The Atmosphere

"Everything is Beautiful"

Explain: 

I selected this quote from the module because I feel it sums up my experience thus far. Everything is beautiful and everyone native or not has something to offer. Whether it is a story, advice, or simply a smile these things help explain the land, culture, and environment where I am currently living.

After reading this week’s module, I have a better understanding of atmosphere and how it impacts the place I am living. When I first started the blog I used Google to look up information on atmosphere, just so I had a better idea before I dove right in. This website, helped to explain some things to me. I feel like a lot of this information is like a foreign language to me, so I wanted to give myself some background knowledge. I think this is also important to do with students.

I find it so interesting the pollution that is impacting the land and water in Alaska. When I think of a big city I see obvious signs of pollution, but I was wondering how it would affect the land here. We have no big factories, few cars, and not many other things I saw that could be causing pollution. After reading the module I am walking away with a better understanding of where this pollution is coming from and how it affects where we live. 

The pollution impacts our animals which are essential for subsistence living. It is interesting to see how the pollution is a change reaction. It impacts our animals, which impacts our environment, us, and generations to come. I am also able to tie this module into the first one when we talked about western civilization and how this impacts our villages and the land.

I really am leaving this module with a better understanding of weather and how much it influences things around here. Back home I didn’t think of how weather impacts our lives. Only being here three months though, I see how airplanes are extremely affected by the weather and the atmosphere.  Just this year I have had to wait for hours for the weather to clear so I could leave the village or come back home. Food supply and other variables are also impacted by the weather almost daily. 

Arctic haze was also a new term to me. I never realized how the particles can be visible in the air but a orangish tint.

This is at the Bering Sea

Extend:

I am not sure how much I will use these resources in my own classroom. I do they will are helpful in my understanding of the land and resources out there. One of my colleagues found a weather website which I plan to incorporate in my daily calendar. We currently do a weather activity, so I think looking at images would enhance the experience for my students. 

Evaluate:

This resrouces were helpful in my understanding of the connectedness of everything around us. After reading I tried to look for my own examples. I found the video on The Mystery in Alaska, which was extremely interesting. It talked about the animals that are disappearing and what might be happening. I think this would be an excellent thing to think about with children.

This week I also saw how the standards are on teacher’s domain. That is very helpful when planning a unit and thinking of the importance of showing videos to students. 

Colleagues:

Janet’s blog  

She explored with Google Earth and used the webcam feature which I thought was interesting. I also liked how she thought of many ways to use the resources in the module.

  

Tyler’s blog

Tyler links the weather and atmosphere to where we live nicely. I was able to connect with understand the different aspects of his module.

Kevin’s blog 

This blog had some good pictures that helped make things a bit clearer for me personally. A lot of times I find that pictures make the modules more clear to me.