Lunar and Planetary Institute






The Pole Picture
EXPLORE! ICE WORLDS!

The Pole Picture

Overview

To understand the changes that are occurring in our polar regions and across the globe, and how scientists are monitoring those changes, children work in teams to examine, observe, and interpret different data sets such as changes in sea ice extent. They predict what will happen in the future, based on trends they observe.

What's the Point?

  • Scientists study global climate change on Earth using many different types of data.
  • Global climate changes may not be noticeable from year to year, but patterns of change emerge over longer periods of time.

Materials

For the group:


For each group of 3-4 children:


For the facilitator:

Preparation

  • Prepare an area large enough for the children to be able to comfortably view posters in small groups.
  • Attach each data set to a different poster board and hang around the room.

Activity

1. Ask the children what they observed about global temperature in the last activity. Global temperatures have been rising.

  • What changes are occurring as global temperatures rise? Glaciers are melting and the ocean/water levels are rising.
  • Can they hypothesize about other changes that might occur because temperatures are getting warmer?  What will happen to the length of winter if temperatures get warmer? Winters will get shorter.  When will spring begin? Spring will begin earlier. What will happen to plants and animals that are suited or adapted to a particular temperature range as that temperature range increases?

2. Place the children in groups of three to four and invite the groups to examine the different data sets. Each data set has information to guide the children in what they are observing. Provide each group with a clipboard, Questions of Change sheet, and a pencil and ask them to note what they observe.

3. When the groups have observed the different data sets have them to regroup and share their observations. Be sure to encourage all groups to contribute.

  • What did the Arctic sea ice images show? The extent of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.
  • How many years of data were displayed? Ten years, from 1997 to 2007.
  • In what month were the images taken? In February.
  • Why do all of the maps show ice extent for February? Why not for different months? Because the ice extent changes during the year from winter to summer. By comparing the same day or month each year, we can more easily see change that is happening over a long time period, and we are not confused by changes caused by seasons.
  • What did they observe about Arctic sea ice? Is it changing? In what way? Some children may point out that its shape always changes.

Have the children compare 1997 with 2007.

  • In which image is there more sea ice? 1997.
  • Is there a lot more sea ice? Yes.

Have them look at the bi-yearly changes between 1997 and 2007.

  • Do they see a pattern to the changing size of the sea ice? While the ice size fluctuates — sometimes it is a bit larger and sometimes it is smaller — overall, the extent of sea ice is getting smaller in the Arctic.
  • What do they predict the ice will look like in another 10 years, based on the patterns they have interpreted? The children’s predictions will vary, and indeed, this is a complicated prediction that involves many factors. They should predict that the ice will continue to decrease unless something else changes. Scientists predict that, given current trends or patterns of Arctic sea ice loss, the Arctic may be sea-ice free in the summers  by 2070.

Native people hunt from the sea ice, as do polar bears. Some polar bears also hibernate and have cubs on the sea ice. 

  • What does the decreasing amount of sea ice mean for the people and animals that depend on the sea ice?

4. Invite the children to share what they observed about the images of the Larsen Ice Shelf.

  • What is an ice shelf? A thick floating layer of ice that is hundreds of feet thick that forms where glaciers flow into the sea. (It is different from sea ice, which forms from the seasonal cooling of the ocean water and is only a few (to several) feet thick.)
  • What did the children observe happened to the Larsen Ice Shelf? It broke apart.
  • How long did the event take? The photos indicate that the event happened between January 31 and March 5, so just about a month.
  • What does the breaking apart of ice shelves mean for the glaciers behind them?  The glaciers can flow faster.
  • What happens if the glaciers flow faster into the sea? They may form another ice shelf. Or they may just flow into the sea and break apart into icebergs.  (Eventually these icebergs melt.)
  • If the glaciers flow into the sea and break up faster than more snow and ice is added to the glacier, what happens to the glaciers?  Do they get smaller or bigger? They get smaller.

