Friday, November 12, 2010

Module VI

3 Colleague's
   Kevin thank you for the information on the ice cores.   Kevin had this info..."All three metal levels soar between 1850 and 1900 only to escalate 10 fold again in the early 20th century until the great depression curbed industry."  It find it astounding that people cannot see some of the extrememly suggestive correlations such as the one you pointed out.

Tyler- I love to hunt and really miss hunting white tail in the mountains of Montana.  I loved your pic and I didn't know the technique of hunting deer on the beach because of snow in the higher elevations.  That sounds AWESOME

1. Explain: What new learning or reflections have you taken from this module?

I have been aware of bio-accumulation for sometime but only with compounds like DDT and mercury.  I had no idea that industrial pollutants have been found in seal blubber whales.  It seems so obvious that I almost feel embarrassed that I have never made the connection to arctic wildlife that are on the higher trophic levels

I found it quite the coincidence that Clay linked us to the same video clip that I showed my Environmental Science classes yesterday on arctic haze.  You might want to check out another clip from the same episode on the coal industry

Another thing that I learned for the arctic haze video is that these pollutants can be suspended in the arctic air for weeks at a time and they can travel for up to ten thousand miles in Earth's air currents.




                                                        (photo courtesy of greenfyre)

2. Extend: How might you use this week’ information and resources in your lessons? 

I absolutely know that I will be using the warm and cold front models with my Physical Science classes next semester.  If you haven't created a folder in teachers domain to save you favorite items I highly recommend it.  I have saved things that I plan on using 3 to 4 months from now. 


Also, if you go in to "My Folders" on the left is "Add an external link".  So, if you find a link on some one's blog that you like you can save it with the other educational materials throughout the rest of this course.


I personally put the NOAA weather map link in there today.  I will use it as we study the atmosphere next semester as well as for my own personal  use.    


I have been aware of Earth's heat budget I did not know until this module that the convection cells in our atmosphere account for approximately 23% of the budget.  That is some serious power.  I wonder how many Watts of POWER that is?

                                                              (photo courtesy of hyperphysics)


 Lastly, even though I am not to my atmosphere unit for many months I still plan to use the graphs from the jet stream and temperature gradients simply to give my kids practice at making inferences from data.


3. Evaluate: How useful, insightful or relevant are this module’s information and resources?
Once again the most useful things I encountered this week are new computer animations to help myself and students understand very large systems of the Earth. 

This is totally cool with me because almost every class or professional development I take I get nothing useful out of it.  Every week I find at least one thing I can use which is a win in my book.

The  ocean temperature video has a female narrator which is a nice change as I find most science videos have a more monotone male voice.

LAB- A fun and easy lab is to have beakers of sand and water both at room temp (set them out the night before)

Purpose: is to explore the difference in heating and cooling between sand (land) and water (oceans)

1. Have the kids talk about how to set up the experiment (thermometers should be at equal depths, heat lamps of equal distance from the beakers, when to record temps, etc.)

2.  After data is collected graphs can be made and compared

This can be super basic or you can make it for higher level depending on what grade you teach.

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