Geochemistry Commons^™

Build A Remote Sensing Satellite, Rob Snyder

IPY STEM Polar Connections

•Build a model of a remote sensing satellite. •Use your model of a satellite to transform reflected visible of different frequencies into electrical signals with different voltages. •Use different colors of paper to calibrate the model. •Create a model of a landscape using three different colors of paper. •Create a “false color” image of the model of a landscape (if time permits).

Seasonal Changes In Sea Ice, Rob Snyder

IPY STEM Polar Connections

No abstract provided.

Why The Arctic? An Overview, Julie Brigham-Grette

IPY STEM Polar Connections

No abstract provided.

Albedo Effects In Polar Regions, Morton Sternheim

IPY STEM Polar Connections

•Why are Polar Regions more affected by global warming than other parts of the globe? •One reason (there are others) is that as sea ice melts and more open water appears, more energy is absorbed, and warming accelerates. •This is a form of positive feedback and it makes the polar climate change faster than the climate in temperate areas. •Increasing vegetation on land also has a similar positive feedback effect.

A (Selective) History Of The International Polar Year, Ray Bradley

IPY STEM Polar Connections

No abstract provided.

Atmospheric Co2 And Temperature. What Is Normal?, Beth Caissie, Julie Brigham-Grette

IPY STEM Polar Connections

–How much of a change in CO2 concentration and other GHGs is natural? –What is the normal range of CO2 and temperature variability? How is normal defined in this context? –What is the relationship between CO2 and global temperatures?

Caribou, Whales, Andenvironmental Variability, Craig Nicolson

IPY STEM Polar Connections

How many caribou are there? Increasing or decreasing? Carrying capacity? How do we measure habitat quality?? Satellite imagery. Whale migration patterns. Activities on caribou and whales. Also, see http://www.nfb.ca/film/being_caribou/ a video entitled Being Caribou..

Melting Ice And Sea Level Change, Morton Sternheim

IPY STEM Polar Connections

Global warming can melt snow or ice on Greenland, Antarctica, and other land areas. It can also melt floating ice in the Arctic Ocean. How do the two cases compare in changing sea levels?

Brine Rejection Activity, Beth Caissie, Rob Snyder

IPY STEM Polar Connections

As salt water freezes, the salt is pushed out of solution through channels in the ice. This process is called brine rejection or brine exclusion. These channels are often used as microhabitats by ice algae, zooplankton, and even tiny fish. You can easily demonstrate what these channels look like.

Play Doh Coring Sampler Teacher Guide, Beth Caissie

IPY STEM Polar Connections

Sediment cores are one of the most valuable types of samples for researchers who would like to learn about past climate or ecological changes. Cores can be retrieved from lakes, marshes, swamps, fields, and the ocean. The layers often reveal striking changes in color (see photos) reflecting changing sediment composition (i.e. more clay deposition or more microfossil s). This easy activity illustrates the basic geologic principle that horizontal layers of sediment become older the deeper you go below the Earth’s surface (Law of Superposition). Each layer contains sediment, fossils and organic matter etc. that can inform us about past changes …

Sea Ice Food Webs—Hands On Sampler Teacher Guide, Beth Caissie

IPY STEM Polar Connections

This activity is a variation on a food web game that I’ve seen played many times before, but it is adapted to reflect a sea ice food web and show the many organisms that are intimately connected to polar bears.

Glacier Goo Activity, Beth Caissie

IPY STEM Polar Connections

We provided the students with background information about what a glacier is, where they are, how they move. Then split the students into four groups each tasked with a question to answer through experimentation

Group s 1 and 2: How does temperature change the way a glacier flows? (we provided frozen, and room temperature goo, and a microwave for heating the goo)

Groups 3 and 4: How does friction or obstacles change the way a glacier flows? (we provided different pvc tubes—tubes with nothing done to them, tubes with paintable sand applied to them, and tubes with rocks glued to …

Carbon Travels Game, Marie Silver

IPY STEM Polar Connections

Carbon cycle game.

Proportions for this activity are based LOOSELY on data from the Exploring the Environment website http://davem2.cotf.edu/ete/modules/carbon/effig11_full.html

They have a brief overview of the carbon cycle at http://davem2.cotf.edu/ete/modules/carbon/efcarbon.html

Recommended Books, Holly Hargraves, Ray Bradley

IPY STEM Polar Connections

No abstract provided.

Polar Literature, Holly Hargraves

IPY STEM Polar Connections

No abstract provided.

Permafrost, Ice Sheets, And Sea Level, Beth Caissie, Julie Brigham-Grette

IPY STEM Polar Connections

Sea level rise and inhabited coastlines. Ice shelves and sea ice do not contribute to sea level but they can buttress the land ice sheets from rapid retreat. Causes of Sea Level Rise:

•Melting of glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets •Thermal expansion of sea water ••Small scale changes due to anthropogenic land water storage (damming rivers, over-pumping of water and fuels, wetland and forest destruction) •Relative changes in sea level due to tectonic movements (land subsidence or rebound)

Teacher’S Guide: Penguins Of Antarctic Region, Marie Silver

IPY STEM Polar Connections

These activities help to connect science learning with real world issues through a study of the Antarctic region. By studying the penguins of the South Pole region you can tap students’ interest in a charismatic macrospecies through demonstrating their adaptation to ongoing climate changes and human activity. A number of current research projects at Antarctic research stations can be accessed online and the data used to demonstrate key concepts of feeding behavior, migration, breeding and population dynamics. The attached activity is in three parts and includes one hands-on demonstration, several mapping exercises and some data interpretation. These activities also provide …

Lithium- And Oxygen- Isotope Profiles Of A Mid-Atlantic Ridge Oceanic Core Complex: The Atlantis Massif, 30°N, Ellen J. Crapster-Pregont

Honors Theses

Oxygen (O) and lithium (Li) are fluid-mobile elements used as geochemical tracers of a crustal component in the mantle. The isotopes of each element fractionate according to the degree and temperature of hydrothermal alteration. Previous studies demonstrate that Li and O isotopic trends are coupled within the upper crust near mid-ocean ridges but are decoupled in subduction-related volcanism. To better understand the average crustal signature of these systems, it is necessary to characterize these systems in the presently poorly understood lower oceanic crust. This study uses lower crustal samples from IODP Expedition 305 Hole U1309D exhumed at the Atlantis Massif, …

Geochemical Investigation Of An Offshore Sewage Sludge Deposit, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, Michael A. Kruge, Albert Permanyer, Jordi Serra, Danlin Yu

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

For 20 years ending in the 1990’s the city of Barcelona discharged the products from a large primary sewage treatment plant directly into the Mediterranean Sea via underwater conduits. About ca. 3 million m³ of relict sewage sludge, rich in organic matter and heavy metals, has spread over an elongated area offshore, due to successive ruptures of the conduits. The use of the discharge pipes ceased, but he sludge deposit remains in place for the time being.

To understand the history and present state of the sludge deposit in advance of future remediation, a program of geophysical mapping, sampling, …

Forest Analysis Of The Gordon Natural Area Focusing On Carbon Stock, Forest Structure, And Forest Composition, R. Dicce, D. Drake, D. Mackey, P. Avery

Forest Carbon Storage Study Documents

No abstract provided.