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The Fragile Ice
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The IPY/NSTA Symposium: The Fragile Ice took place at the America's Center in St.
Louis, MO, on Friday, March 30, 2007. Twenty-nine educators were in attendance,
representing the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Texas. Seven of the 29 participants
were NASA Explorer School teachers.
The team of presenters included Dr. Don Perovich and Dr. Mary Albert from U.S. Army
ERDC Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab in Hanover, New Hampshire, Brian
Campbell from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and Sandy Shutey from Butte High
School in Montana. The symposium focused on the health of the artic regions of the
world based on data collected from ice core samples and satellite observations.
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, Symposia and Web Seminars Program Manager at NSTA, 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. This brief introduction
was followed by Dr. Albert's presentation about her research of the arctic regions
using ice cores. During her presentation she explained how snow crystals join forces
to store information about current and past climate. In many ways scientists that
study ice cores are "science detectives" trying to decipher past climate conditions
using ice cores as the evidence.
Ms. Sandy Shutey followed Dr. Albert's presentation with a hands-on activity for
the classroom. In the activity participants made an ice core using play-doh of different
colors and a plastic container. They role-played the process of extracting material
from the deepest part of the ice sample (play-doh) and then analyzed their "core"
by looking at the different colors inside the container. While the teachers participated
in the activity, both Dr. Albert and Ms. Shutey walked around the room answering
questions from the participants.
After a short break, Dr. Perovich began the second part of the symposium with a
presentation about the effects of climate change on the Arctic sea ice. The temperature
increase recorded over the last 100 years has affected the Arctic sea ice in two
ways: melting of sea ice and decrease in the thickness of the ice. The sea ice area
extent in the Arctic has decreased significantly, comparable to the area of 22 states
east of the Mississippi River. A comparison of the measurements of ice thickness
taken between 1958-1976 and 1993-1997 shows that the average sea ice thickness has
decrease from 3 meters to less than 2 meters. Dr. Perovich also talked about the
amplifier effect of the sea ice's albedo on climate change. With the melting of
sea ice taking place in the Arctic, the value of albedo for the region has decreased.
The change in the albedo is an amplifier effect, where the more sea ice melts, the
lower the albedo value of the region becomes. The lower value of albedo increases
the temperature of the planet.
Brian Campbell followed Dr. Perovich's presentation with a related classroom activity.
In this activity teachers compared the changes in sea level of two containers with
water. One of the containers had a "land mass with ice" on top of it representing
land ice and the other container represented had just ice water representing sea
ice. After several measurements, teachers were able to learn that the melting of
land ice raises the sea level, while the melting of sea ice does not. At the end
of the program teachers received a plethora of educational materials and a DVD they
can show the students in the classroom.
Dr. Albert ended the symposium talking about the International Polar Year (IPY)
activities and shared ways in which teachers and students can get involved in the
IPY celebration.
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.
