of dislocation, climate refugees.

The visual images of glaciers and melting permafrost provide high interest resources for teaching young children. While my students are at a learning level that focuses more on their immediate world and less on global concerns, I believe that the quality of visual materials presented in these modules may light that fire of interest. We do not live in an area where we can measure and record drastic climate change factors, but the videos of students who can and do will show them what is happening right here in our state.

Module VIII
Essential Question:
How are sea ice, culture and climate all connected?

Sea ice is frozen ocean. The Arctic Ocean is almost totally covered in sea ice in the winter and shrinks in summer when it is warmer. The sea ice has different characteristics depending on its location and the nature of its formation. If it is attached to the land it is called fast ice and if it floats on the surface, it is drift ice. Various areas of drift ice that pack together are called pack ice and move together in large masses or may be stabilized by attaching themselves to fast ice when they drift close to shore. This essentially forms an ice platform on the sea and wildlife and humans alike use this time of year to hunt. Human hunters are able to use the 'ice land' to venture out in the ocean to hunt and polar bears wander these ice platforms during the winter season hunting seals and other marine life. They must wait for the sea ice to form to begin their hunting season in the fall and must be back on land when the sea ice begins to melt in the spring. Sea ice is an important factor in the arctic food web and way of life of Native peoples.


Sea ice is connected to climate in two major ways. It is part of the Earth's reflectivity property or albedo. It provides a vast reflective surface that reflects rather than absorb the sun's radiation. Sunlight is reflected back into space. This is a cooling effect on our planet. Sea ice also affects the ocean circulation. When the sea ice forms, it leaves behind the salt that sinks into the deeper water. This deep, dense cold water moves toward the equator and warmer shallow waters move north. This circulation of ocean water coupled with the atmosphere's more active circulation of hot and cold air try to keep our planet in balance.

The Arctic ice pack is diminishing. Changing sea ice amounts and thicknesses affect the Arctic ecosystem. A change in white reflective surfaces would expose ocean waters that absorb rather than reflect heat from the sun. This warmer condition creates a positive feedback loop and so the environment gets warmer still. I think the TD video titled How the Arctic Ecosystem Might Change provides a good explanation of how this part of the world could be impacted by warmer ocean waters and warmer temperatures. In it Louis Fortier says that marine and animal life as we know it could become something more like Altantic and Pacific ecosystems. He attributes this possibility to the fact that our unique wildlife and culture populations have low diversity and survival is best achieved in systems with higher diversity or bio-diversity. Conservation experts like Steve MacLean have spent their careers on helping humans minimize their impact on the plant and animal life of the Arctic, but he explains that the biggest threat now is not over-fishing and hunting but climate change.

Arctic life cycles are being transformed by changing sea ice. Sea ice serves as the primary habitat for many species of birds. We have already discussed its importance to polar bears, humans and other marine life in winter hunting seasons. The shortened hunting seasons leave skinny polar bears by summer's end which may be affecting breeding and feeding cycles. The village populations are being forced to alter their hunting patterns. The change is major detriment to areas that have long depended on consistent signs from nature to drive their hunts. As the sea ice disappears culture changes are inevitable as new food sources may be required. The combination of Western science and the Native Ways of Knowing can help explain what is happening and what cultural changes may come about as a result of disappearing sea ice.

Wainwright, Alaska, is one such village contemplating a changing landscape and a changing lifestyle.

Module VII

Essential Question Redux:

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

Earth is made up of varying amounts of the 92 elements on the Periodic Table. Through gravitational forces, fusion and other chemical reactions, the heavier elements that were formed sunk to the middle forming the inner core, which is solid iron and nickel. Temperatures and pressures here are intense. Three more layers top this inner core, the next being the outer core, which is made up of liquid iron and nickel. Next is the mantle. It is made up mostly of solid rock, but it is rock that moves. The rocks lower in the mantle layer are more liquid-like because they are closer to the heat of the core. This property is what allows the tectonic plates to slide. The last and thinnest layer is the crust made up essentially of more rocks, except they are cold and less dense. Then surrounding our planet is the atmosphere, layers of gases that protect us from the heat of the sun. The Greenhouse gases, primarily nitrous oxide (NO2), carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O), absorb some of the heat reflected off the Earth from the sun’s rays. This heat is reflected back to the Earth heating it and making it a habitable place. Greenhouse gases are a good thing, without them earth would be too cold. Cold enough that even the oceans would freeze.

Today many scientists are concerned about climate change or more succinctly global warming. Earth’s temperatures are going up. History tells us that our ever-evolving planet has experienced various times of warming and cooling in its existence and still sustained life, so what is so different this time? The answer is MORE! More CO2 from methane from more cattle and more burning of fossil fuels because there are more people; more carbon in the ocean being absorbed from an atmosphere that now contains 30% more CO2. This 30% more is changing our planet. It is trapping more of the sun’s heat, which in turn affects our climate. This is melting our ice and heating our land so more vegetation grows on the tundra and further traps the heat.