Facilitator’s Note: The melting of floating ice such as icebergs, ice shelves, and sea ice does not cause sea level to rise.  Floating ice already has displaced the amount of water equivalent to its melted volume (this is why your ice water does not overflow its glass when the ice melts). It is the ice above land, such as the glaciers on land, that will raise sea level when they melt and or are first placed into the ocean.

5. What did the children observe about the times when the lilacs and honeysuckle first bloom?  It is hard to see patterns in this dataset!   Draw the children’s attention to the 2002 image.

  • What is it showing? The lilacs and honeysuckle in the north are blue colors / bloomed late and the lilacs and honeysuckle in the south are pink colors / bloomed early.
  • While there are many things that will affect when flowers bloom, how might the time that a flower blooms relate to temperature? The warmer the temperatures early in the spring the earlier a flower will bloom.
  • How does the 2002 image differ from later images? The colors are darker, indicating that the flowers bloomed many days earlier or later than in later years. 
  • Why might the number of triangles and circles change from year to year? These are observations of when different flowers bloom in different places. Sometimes there were no observations at a particular location — but the flowers probably bloomed anyway!
  • Are there any patterns to the changes across the years? Patterns are very difficult to see across these images!  It looks like some lilacs and honeysuckles were still blooming early and some were still blooming late, but the colors are not as dark, so they are not as early or as late in blooming.
  • If you were looking for clear patterns, what might you want to do? Perhaps study the plants for more years.

Scientists are monitoring changes in plants and animals and Earth’s ice, oceans and atmosphere to see if there is are clear patterns of change. In some cases the pattern is not clear. They may need to collect more information or data before a pattern emerges. It is possible that no pattern will emerge.

6. What changes did the children observe in the global temperature maps?

  • What do the blue colors on the legend mean? Temperatures that are cooler than normal.
  • What do the yellow and orange and red and brown colors represent? Temperatures that are warmer than normal.
  • What are the maps showing? How many degrees warmer or cooler it is than normal for different places on our Earth.
  • Is there a map for each year? No. Each map combines — average — temperature information for about 10 years.
  • How many years are shown in total? About 40. Data sets often cover different amounts of time.
  • What patterns do the children observe? There is more yellow and orange and red and brown in the last map. Yellow and orange and red and brown increase from the first map to the last map.
  • What does this mean about our Earth’s temperatures? They are warmer now than they used to be.
  • What might be the relationship between the warming temperatures and the other data sets, particularly the Artic sea ice and the Antarctic ice shelf? Is temperature related to the changes they observe? Yes, warmer temperatures are warming our atmosphere and oceans, causing floating ice to melt.
  • What did they observe about the glaciers in the last activity? Many of our Earth’s glaciers also are melting, because of rising temperatures.
  • Can the children recall what is contributing to the rising temperatures on our Earth? In part, increasing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere help to trap the Sun’s energy and cause the Earth's temperature to rise. 
  • Do humans contribute to  the greenhouse gases in our Earth's atmosphere? Yes, we add greenhouse gases, like CO2 to our atmosphere, when we burn fossil fuels to drive our cars, or to make electricity.

7. Have the children consider the different data sets. 

  • Does a single dataset "paint a picture" of how our Earth is changing? No, several datasets over several years are needed to help us understand what is changing, what is causing it to change, and to predict how it might change in the future.

These datasets are collected by many different scientists using many different instruments and types of data. Some like the arctic sea ice images and Larsen Ice Shelf images use satellites to collect the data. But scientists also must "ground truth" the images. They must go and visit the sea ice and ice shelves to help them correctly interpret the images.  Other data sets, like when the flowers bloom, mean that the scientists must go into the field, or work with other people, to make the observations.

The images show what is happening, but not necessarily what is causing it to happen. Scientists must also collect other kinds of data, like temperature data from the ocean and the atmosphere, to help them understand the whole story. In some cases they are using historical and geologic data to help them understand how things have changed in the past to help us better interpret changes we are seeing now.

In Conclusion

8. Ask the children to think about things they can do to help reduce global warming.  Invite them to share their ideas.

In the next activity they will learn that there are several simple things they can do!

Last updated
September 18, 2009

 

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