Name
Climate by ice cores
Topic
Studying climate changes by ice cores
Learning time
2 hours and 5 minutes
Designed time
3 hours and 20 minutes
Size of class
20
Description
How the study of an ice core permits an investigation about past climate and a possible expectation in future.
Aims
Study ice cores as tools that allow us to investigate past climate. Understand how they preserve air that mean that we can look at past concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Discover how they allow us to reconstruct past temperature and precipitation changes, and help us understand relationships between the composition of the atmosphere and changing climate.
Outcomes
Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation
Editor
alescatta
Edit
ORIENTATION: Ice cores basics
50 minutes)
  • Read Watch Listen
    50
    20
    2
    In this first unit students learn what are radioisotopes and ice cores. They learn also how ice cores form and what sort of information scientists can obtain from them. Students have to pay attention to the lesson.
Notes:
In the TED-Ed linked lesson science columnist Lee Hotz describes a remarkable project at WAIS Divide, Antarctica, where a hardy team are drilling into ten-thousand-year-old ice to extract vital data on our changing climate. Robert Lee Hotz is the science columnist for the Wall Street Journal, where he writes about cutting-edge research on climate change, cosmology, molecular medicine, the human brain and much more ... He has traveled three times to the South Pole.
Resources linked: 1
CONCEPTUALIZATION: The Antarctic Peninsula
50 minutes)
  • Practice
    50
    20
    2
    In this unit use Google Earth to study the Antarctic Peninsula and the human locations where scientists have their bases and instruments. Students investigate also how ice cores are drilled. They have to observe paying attention.
Notes:
The movie follows a state-of-the-art expedition that is drilling three-quarters of a mile into the Antarctic seafloor. The drill is recovering rock cores that reveal intimate details of climate and fauna from a time in the distant past when the Earth was just a few degrees warmer than it is today. As researchers grapple with the harshest conditions on the planet, they discover astonishing new clues about Antarctica's past—clues that carry ominous implications for coastal cities around the globe.
Resources linked: 1
INVESTIGATION: Climate history by ice cores analysis
50 minutes)
  • Investigate
    25
    20
    1
    In this unit students collects and read charts of ice cores from Internet. They have to recognize values and to understand the relationship between data and climate.
  • Collaborate
    25
    0
    In this unit students collaborate to analyse data from ice cores. They have to form and follow a system of values and they have to reach a conclusion.
Notes:
The link introduces Antarctic ice-core records of carbon dioxide (CO2) that now extend back 800,000 years at Dome C and over 400,000 years at the Vostok site.
Resources linked: 1
CONCLUSION: What can we expect by the climate in future?
50 minutes)
  • Discuss
    25
    20
    1
    Students discuss about the importance of studying ice cores and relate data from the past with a possible future situation. They have to to respond and participate and they have also to think critically about the situation. At the link: what IPCC says. Teacher works as discussion guide and moderator.
  • Collaborate
    25
    1
    Students are asked to work in groups and write down in a Padlet a report about their work. They have to work independently, skilfully, and precisely as groups. An example at the link.
Notes:
Students could also produce a video or an audio containing their reports. At the link a student job experience.
Resources linked: 1

Learning Experience

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