The oceans are absorbing more of this excess carbon too. The ocean contains 65% of the earth’s stored carbon. It is released slowly into the carbon cycle that sustains our life. High levels of carbon in the ocean are harmful to marine life low on the food web such as algae, mollusks and coral. It is easy to see that a decrease of availability of low trophic organisms will affect each higher level.

The connection continues with cultures whose way of life was formed on the climate of the north. Simply put, cold and ice. This temperature change and its effects have living eyewitnesses. Villagers that grew up in the north have seen subtle differences like the sky is less blue to more measurable factors like changing sea ice. Take a look at the video of students in the far western village of Wales, AK, where they interview people who have experienced these changes.

Some of the websites that I looked at this time had some pretty interesting interactive features. I found the Periodic Table site linked above was something I wish I had when I was in college. Using the information on electrons, protons and neutrons allowed you to put the elements in the correct group or period based on their clues. Another website that I plan to explore more in depth is http://www.windows.ucar.edu which seems to have a lot of activities and information for younger students.

Module VI

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

The atmosphere provides perhaps the strongest evidence that we, on this earth, are all connected. These layers of gases surrounding our planet protect us from the intense heat of the sun, but manipulate that heat to produce our weather. All weather can be attributed to the sun and how it heats our world unevenly. The physics of the weather is a system out of balance constantly trying to balance itself and achieve equilibrium. The complex processes of heat transfer, phase changes and winds of weather produce a global connection that scientists seemingly discovered by chance. The TD video about Arctic Haze shows an alarming connection of Alaskan ways of living and the industrialized world.

While winds move constantly around the earth, they also carry any contaminants with them. This polluted air accumulates in the atmosphere of the Arctic in winter because there is no sun up here to stir up the winds. Some of the particulates drop on the snow making it dark, so less heat is reflected from the surface of the earth causing warmer temperatures and melting. The contaminants may also drop in the ocean subjecting marine animals to a tainted food source. And so a sort of domino effect begins as animals ingest all of the toxins of species lower on the food chain. The more an animal ingests, the higher the levels of toxins. The polar bear has what is believed to be the highest level of POPs, persistent organic pollutants. These POPs are particularly dangerous as they have an affinity for fat, but resist degradation and build up in the fat. Arctic marine animals have a high fat levels and therefore high toxin levels stored there.

Cultures of the north are affected both by melting changes and their diet of marine animals. Villagers whose diet is made up of animals of lower trophic levels ingest fewer contaminants than people whose diet consists of animals positioned on a higher trophic level. Safety recommendations for diet are made regionally based on these findings. Areas that consume high levels of the toxins in their diet are facing the possibility of breaking thousand-year-old traditions of hunting and eating.

Barrow is the continent’s northern most city. While we would expect pristine environment and uncomplicated lifestyles, the factors we explored in this module play a role in their daily lives. The rules that guided their hunts and diets have changed. They are scrambling to keep up and preserve their way of life.

Mod V

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

When I think of climate, I don’t necessarily think of oceans. Where in fact, oceans and other bodies of water are the major factors explaining climate differences in locations that lie on similar lines of latitude. The San Francisco and Washington D.C. example we looked at in this module is a good example of oceans as part of climate. The moderate temperatures of California’s coast in winter are a result of the winds blowing off the warmer waters moving north from the tropics. Washington D.C. does not have this benfefit. The TD interactive video, Sea Surface Temperature explains this in more detail.

With the role of the oceans defined in what is happening to our global climate, it is clear how oceans in turn affect coastal cultures worldwide. Regionally, our picture into this interconnectedness is the village of Shismaref. It is located on the Seward Peninsula approximately 125 miles due north of Nome. It is a long narrow island whose western coast borders the Chuckchi Sea and eastern coast borders Shismaref Bay. The village maintains a subsistence lifestyle and its 600 residents like it that way. In the winter months, the village is dependent on sea ice to hunt walrus and other sea animals. They are also dependent on ice formation in the bay to hunt land animals. The ice bridge is their road to the mainland.

Climate change is altering their world. Where oceans were once frozen to Russia for most of the winter, they are freezing later and melting sooner. With less ice surface to break the waves, their shores are being battered and eroded away. Some villagers have had to relocate to the eastern shore. The changes are worrisome as they see their lifestyle slipping away. A monstrous storm in 1997, destroyed coastal homes and the area was declared a state of emergency. Talk began of relocating the residents to a safer location. They do not want to move inland away from the ocean that has been their life for generations. Thirteen years later, they are still on the island. Cost of moving has been estimated at $200 million. They have not found a suitable location. They fear that moving is inevitable and that they will be merged with an existing location, like Nome, whose way of life is vastly different.

Shismaref was highlighted at the United Nations Framework on Climate Change in December of 2009. Three villagers attended the convention in Copenhagen to share the stories of the people of Shishmaref.