Ice Ice Baby

 frozen ice in Alaska

Explain:

 Cryosphere was a new term to me. It is very interesting since ice and frozen water are all around me here in Quinhagak. I really liked the article in the Anchorage Declaration that talked about how “everything is connected and mother earth is in a stage of climate crisis.” I felt this quote helped to put things more into perspective. I was able to see how climate change is a bigger issue then I had ever imagined.

This module confirmed the importance of both weather and climate. One example is freeze up. Freeze up is important because it allows people to travel and a way to get out of the village. In the winter, the rivers can become very dangerous as we need them to freeze up for transportation.  I can connect to this, because a fellow teacher in my village fell through the ice last week. They made it out safely, but I guess I never realized that this was such a big issue. When this happened at first I had no  idea how or why it could happened. 

 It made it clear to me how the weather and ice can control so much. The climate is important because it impacts animals, people, and the environment as a whole.

The Steve Maclean video was very interesting. He did a good job of talking about science and how beneficial it can be for students.  I think it would speak to students and they would see how beneficial it can be to chose an occupation that means a lot to them. 

Extend:

I am going to use these resources in my class when talking about temperature. My class is very interested in temperature. We got a thermometer put outside our window so that we may track the temperature each day. It would be interesting to look at the climate and compare it to years past.

Along with looking at temperatures, we also use the weather website to track the weather and talk about the numbers that we notice.  The experiments in this module will also be helpful when thinking about temperature. I am trying to integrate into math with creating bar graphs and comparing data.

The Albedo video on Teacher’s Domain  would also be interesting to show students because it is hands on. It would help to explain temperature and climate.

Evaluate:

These resources were relevant I felt. I felt this module was a bit easier for me to understand. Living close to the Bering Sea myself allowed me to connect to Steve Maclean’s video. I never realized how important one landform can be. When I do think about all the water that is around me here in Alaska though, it starts to make sense.

Colleagues:

K.M.’s blog  

I really liked the pictures that were used. Along with the pictures there was an excellent explanation of cryosphere and how that would be relevant in teaching. I got a lot of new ideas from this blog.

Cheryl’s blog 

She talked about the importance of exploring ice and snow with our students. She also mentioned a permafrost study she is involved in which is pretty interesting.

Kathy’s blog

There are many good points and relations to science. Kathy used much of the quotes from ICC I found to be interesting as well as talked about the importance of using interactive resources in the classroom.