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Polar Climates, How Are they Changing?
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The IPY/NSTA Symposium: Polar Climates, How Are They Changing? took place at the America's Center in St. Louis,
MO, on Thursday, March 29, 2007. Fifty-three educators were in attendance, representing the states of Arizona,
Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New
York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. The team of presenters
included Dr. Doug Williams, University of South Carolina, and Edventure Children's Museum, Dr. Elena Sparrow,
University of Alaska, Dr. Rhian Salmon, IPY Education and Outreach Coordinator, Mike Dunn, North Carolina Museum
of Natural Sciences, Paula Keener-Chavis, NOAA's Ocean Exploration's Education Program, and Frank Niepold, NOAA
Climate Program Office. The symposium focused on the role of the water-air cycle in Earth's changing climate.
NSTA would like to thank all the participants and the presenters for a job well done!
The program started with an introductory administrative session during which Flavio Mendez, NSTA Symposia and
Web Seminars Program Manager, familiarized participants with the contents of their folders, including the agenda,
the talent release form, the pre-assessment form, and the session's learning outcomes. Mendez also talked about
the follow-up opportunities to learn more about the International Polar Year available at the conference and
online.
Mike Dunn was the first presenter of the day. His presentation consisted of a personal video report with images of
his recent trip to the Arctic. Participants were able to identify different wildlife affected by changes in the
polar climate and see the ways scientists collect data to study the effects of climate change.
Dr. Doug Williams and Paula Keener-Chavis followed Mr. Dunn's presentation about the Arctic, climate change and
the Earth System. Dr. Williams defined the Earth System's components as the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere
and lithosphere. He also defined the Earth's subsystems as the cryosphere and humanosphere. He explained that
these components are interrelated or tied together through the flow of energy and the cycling of water and
biogeochemicals. Dr. Williams emphasized that the problem is not that the climate is changing, but that its
rate of change is so fast that nature is not able to quickly adapt to it. Ms. Keener-Chavis followed Dr. William's
talk with a presentation about the species that reside in the ice, in the ocean below the ice, and at the bottom
of the ocean. She explained that the Arctic sea ice has decrease 3% per decade over the last 25 years and that
this loss of sea ice due to climate change may cause species extinctions. After her presentation, Keener-Chavis
lead the group in three classroom activities from NOAA's Ocean Exploration program. In these activities teachers
worked in small groups and then reported their findings to the larger group.
After a short break, Dr. Elena Sparrow and Mike Dunn did a presentation on GLOBE Seasons and Biomes Project and
Climate Change. Dr. Sparrow talked about phenological changes and defined them as both indicators and effects of
climate change. One of the measurements of change in the Arctic is on vegetation phenology. Plants are good
integrators of different components of the Earth system. Plants affect weather/climate, as they take up CO2, a
greenhouse gas, and release water vapor through transpiration.
Mr. Dunn followed Dr. Sparrow's presentation leading a budburst activity. He started the activity giving
participants a very brief summary of tree bud structure and function after a short class discussion of "What
are buds, why do they form? What triggers them to burst?" in which teachers shared their ideas and knowledge
with the larger group. Teachers were then divided into groups of four and asked to examine/observe a number of
twigs. Teachers wrote their observations about the twigs based on sight, touch and smell. Then they speculated
as to which ones might burst first.
Dr. Rhian Salmon and Mr. Frank Niepold made the last presentation of the day. They talked about the International
Polar Year events, its history, and the work that scientists and educators are doing to increase our knowledge of
the Arctic regions of the world. They also shared several URLs with the participants where they can go to learn
more about the IPY. The main URL for IPY in the USA is: http://www.us-ipy.gov. Another URL of interest is:
http://www.ipy.org.
Want to learn more about this symposium? Check out the photo gallery, browse the program's agenda, and read the
presenters' biographical sketches.
For more information contact symposia@nsta.org
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Underwritten in part by NSF, NASA, and NOAA.
